DURAND FORD SR.-ANOTHER INNOCENT VICTIM OF STUPIDITY AND INDIFFERENCE

I am contacted by people who want me to write about their personal tragic situations as victims. Everyone wants their nightmare of reality to be told so that others can bear witness to the injustices that have been wrought on them. It is impossible for me to put each of their story's on this Blog but I do answer each of them providing whatever resources I can help with.

Sometimes I receive a particular story that begs to be written and often it is something that the media has either completely ignored or gives it a small space in its format. 

The abnormal has become the new normal, and barely an eyebrow is raised when injustice, even the killing of innocent victims, or some other tragic event takes place. 

Often there is nothing particular uncommon about the horrific callousness, incompetence, killing or just plain cruel indifferent, stupidity on the part of those who practice their evil, as a "normal" example of the manner in which they dispose, like used toilet paper, the lives of innocent victims and their families.

This is one of those stories that show again the ugly reality that has consumed an America without a soul,  where a human life is worthless, compassion no longer exists, and that it is acceptable behavior for most Americans who hide in denial dismissing the horrors of their fellow citizens by thinking, "it only happens to someone else, not me or my loved ones".

It will take you 10 seconds or less to sign this families petition below. Have the common decency to take that time and simply provide some support for what happened to their loved one. If it happened to them, it can also happen to you.

This is about Durand Ford Sr. who died due to "breathing problems" on January 1, 2013. Ford Sr. died 13 days short of his 72nd birthday, according to his obituary in the Washington Post. He was an Air Force veteran and worked as an "advisory neighborhood commissioner" in D.C.'s Ward 7.

Or did Durand Ford Sr. really die because  'It turns out that on New Year's Eve, nearly one third of D.C.'s firefighters called in sick, meaning ambulances sat empty in fire stations".

                
                    REST IN PEACE

                                        
You call an ambulance for an ailing family member. It takes a long time to get there. Your family member dies. You receive a bill for the ambulance. Sound impossible? That’s exactly what happened according to NBC News on Feb. 9.

"Jerry -

This past New Year's Eve was one of the worst nights of my life. That's the night my father died waiting for an ambulance that never came.

Around 1 a.m., my father was having trouble breathing, so I called 911. The nearest fire station is just one mile from our house in DC, at most a 5 minute drive. Firefighters arrived in just ten minutes, but no ambulance. 

I watched my father struggle to stay alive as we waited for Emergency Medical Services. And waited. And waited.

The ambulance that finally came 40 minutes later wasn't even from DC -- it had to come from another state entirely. By the time it arrived, my father was already dead.

Despite this, the DC Fire Department is charging my family $780 for an ambulance it never sent. I started a petition on Change.org demanding they waive the fee -- will you click here to sign?

So why did my father die waiting for an ambulance when there's a fire station just a mile from our house?  

It turns out that on New Year's Eve, nearly one third of DC's firefighters called in sick, meaning ambulances sat empty in fire stations. 

Long response times are a huge problem for ambulances, firefighters and police in cities all over America. The DC fire department needs to see that it can't just let my father die and then take my family's money.

My father was only 72 years old, a retired Air Force Veteran. He did not have to die on New Year's night. And my family certainly shouldn't be charged money for the reason he did.

Click here to sign my petition demanding that the DC Fire Department waive a $780 fee for an ambulance that never came to save my father.

Thank you, Durand Ford, Jr. of Washington, D.C."

The records show that the 911 call was made at 1:25 a.m. A fire truck from DC Fire & EMS arrived nine minutes later, but an ambulance was not available. DC fire did not call Prince George’s County for assistance until 1:47 a.m.

An ambulance was dispatched from Oxon Hill, MARYLAND, to Ford’s home in Southeast Washington one minute later. It arrived at 1:58 a.m. Durand Ford Sr. was dead.

Durand Ford Sr. died before the emergency vehicle arrived 33 minutes later, NBC Washington reports. The younger Ford said he was "angry" and "disturbed" over being billed.

Durand Ford Jr., of Washington, D.C., and his family was grieving, now they are seething. Ford has now received a $780.85 bill from District of Columbia Fire & EMS for the ambulance he had called Jan. 1 to treat his father. 


Obviously, there is a major management dysfunction that occurred within the Washington, D.C. Fire and EMS Department. It happens all the time in most cities across America but we just don't hear about it most of the time.

Ironically, as often happens in these situations, there is no management difficulty in billing the victim for the incompetence of the "system" that has harmed them.

It doesn't take much brains to anticipate that emergency workers, as many other types of employees, call in "sick" way above the the average amount during certain holidays, especially New Years Eve, as happened in this case. It happens in Washington, D.C. and other places every year, and extra staff are as a matter of standard operating procedure called in to insure that there is proper coverage.

Everyone has their health care nightmare stories, unfortunately this man lost his life. His son needs to tell this company to go pound sand over their bogus bill.


The above tragedy is a casualty of not caring enough about our own citizens to protect our lives. This is a time in America where our Congress incessantly claims it has no money to fund the crumbling infrastructure we live in and depend on, to save our lives.

At the same time bureaucrats fall all over themselves by using this as an excuse to save money, consolidate services to dangerously low levels, cheat, lie, kill us by indifference, steal, and bull shit their way through not being responsible about their sworn duties to protect the public.

The truth is that charity should start at home. 

Besides the enormous "pork barrel" domestic special interest waste of money that is pocketed by politicians and their cronies, we also have the albatross of Foreign Aid. Sure Foreign Aid is essential if we are to remain a world leader. But there is huge waste and stealing of billions of our dollars by the governments of foreign nations.

The Congressional Research Service released a report last month which shows that in 2010 the U.S. handed out a total of $1.4bn to 16 foreign countries that held at least $10bn in Treasury securities.

Four countries in the world's top 10 richest received foreign aid last year with China receiving $27.2m, India $126.6m, Brazil $25m, and Russia $71.5m.

Mexico also received $316.7m and Egypt $255.7m.

And yet despite the massive outgoings in foreign aid, the receiving countries hold trillions of dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds.

If countries can afford to buy our debt, perhaps they can also afford to fund OUR desperate needs for assistance programs in America so that the United States can have enough funds to help it's own citizens stay alive.

It's not about blaming Obama care, not about the middle class or the poor in our Country needing to suffer more cuts in the services provided to us, and it is certainly NOT about budget deficits caused by Social Security, Medicare, and other false diversionary reasons that have no credence, except to polarize people.

Your life and those of your loved ones mean absolutely nothing to those in positions of power. Stop being manipulated into believing the horse shit propaganda that you are being fed by the politicians and the phony media talking heads.


Face the FUCKING TRUTH! It's about waste, corruption, and mismanagement by those who pull the strings of our "leaders" to suit their own insatiable, inhuman, financial and political greed. 

Get pissed at them, not each other!

GRIEF DOESN'T HAVE A TIMELINE

This article speaks the truth. Neither attempts to standardize the so-called stages of grief nor construct ("term") limits apply to most people. Each person's grief journey is different and "normal' for their particular situation "You don't get over it. You get through it". Anyone, whether a Professional or lay person who attempts to "judge" or label those who experience grief by intellectual categories, words that tie everything up neatly, does a disservice to those who grieve, by not understanding the permanent forever pain when we lose a loved one, especially a child. 

Grief doesn't have a timeline

By Joan Wickersham

Boston  Globe Correspondent- February 08,2013-Reprinted on this Blog.

"Recently at a cocktail party, I met a woman whose husband had died about four years ago. She mentioned him a lot. Not monologues, but frequent references to him — things he’d said, jokes he’d made, his foibles, his likes and dislikes. Some of it was in the past tense and some in the present. Theirs had been a long marriage — over 30 years — and clearly it was still going on.

Here’s another story. 

A woman I know, also happily married for many decades, was devastated by her husband’s death from cancer. A year later, though still missing her husband, she was surprised to find herself falling deeply in love with an old family friend.

Grief is a lot weirder than we think. It doesn’t follow a logical course or conform to any predictable timetable. Yet we persist in making comments about how other people are doing it. And worse, we are constantly, secretly convinced that because our own grief doesn’t proceed according to our expectations, we must be doing it wrong.

It’s time to get over it. Time to move on. Time to get on with your life. We say these things to and about one another all the time. And we say them to ourselves.

“I don’t seem to be able to get over this,” a friend said of her father’s suicide, which happened just over a year ago.“That’s because it’s so recent,” I said.
She looked relieved — oh, good, someone got it, she wasn’t crazy — and dismayed: She’d been hoping that maybe it would be over soon.

Like a lot of other people, I was appalled when I read about the American Psychiatric Association’s proposal to identify something called “complicated grief disorder” — intense, acute grief that persists for more than about six months after bereavement. The rationale is that since most people get over a death in six months (um, excuse me, but who are these people?), the new diagnosis would allow people who struggle with prolonged grief to get treatment. “Get treatment” presumably means “get insurance to pay for treatment.” Do we really need to pathologize grief and stigmatize mourners in order to pierce the obtuse heart (or heartlessness) of an insurance company?

I asked a psychiatrist to translate the term “intense, acute grief.” He said, “Miss Havisham.” I understood: One end of the spectrum would be someone like the Dickens character, jilted by her fiancé, who spends her life in her tattered, yellowed wedding dress, brooding over the rotten remains of the wedding feast and grieving her lost love by punishing everyone else.

But every grief is different, just as every death and every mourner is different. When my father killed himself in 1991, I sort of kept functioning, and I sort of didn’t. I took care of my son, kept the house going, met my writing deadlines. I also stopped sleeping. I gained 30 pounds. I was numb, and it went on for years. It wouldn’t have helped to be told I had a disorder, or to have what I was feeling labeled as “complicated grief.” I knew damn well it was complicated. I didn’t need anyone judging how long it was taking me to get over it. What I needed was the people — including the psychiatrist — who said, “Of course.”

When my mother died four years ago, after a long illness, the grief was different. It was hard and sad, but it felt straightforward: I missed her.

We shouldn’t pathologize grief; we should let it be whatever it is. I look around at friends who’ve had losses, and I see how long, and how powerfully, many continue to feel grief years later. It doesn’t mean that they’re paralyzed and not going on with their lives. But it does mean that grief can be a continuing presence.

Grief is unpredictable, widely variable, inconsistent. It’s weird because it’s supposed to be weird. We don’t cry when we think we ought to. We keep crying when we think we should be done. We watch the Red Sox game the night after the funeral. We don’t change the sheets for a month. We tell the junk man to take everything. We save an old voice mail for years. 

We get over it when we accept that we’ll never quite get over it. 

 It takes as long as it takes."

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL-YOUR AVERAGE AMERICAN OR THE TWILIGHT ZONE?

"You're traveling through another dimension --

A dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind ...

A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination.

That's a sign post up ahead: your next stop: ... the Twilight Zone ???"

... Nahhhh

 

... It's just Wal-Mart! ... The gene pool of our Country meets here daily.

...The Walmartians have landed.

   

Yep, drive the lawn mower into town & save some $$ on gas!
 
  

Apparently the new Snuggie t-shirt is only for the classiest ladies.
  

That reminds me…I need milk.

  

“I’ll teach you to leave me in the hot car…”
  

A little too short…I  I can see your phone number!! hello!!!?

   .

I guess I  could see how someone would get pretty tuckered out throwing down a Big Gulp while walking around in shoes like that. Maybe someone should throw some water on him so he doesn’t dry out.

BETTER:  Is that someone's ass hanging out the front of his shirt?

I personally have never forgotten to put a shirt on before I went to Walmart…I’m just sayin…
  

You just brightened up everyone’s day!
   

Flesh-colored yoga pants…there are some things that just should NOT have been invented!
  

Hey, buddy…yer spell-check isn’t working!

   

It’s obvious that both of these ladies look phenomenal in pink but who would you rather wake up next to?

A little too much flesh...really brings out the color of your gut. 

  

I encourage everyone to bust out their white wardrobes…and MAXIPADS!

  Nothing says summer like an all beef hot dog with ketchup and mustard. 

And hey, remember to stop by the shoe department!  

We all know how much of a sweat you can work up while power shopping,so the sports bra is a fantastic idea. The real issue here is “Who Wears It Better?”

  

Words just don’t fit here!

  

  For those of you keeping score:
Handicapped Sign: 2 -- Idiotic Drivers: 0.

   Shopping at Walmart is so easy a caveman can do it.
 
  

Look at  the luscious boobs on…  OH MY GOD, They are on backwards!

 

  No, I don’t want to go to Grandpa’s house!
 
  

Cool Shorts. Hey it's comfortable.

  

Can someone please explain to me how something like this happens?  

  

   I love her tattooo, don't you!!!!

 

A GEOGRAPHY LESSON

THE GEOGRAPHY OF A WOMAN



Between 18 and 22, a woman is like Africa. Half discovered, half wild, fertile and naturally Beautiful!




Between 23 and 30, a woman is like Europe. Well developed and open to trade, especially for someone of real value.




Between 31 and 35, a woman is like Spain, very hot, relaxed and convinced of her own beauty.




Between 36 and 40, a woman is like Greece, gently aging but still a warm and desirable place to visit.




Between 41 and 50, a woman is like Great Britain, with a glorious and all conquering past.



Between 51 and 60, a woman is like Israel, has been through war, doesn't make the same mistakes twice, takes care of business.




Between 61 and 70, a woman is like Canada,self-preserving, but open to meeting new people.




After 70, she becomes Tibet. Wildly beautiful, with a mysterious past and the wisdom of the ages. An adventurous spirit and a thirst for spiritual knowledge.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF A MAN

Between 1 and 80, a man is like Iran. Ruled by nuts.