Happy Birthday, Charlie! Look for the fireworks heading your way. Paper lanterns, too. Just like every year...
It's a party.
pH 5.29.17
***
Monday, May 29, 2017
Memorial Day
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Happy Birthday, Charlie! Look for the fireworks heading your way. Paper lanterns, too. Just like every year...
It's a party.
pH 5.29.17
***
Happy Birthday, Charlie! Look for the fireworks heading your way. Paper lanterns, too. Just like every year...
It's a party.
pH 5.29.17
***
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Let's Do the Numbers (Again)
If you view this blog in the web version, you will find a survey on the lower right side of the page, right above the picture of the starving cat. It asks,
"A body is found at the base of a cliff. No witnesses. What should a Medical Examiner conclude?" The options: Accidental, Undetermined, Homicide, Suicide or Not the ME's Call.
There's no rush to beat the buzzer or anything, just notice the results, from an admittedly small sample. Most people would call it Undetermined. A good portion say Accident. A fraction believe Homicide; a larger fraction didn't think it was the ME's call.
Nobody says Suicide. Zero percent.
I ran several similar polls on Twitter last year, using the same scenario, but not including the option about the ME's call. Suicide registered a statistical blip is all, with the vast majority of respondents divided between Accidental and Undetermined.
I can tell (call it researcher's intuition) that this makes sense to you. NSA guys can actually see you, through your camera, nodding your head in agreement as you read it... We know this.
It should make sense to you because it is the result of thousands of family tragedies that are broken down into raw data every year. So let's confirm your gut feeling with some numbers - again.
Start with 100,000 people, all kids age 14 and younger. Almost enough to fill The Big House at a University of Michigan football game. Just one of them will intentionally kill himself or herself. That's 1/1,000th of 1%.
Two out of three times, that child is a female.
In half of those suicides, drugs were either contributory or causative.
Only one in four will use suffocation/strangulation as their method of suicide - and that is nearly universally done in a clandestine manner.
Minorities or kids in poor neighborhoods are more likely. The top of the age range in this group is 14 years, and the incident rates drop significantly by the year... All of this, we know.
Charlie was a White boy, barely 12, with no drugs in his system when he died in his front yard while playing on a years-old "Tarzan"-style rope. No witnesses to the act. No suicide note. None of the well-known societal red flags.
White. Boy. 12. No drugs. Out in the open.
The chances of his death being a suicide are less than 1/4 of 1/2 of 1/3 of 1/1000th of 1 percent. It's something that simply has never happened before, not here, or anywhere else you can find.
Another, more plausible, statistic: Accidents are the leading cause of death in all children 14 and younger... This, too, we know.
But here in Kalamazoo, why, the government tends to view these things in any way that suits their purposes. No matter who it harms. Their motto here: Ready, Fire, Aim.
It is hysterically obvious by now that ME Joyce deJong got it wrong. A far better pathologist than her explained carefully to my sister the official (read: Legal) manner used to determine cause of death: Scene investigation, which they botched, toxicology results, which they didn't get back until 3 weeks later (100% clean at that) and police reports which they didn't even bother to have mailed to them until May of the following year.
When called to account, they said they based their horrifyingly irresponsible bullshit also on letters from concerned citizens - which the ME apparently did not read - and from, well, my blog.
(Sigh.)
I sure do miss Charlie. I wonder sometimes what it might have been like, to grieve normally, instead of having to do this. My dirty job.
Someday, though, I believe I will see him again, and together we will look down at this cruel little place, and we'll laugh and laugh, until our tears fall like rain. My big belly guffaw will roll down as the thunder. And Charlie's delighted cackle will crackle with the lightning... This, above all else, we know.
pH 5.17.17
***
"A body is found at the base of a cliff. No witnesses. What should a Medical Examiner conclude?" The options: Accidental, Undetermined, Homicide, Suicide or Not the ME's Call.
There's no rush to beat the buzzer or anything, just notice the results, from an admittedly small sample. Most people would call it Undetermined. A good portion say Accident. A fraction believe Homicide; a larger fraction didn't think it was the ME's call.
Nobody says Suicide. Zero percent.
I ran several similar polls on Twitter last year, using the same scenario, but not including the option about the ME's call. Suicide registered a statistical blip is all, with the vast majority of respondents divided between Accidental and Undetermined.
I can tell (call it researcher's intuition) that this makes sense to you. NSA guys can actually see you, through your camera, nodding your head in agreement as you read it... We know this.
It should make sense to you because it is the result of thousands of family tragedies that are broken down into raw data every year. So let's confirm your gut feeling with some numbers - again.
Start with 100,000 people, all kids age 14 and younger. Almost enough to fill The Big House at a University of Michigan football game. Just one of them will intentionally kill himself or herself. That's 1/1,000th of 1%.
Two out of three times, that child is a female.
In half of those suicides, drugs were either contributory or causative.
Only one in four will use suffocation/strangulation as their method of suicide - and that is nearly universally done in a clandestine manner.
Minorities or kids in poor neighborhoods are more likely. The top of the age range in this group is 14 years, and the incident rates drop significantly by the year... All of this, we know.
Charlie was a White boy, barely 12, with no drugs in his system when he died in his front yard while playing on a years-old "Tarzan"-style rope. No witnesses to the act. No suicide note. None of the well-known societal red flags.
White. Boy. 12. No drugs. Out in the open.
The chances of his death being a suicide are less than 1/4 of 1/2 of 1/3 of 1/1000th of 1 percent. It's something that simply has never happened before, not here, or anywhere else you can find.
Another, more plausible, statistic: Accidents are the leading cause of death in all children 14 and younger... This, too, we know.
But here in Kalamazoo, why, the government tends to view these things in any way that suits their purposes. No matter who it harms. Their motto here: Ready, Fire, Aim.
It is hysterically obvious by now that ME Joyce deJong got it wrong. A far better pathologist than her explained carefully to my sister the official (read: Legal) manner used to determine cause of death: Scene investigation, which they botched, toxicology results, which they didn't get back until 3 weeks later (100% clean at that) and police reports which they didn't even bother to have mailed to them until May of the following year.
When called to account, they said they based their horrifyingly irresponsible bullshit also on letters from concerned citizens - which the ME apparently did not read - and from, well, my blog.
(Sigh.)
I sure do miss Charlie. I wonder sometimes what it might have been like, to grieve normally, instead of having to do this. My dirty job.
Someday, though, I believe I will see him again, and together we will look down at this cruel little place, and we'll laugh and laugh, until our tears fall like rain. My big belly guffaw will roll down as the thunder. And Charlie's delighted cackle will crackle with the lightning... This, above all else, we know.
pH 5.17.17
***
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Headlines and Deadlines
The following are the actual headlines from local news stories that chronicle the years of ham-handed dysfunction at the county level in Kalamazoo, Michigan... No wonder we can't get anywhere with them; they're just a hot mess.
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Sheriff's deputy gets $200,000 in breast pumping case
***
Okay, that's probably enough. Clearly, better must be done by Kalamazoo County... The chances are you've never even heard of it before, so all you may know about it is this.
It is a nice place to live. The people here are good. But we suffer from terrible civil administration, which I suppose is logical, because we just can't attract that much blue-chip talent around here... Not like this.
So, look. I'm from here, but I haven't been here my whole life. I came up out of Maricopa County in Arizona. It covers over 9,000 square miles, home to the 5th largest city in the United States.
It used to make the national news more, back when Joe Arpaio was Sheriff. You know, Joe Arpaio, America's toughest lawman? Tent City, pink underwear, green bologna, women chain gangs, dead inmates, immigration sweeps, Obama's birth certificate. You remember.
Where's Sheriff Joe now? Things can change. They do change.
If you are just now discovering Kalamazoo County through this blog, then here is what I hope you take away from it:
Don't come here. Don't spend your money here. Don't go to school here. Don't look for a job here. Don't buy or rent a home here. Don't raise your kids here.
Until things change.
pH 5.o2.17
***
(Clicking on the headline itself will take you to the article.)
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Kalamazoo County Commission puts off administrator search until next year
***'I am not your enemy,' Vice Chair Stephanie Moore responds to criticisms
***
In Kalamazoo County, complaints surface about timely delivery of absentee ballots
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Kalamazoo County and Mary Balkema Being Sued for Housing Discrimination
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Richland woman fighting to keep home from being sold at Kalamazoo County tax auction
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Kalamazoo County and Mary Balkema Being Sued for Housing Discrimination
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Deputy who has grievance with sheriff to swap parties, try again to oust boss
***
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***
Sheriff's deputy gets $200,000 in breast pumping case
***
Okay, that's probably enough. Clearly, better must be done by Kalamazoo County... The chances are you've never even heard of it before, so all you may know about it is this.
It is a nice place to live. The people here are good. But we suffer from terrible civil administration, which I suppose is logical, because we just can't attract that much blue-chip talent around here... Not like this.
So, look. I'm from here, but I haven't been here my whole life. I came up out of Maricopa County in Arizona. It covers over 9,000 square miles, home to the 5th largest city in the United States.
It used to make the national news more, back when Joe Arpaio was Sheriff. You know, Joe Arpaio, America's toughest lawman? Tent City, pink underwear, green bologna, women chain gangs, dead inmates, immigration sweeps, Obama's birth certificate. You remember.
Where's Sheriff Joe now? Things can change. They do change.
If you are just now discovering Kalamazoo County through this blog, then here is what I hope you take away from it:
Don't come here. Don't spend your money here. Don't go to school here. Don't look for a job here. Don't buy or rent a home here. Don't raise your kids here.
Until things change.
pH 5.o2.17
***
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