tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37565746158102287742024-03-24T04:36:02.663-07:00THE BOOK of CHARLIE.Your money's worth and not a penny more.Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comBlogger120125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-25499467087563295652023-12-02T03:47:00.000-08:002023-12-02T05:02:10.580-08:00The End of an Error<p><span style="font-family: times;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">L</span></b><span>ong was the road. We lost many along the way. But, at last, for the first time in more than eight years, those of us who are left can wake up each day to the smell of something other than burning dirt.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Here's the news, a few days old, <a href="https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2023/joyce-deJong-recommended-as-new-dean-of-msu-college-of-osteopathic-medicine">perfect for wrapping up fish</a>:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">"<span style="background-color: white; color: #151a22;">Joyce deJong has been recommended to serve as the new dean of the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine. If approved by the MSU Board of Trustees, her appointment will be effective Feb. 5, 2024."</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #151a22;"><span style="font-family: times;">I utterly urge the Board to approve this. Please. Hurry. I mean, what's another monster on the roster, right?</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #151a22;"><span style="font-family: times;">(I actually know a guy who is an MSU alum, and he is disturbed by this. He considers Joyce deJong to be a controversial figure and doesn't think the school needs any more of those right now. But that is neither here nor there.)</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #151a22;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times;">Where my nephew Charlie's case (No. W15-470) is concerned, if this news is to be taken as a victory, it would still be <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pyrrhicvictory.asp">a Pyrrhic one</a>. The Cause of Death on his public Death Certificate will never be corrected. It was never going to be, because in matters of County government, truth is the first casualty. With or without the expensive autopsy.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #151a22;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: times;">But it appears that Joyce the Mendacious M.E. is indeed on the way out. Going back to her roots in East Lansing, where it all began. Good for her. Good for us. The most important aspect of this career change is that she will no longer have the ability to harm people the way she harmed my family. She'll be out of the business of forensic pathology. Living her best life.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">To Charlie, my nephew, I would say: We made it. Kalamazoo County refused to correct its mistake, so I did it for them, right here on the Internet. The last of the weasels is finally packing up and leaving town... Cool, huh?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">To Charlie, my Dad, I would say: I told you so! No, seriously, I know it troubled you that I would not let go of it. I know you wanted peace in your time. You only missed it by a few months. I still have to read that other <i><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-book-of-charlie-review-an-old-man-full-of-years-b5f93fbc">Book of Charlie</a></i> that you gave me, ha-ha. I suppose now I'll have more quiet time to do so, because this is it - there shall be peace, just like you wanted.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">To my sister, Charlie's Mom, I <i>can</i> say: Holy Shit, what a rabbit hole THAT was... Your son is lost treasure. You raised a good kid, who was very much in the process of becoming a great man. We may never know for absolute certain what happened, but we know what didn't.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">And to the outward bound Dr. Joyce deJong... </span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Take the train. It's faster.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">pH 12.o2.23</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">***</span></p><p><br /></p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-59873751235481816412023-10-08T07:01:00.032-07:002023-12-02T03:50:03.302-08:00Parks and Uncreation<p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: large;">W</span></b><span style="font-size: 18px;"><i>e the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.</i></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;"><i>***</i></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">If those words seem familiar, they should. That is The Preamble to the United States Constitution. That is the written statement of intent that the Founding Fathers left to us when this whole grand experiment began. It's too bad they were focused on the macro (federal) levels of government and not the micro (County).</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">Here in Kalamazoo County, they use things like the Preamble to wipe with, and then they flush it down. Our lives, our liberty and our pursuit of happiness have supposedly been preserved. Property? That's <a href="https://www.fox17online.com/2019/11/12/no-charges-filed-in-investigation-of-kzoo-co-treasurers-office">another story</a>.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">The story in question, at present, started in the American postwar glow of 1948, when a couple of families pooled their resources and acquired a cottage on the South end of scenic Gourdneck Lake, located outside of Portage, Michigan. Just as the world progressed from Black 'n White to Color TV, the once-rural area would soon become suburbanized.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">Dusty gravel roads were paved. Homes were built. The sod and stubble of farm fields yielded to grassy lawns. And, in 1963, Prairie View Park was established by Kalamazoo County. The only problem with that: The Johnson and Talanda families <a href="https://wwmt.com/news/local/gourdneck-cottage-lawsuit-kalamazoo-county-judge-talanda-johnson-heeter-portage-landlocked-cottage-1963-prairie-view-park-court-community-west-michigan">were there first</a>.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">The County generously agreed to allow them to own their property. But they made them sign an agreement to turn over their cottage and lakefront land to the public once the original property owners in both families had all died off. If any of that seems weird, Dear Reader, that's due to the fact that... it is.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">Fast-forward to 2019. The last of the original purchasers had finally faded into the sunset, and Kalamazoo County was done waiting. Through the odious practices of condemnation and eminent domain, they sought to take possession of the property, even though the heirs to the families still wished to keep it. The County's offer of compensation came in at about $350,000.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">For a cottage on a lakefront property outside of town. That's what real estate brokers and bank robbers, from coast to coast, would call "a steal".</span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">The families probably<a href="https://www.change.org/p/kalamazoo-commissioners-should-side-with-the-cottage-owners-and-vote-no-on-condemnation"> felt like they had enough clout</a> and money to fend off these County cut-purses. But when a plaintiff goes before a County judge, and the plaintiff is in fact the County... I can empathize with their plight. And even though it took several years to play out in our little puppet theater we have here, the outcome was as predetermined as a professional wrestling match.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">A couple of months ago, the courts gave the families their final answer: "Get Out." Did the taxpayers mind spending almost half a million dollars in order to cut a $350,000 check, after four years of litigation at our expense? Uh... We were never asked.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">Gourdneck is a big lake, with many homes on it now. Big party-barge pontoon boats cruise around on it every day in the summer time. It connects to the smaller, less-developed Hogsett Lake, which I access though the State Game Area. It's peaceful back there. The fishing is good.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">Prairie View Park itself is also an idyllic setting. I went there when I was a kid. My nephew Charlie went there was he was alive. It is a good thing to have public spaces like that, where nature still exists, where the objective is enjoyment.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">It is a bad thing, though, for the government to take property away from the citizens. That's something that all Americans were against, quite vehemently, back in the 1770's. If that's something the government would rather we not know about, then they should stop teaching it in schools... If they already haven't.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">It's safe to say that not all Counties are like this one - Kalamazoo does seem rather freakish sometimes - and that not all people here will be treated in such Dillinger-esque fashion. But it's no guarantee. In my family's experience, deaf ears are the norm, and cruel indifference is the <a href="https://andmakethemcry.blogspot.com/2016/04/chapter-four-short-walk-part-ii.html?m=1">Gold Standard of care</a>.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">The locals understand (although they can't do anything about it): In short, if you think your family cottage can't be taken away from you by Kalamazoo County's bureaucrats, shredding forever your memories thereof, you are dead wrong. And your innocent child's eternal legacy, at least where public records are concerned... </span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">Same.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">pH 1o.o8.23</span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">***</span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></span></p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-73529872846319316502023-07-27T12:02:00.011-07:002023-11-11T08:27:33.536-08:00Long Distance<p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>I</b></span> dial the number. Busy signal. I dial again. Busy signal. (<i>sigh.</i>) I open a beer: Modelo. Why not?</p><p>I dial again. It rings. It rings again. Then...</p><p><i>Arnie's Mortuary. You stab 'em, we slab 'em.</i></p><p>I hang up. Signal sent. I sip on my cold Modelo. It needs the lime. I find one and take care of that. I taste it. It tastes like Modelo. The phone rings.</p><p>It rings again.</p><p>I pick it up, touch the screen, and say, "Arnie's Gynecology. You pork 'em, we stork 'em."</p><p><i>Click</i>.</p><p>I hang up. (Signal received.) I sip on my Modelo and lime. It takes time. The phone rings again. I answer after the first one.</p><p>I say, "Arnie's... G'day, Mick."</p><p><i>What's going on, man.</i></p><p>It used to freak me out a little, talking to my dead friend, but we get along now just as well as we did when he was alive - incredibly alive.</p><p>I tell him that I reckon he knows what's going on. Let's not waste this precious time we have together playing <a href="https://toytales.ca/gnip-gnop-from-parker-brothers-1971/">Gnip Gnop</a> or whatever. He knows what's on my mind, of course, and assures me. My Dad made it to the other side, and is currently perusing the Library of All Libraries.</p><p>I pour it out to him, my old friend who has been dead for seven and a half years now. My Dad had the fairy tale life with the storybook ending. (He knows.) My Dad never emitted the slightest of whimpers. (He knows.) My Dad slipped out the door on his own terms, into the good company of those who went before him.</p><p>(He knows.)</p><p><i>Don't worry so much</i>, Mick says. <i>You worried all this time for nothing.</i></p><p>It occurs to me that Mick and I don't have much to talk about anymore, and might not, for a while... It depends. I look at the lime resting at the bottom of my empty Modelo bottle.</p><p>"You got this?" I ask, semi-necessarily.</p><p>Mick says, <i>Run with the ball, Paul,</i> which is something that my friend said to me quite often when he was alive.</p><p><i>Run with the ball</i>.</p><p>So, knowing we will talk again later, I hang up the phone...</p><p>And I run.</p><p><br /></p><p>pH 7.27.23</p><p>***</p><p><br /></p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-84561687778506672272023-07-13T04:29:00.013-07:002023-07-14T05:49:44.273-07:00A Matter of Years<p><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b>here are times and seasons for change. Stuck in the middle of Summer, now is not the season. While that hot, sticky fact will remain in evidence for the near future, it is time in Michigan for something to change, and it has.</p><p>Our rock star Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has signed a bill into law that would raise the minimum age to legally marry to 18 years (up from 16). No more <a href="https://wwmt.com/news/state/child-marriage-ban-michigan-adult-governor-gretchen-whitmer-teenage-house-senate-18-year-old-age-parent#">matrimony for minors</a>!</p><p>This would certainly make sense. I mean, you can't even buy a ticket to a rated 'R' movie without a parent or guardian present before the age of 17. You can't even legally buy the apple of your eye a hard cider unless you're both 21. And nobody should have a spouse who is too young to serve in the military.</p><p>Why, some might be dumb enough to ask, was it not this way before now? Whose big idea was it that too-young brides (or, I guess, grooms) could be carried over the threshold before their bodies and brains were fully developed?</p><p>The short answer is, the people who were in charge up until now... Meaning, not Democrats. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/09/democrats-take-legislatures-00065953">Since taking power</a> of the state legislature last November, the Blue Team has been trying to bring Michigan up to modern speed.</p><p>They do this because they understand that children are not just little versions of grownups. They don't have the accumulated knowledge that comes with years of experience in the settings in which they live. And some things don't belong on their plates.</p><p>This is a point we tried to hammer home to the Medical Examiner in Charlie's case. The conclusions that were jumped to in Kalamazoo County were such obviously crafted works of fiction that were disavowed rather quickly, but the Cause of Death remains the same, because Joyce deJong does what she wants. And there is no mechanism for oversight that we can reach.</p><p>They very much tried to make it out like Charlie (who had turned 12 years old just a few weeks before his passing) was a depressed teenager, but that wasn't the case. Or even close. This is indicated in <a href="http://andmakethemcry.blogspot.com/2016/05/chapter-seventeen-police-reports.html?m=1">every single police report</a>, where he was referred to as "the child", again and again. The child.</p><p>He was a little kid who still played with Hot Wheels cars, Legos and Army Men. If only there was a Governor Whitmer among our quaint collection of county peons today, this dream of ours might be realized. This nightmare of ours might end.</p><p>Until that day, we can only celebrate with our fellow citizens, the fact that there will be no more Sweet Sixteen weddings here in Michigan. Unfortunately, it comes alongside a decision to reduce spending on our Pure Michigan ad campaign, so... We'll work on it.</p><p>Call it evolution if you want. But do so with the caveat, and the understanding, that such things can take millions upon millions of years. And that Rome wasn't burned in a day.</p><p>pH 7.13.23</p><p>***</p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-81399933944371736042023-04-01T09:45:00.019-07:002023-07-27T07:59:59.196-07:00Lesson Learned<p><b><span style="font-size: large;">W</span></b>hen I was a kid, I got a really neat present from a family friend, a fellow named Vince Antonelli. The Antonellis lived in Pittsburgh, and we would go visit them now and then. The patriarch of the family, meaning Vince, was a great guy. He even let me drive his riding mower around, all over his yard.</p><p>He had played football at the University of Pittsburgh in his day, and remained connected to the team somehow, I'm not sure if he was a coach or a manager or what... But I know that he acquired for me a genuine NCAA football. Real leather. Even the laces.</p><p>It was the envy of the neighborhood, so nice that I felt compelled to write my name on it with a <a href="https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-101584655X47-img">Magic Marker</a>. But it was no trophy-case pigskin, no, we made sure of that. Before long, the scuffs and grass stains on the ball were more pronounced than my block printing.</p><p>One afternoon, somewhere in between Halloween and Thanksgiving, misfortune struck. On a punt, the football became lodged in the naked branches of the big walnut tree at the end of our field (read: Mr. and Mrs. Johnson's yard), waaay up there.</p><p>The sun was getting low. My teammates and opponents dissipated. I threw a stick at my beloved football a few times, to no avail, before trudging home. I wasn't a shy kid when it came to complaining, and when my Dad got wind of this, he marched me right out of the house and up the street.</p><p>I told him how hopeless and pointless it was, how I had <i>tried</i> to get the ball out of the tree, that it would be there forever, that the wood would grow around it... He would have none of it.</p><p>My Dad, Dr. Heller, is a university professor. He taught Geography, not Physics. But he selected a chunk of firewood from the neighbor's wood pile, and calmly began throwing it up into the tree. He wasn't even aiming for the ball, really, just making sure that his chosen projectile went in the right direction each time. Again and again. And again. And again.</p><p>I became a little bit concerned that he would get bonked by the piece of wood as it returned to Earth each time, especially as it began to get dark. My father explained to me, with the same purposeful and methodical patience that he applied to his task, that the idea was to just keep trying. Eventually, he advised, we'll succeed.</p><p>By that time I was nearly vehement in my disagreeability about the situation. "It's just a friggin' football," I whined <a href="https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-do-you-see-your-breath-when-it-s-cold">in the chilly air</a>. "Let's go already."</p><p>And go we did. About three tosses later. When the chucked wood startlingly knocked the football out of the offending limbs that had cradled it for so long. I ran over to recover my prized possession. Dad walked over, picked up the trusty piece of firewood, and put it back where he had gotten it.</p><p>Then we went home.</p><p>Dad likes to tell that story to this day. He does not refer to it as The Story of the Football, or The Football Incident... He calls it The Lesson of the Football. Because he's a teacher. And he taught me something important that evening, something I've never let go.</p><p>I'm lucky. I have had role models in my life like him. And Vince Antonelli. Two guys who were quite different and yet quite the same. They'd consider me to be remiss in my duties if I did not keep throwing this piece of wood at that football.</p><p>Real leather. Even the laces<i>.</i></p><p>pH 4.o1.23</p><p>***</p><p><i>Editor's Note: My father, Dr. Charles F. Heller, passed away peacefully at his home on July 25th, 2023. Charlie's Granddad was 91 years old.</i></p><p><br /></p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-73962757758872179672023-02-01T07:06:00.023-08:002023-06-07T07:20:28.874-07:00National Freedom Day<p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>T</b></span>he Sun came out today. In some parts of the country, that's no big deal; expected, even. In southwest Michigan, it's something we haven't seen in a while.</p><p>Never mind our warm yellow star itself. After the dreary January we just had, I could go blind just staring at the snow in the bright light, as if it were a stranger. Always remarkable, it's like this every year, every winter.</p><p>For a lot of people, seeing the blue sky for the first time since the holidays is enough to warm the heart - for others, only the skin. Their insides never thaw.</p><p>It is February 1st. In some years, that's a day marked by tragedy, as in 2003, when the space shuttle <i>Challenger</i> burned up in the atmosphere. Or by events that would turn out to be massive in their eventual scale, like in 1865, when Abraham Lincoln signed the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery.</p><p>In other years, history has recorded that, really, nothing happened on 2/1. In 1980, when I was 12 years old, the only thing that happened on this day was the debut of Blondie's "Call Me"... Which, in all fairness, would go on to become Billboard's Song of the Year.</p><p>Twelve is an awfully young age to have your existence stopped. To live on only in memories and images and documents. If this had been my last day at that age, Charlie's age when he died, I would have missed out on more things than I can list here. Mount St. Helens had not yet erupted. Jimmy Carter was president. The Pittsburgh Steelers had just won their fourth Super Bowl.</p><p>All of these things we dutifully record.</p><p>There will come a day, whenever and however it comes about, when our species no longer exists. This would become true for the dinosaurs who came before us. They could not have fathomed it at all. We humans barely can even with all our accumulated knowledge.</p><p>Just as mammals took over in prominence after the big lizards were gone, something else will follow us here. But we are unique in our words and our pictures and our stories and our rolls of plans. Squirrels, birds, fish, frogs, insects - they don't do those kinds of things. Not even primates, our closest cousins in the animal world, do.</p><p>It's not unfair to ask: If it ends up that nothing knows about us, are we even here at all? And if nobody is here to examine all of this, to sift through the data, to sort through the volumes, to learn about us whether they care or don't... Does it even exist?</p><p>In sheer quantum terms, the answer is, no. No, it doesn't. The trophies, the selfies, the videos, the blogs... The servers, the libraries, the archives, the museums... The names on the headstones in the cemeteries... None of it will matter any more than the crumbling concrete and rusting rebar will.</p><p>Then why do we try?</p><p>Because, at the end of each day, eventful or not, it's all about one thing: How do you feel about yourself? Although not tangible, such feelings are just as temporary (like a pen or a pencil), something none of us will have to worry about for too terribly long.</p><p>And the Sun will rise again, regardless of whether or not anyone is here to somehow capture the moment, whatever it may bring.</p><p>pH 2.o1.23</p><p>***</p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-45641612026026912722022-12-06T06:32:00.019-08:002022-12-06T08:06:45.453-08:00Down Stairs<p><b><span style="font-size: large;">C</span></b>an the Year 2023 get a Disney Genie FastPass to the front of the line already? Or the end of it, whatever? Just skip the holidays - we're all broke anyhow - and move this thing along. Because 2022 is exhausted.</p><p>We already know 2024 is going to be a doozy (if we even make it that far as a civilization). So next year may be that last <a href="https://physicalculturestudy.com/2017/08/31/the-history-of-the-big-gulp/">big gulp</a> of fresh air for the nation to collectively hold until the next election.</p><p>Exhausted.</p><p>Even sports isn't sufficient to rub the sleep out of my eyes. Michigan's football team is on the brink of a championship (just like last year) after beating Ohio State (just like last year) but will likely face undefeated Georgia (just like last year).</p><p>Let's face it; reruns suck. They're almost as bad as watching movies wherein you already know the ending, like <i>Titanic</i>, or <i>Passion of the Christ</i>. When an entire year seems like a rerun, you just want to turn it off... When six, seven, eight years in a row seem like reruns, then you realize that your misery is, in fact, syndicated.</p><p>And what a syndicate we have here in Kalamazoo. So many things go wrong in this place, yet, no one ever admits having done any.</p><p>Sometimes this can have staggering implications, like in the case of my young nephew Charlie, whose Cause of Death was misclassified (deliberately) by Medical Examiner Joyce deJong in 2015.</p><p>She's still here. He's still gone. That will be the story next year. And beyond. The emotional damage this has done to my sister is not measurable by a yardstick, or a beaker, or a scale. But it is immense.</p><p>Exhausting.</p><p>When such things get swept under the rug, the person holding the broom is seldom held to account. In cases like ours, where an appointed bureaucrat is standing in your way, it's not cool. But in other cases, the <a href="https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/detailsPage?ein=822587771&name=Kalamazoo%20Foundation%20for%20Excellence&city=Kalamazoo&state=MI&countryAbbr=US&type=returnsSearch">wealthy benefactors</a> of such bureaucrats are the ones doing wrong, with <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2016/08/upjohn_heir_sued_by_former_emp.html">barely any consequences</a>. This leads to a feeling of impunity among the Top One Percent, which is the kind of thing that gets handed down to <a href="https://wwmt.com/news/local/william-johnston-ronda-stryker-michael-video-taping-naked-nanny-guilty-audiotree-cameras-hidden-arrest">their coddled offspring.</a></p><p>It's pretty obvious why. There is almost an American tradition of citizens being trapped in company-owned towns, where everyone is dependent on The Man in the White Hat. This is not fresh ink being spilled here.</p><p>It's exhaust.</p><p>Even so, for us, the legacy they left to Charlie - and the way it was done - conjures up some of the worst images of human history. Of times when rulers went unchallenged, and they threw casual yet raucous parties, like so many heads from atop the <i>Templo Mayor</i>.</p><p>pH 12.o6.22</p><p>***</p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-88441188847010386292022-08-16T06:53:00.015-07:002022-08-16T12:46:02.161-07:00Of Laws, Mice and Men<p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>I</b></span>t has been said, as many times as anything else has ever been said, that ours is a nation of laws and not men (or women). This can lead to spaghetti-thinking, with saucy strands winding around cheesy meatballs from California to the Capitol, such as:</p><p>- But weren't all of the laws actually made by men?</p><p>- Did those men want to to do things that were clearly wrong (like own slaves) so legalizing wrong things was the easiest route to doing them openly?</p><p>- Did those men listen to other men around them, ones who were not elected to make laws, when deciding who could do what with whom and where?</p><p>- Were any of those men drunk at the time?</p><p>We may not have all the answers today, but we do know that once the ink is dry on the lawbook, that's pretty much it. Unless the Supreme Court were to become hopelessly ideological in nature, and begin issuing baseless edicts rooted in their own moral preferences, laws have sticky tendencies.</p><p>Unless, that is, they're brushed aside by those in power who don't <i>feel</i> like being obedient. People like Joyce deJong, who is the <i>de facto</i> Medical Examiner for almost all the counties in western Michigan. Of course there are laws on the books that control the <b>appointed</b> official that holds that title. But only if the local Commissioners will vigorously enforce them. Which they don't.</p><p>What is a citizen to do? File a lawsuit? Take one's petition of grievance to the other branch of government, the courts, who are tasked with playing referee to the arguments? Good luck with that - judges are free to be capricious and arbitrary if that's what they want to do.</p><p>In bigger cities, the business of civic duty can be vast and overwhelming, so a lot of pettiness gets put aside out of sheer necessity. That's not always the case in smaller places, <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2022/08/kalamazoo-public-safety-chief-accused-of-harassment-on-leave-city-says.html">like Kalamazoo</a>, where all our public servants could easily fit under one preacher's tent.</p><p>If our M.E., the vindictive and dishonest deJong, had to be an obedient public servant, my nephew's Death Certificate would reflect the truth. (She guesses he died by suicide; we know better.) This seemingly clerical-in-nature error doesn't make much difference to her, or to the rest of our community, but it is hurtful to my family and it skews vital statistics that the County compiles and provides to the federal government. [<i>Shrug</i>.]</p><p>In the mean time, Kalamazoo has evolved, or at least morphed in the seven-plus years that have dripped away since Charlie died. The city has officially changed its wide stance on other subjects... <a href="https://www.fox17online.com/news/local-news/kzoo-bc/kalamazoo/kalamazoo-business-owner-upset-after-decriminalization-of-public-urination-defecation-changes-in-city-codes">Like urinating and defecating in public.</a></p><p>Yeah. That's now legal in this town - well, "decriminalized". Why? Because hey, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go. As with everything in The Book of Charlie, you can't make this up.</p><p>Ergo, if you should find yourself in Kalamazoo, be advised to keep your head down, lest ye step right into a pile of human waste. Which we Hellers have been doing here for quite some time now.</p><p>pH 8.16.22</p><p>***</p><p><br /></p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-18192246113739716722022-04-08T07:32:00.018-07:002022-04-11T05:53:00.951-07:00Student Body, Right<p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>C</b></span>an intelligence be measured? Does it have a weight, a volume, a quantity consisting of units? Is it bespoken of materially, manifesting itself in property, propriety or prosperity?</p><p>Is it even an objective thing? Is it verifiable through achievement? Through notoriety? Personality? What tells the rest of the world that you're smart?</p><p>A baseline of some kind is in order to even have such a high-minded discussion. Although some blue-collar snobs may reject it, most of society would agree, graduating from college is a pretty decent sign of a workable IQ. I can accept that - and I don't have a college degree.</p><p>I know a little bit about graduate-level academia, though, because my Dad was a professor at Western Michigan University. I grew up knowing about the inner workings of the place - the politics and the little rubs that maybe caught Dr. Heller in a slightly wrong way.</p><p>But that was back in WMU's heyday, when the student body accounted for almost half of the City of Kalamazoo's population. That glory faded a long time ago. The latest numbers - metrics we can all get our hands on and our heads around - bear this out.</p><p>Enrollment is <a href="https://www.woodtv.com/news/kalamazoo-county/wmu-sees-drop-in-spring-semester-enrollment/">down dramatically</a> at Western, again, this time plunging by 8.6 percent. That follows an almost-as-calamitous 2021, when it dropped by 7.1 percent. In simpler terms, for every seven freshmen that arrived on WMU's leafy campus in 2020, six are showing up today.</p><p>Some eggheads out there might point to the pandemic as probable cause. But I don't know about that. Kalamazoo County wasn't exactly a Covid-19 hot spot like Kent County or Oakland County, plus, we generally stay away from each other here anyway.</p><p>Besides, isn't one person's pandemic another person's opportunity, creating healthcare demand on an unparalleled scale? Western Michigan University is home to Homer Stryker School of Medicine (WMed), after all.</p><p>Rather than more medical students being attracted, WMed has actually seen the number of applications it receives go down year after year, just like WMU. And they have yet to crack the Top 100 list for medical schools in nearly a decade of existence. (But they are also the contracted coroner for many counties in Michigan so the uptick in autopsies was, I suppose, greatly appreciated.)</p><p>Now let's stop playing dumb and look at some of the real reasons young people rely on when deciding where to take their scholastic talents. Start with tuition. Spending <i>one semester</i> at Western Michigan University will cost a student a little over $6,000... WMed, a lot more than that. Since everybody borrows the money anyway, you can throw a heaping helping of interest on top of that amount.</p><p>Indeed, just last year, the university decided it was prudent to hike tuition by 3.1% and room and board by 3%. This took place under the guidance of the university's new president, <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2022/04/western-michigan-must-turn-around-enrollment-decline-president-says-in-state-of-the-university-address.html">whoever that is</a>.</p><p>Now throw in some sociology. Kalamazoo has horrible weather, high crime, <a href="https://wwmt.com/news/local/consumers-energy-shares-safety-tips-spring-dig-season-miss-dogs-pool-mailbox-post-shrubs-gardening-kalamazoo-macomb-oakland-livingston-holly-bowers-damages-utilities-natural-gas-work-safety-wwmt-news-channel-3">broken infrastructure</a>, boring architecture, <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2022/03/avoid-woods-lake-after-5500-gallon-sewage-spill-city-of-kalamazoo-says.html">frightening pollution</a> and really bad roads. It's also chock full of mean people. And there are no solutions, because our city and county governments are stocked with self-interested C-average types who like to pick and choose which rules to follow, when to follow them.</p><p>This place has about as much sense of purpose and charm as a mouse trap. Not attending WMU, then, would be a sign of intelligence. This is a good place - to avoid. Do the smart thing. Pass on it.</p><p>And pass it on.</p><p>pH 4.o8.22</p><p>***</p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-48904338893973954892022-02-28T19:17:00.012-08:002022-03-18T10:24:25.875-07:00Some Sunny Day<p> <b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b>he Gods of War are walking the Earth.</p><p>The bravery of the Ukrainian people, juxtaposed against the cruelty of the Russian would-be Empire, is historic in its scope and depth, resonant with emotion, dynamically awful.</p><p>I may have beefs with my local government, we have our differences, but I would never call it tyranny. Not compared to what we see happening in older parts of the civilized world right now.</p><p>I'm a Gen-Xer. We were raised on all of the things that existed before everything we have today. We didn't have e-mail; we had paper and pens and envelopes and stamps. Our parents drove us around in station wagons, not "crossovers" or SUVs. We didn't have a remote control... We WERE the remote control.</p><p>The telephone was attached to the wall. Reading material was generally printed. We weren't allowed to use calculators in school because that was considered cheating. There was no Google - some families had an encyclopaedia at home, and beyond that, we had to deal with the Dewey Decimal System and the stupid Index Card Catalog at the library. </p><p>We adapted to all these changes, just as our forebears adapted from the slide rule to the computer. But one thing remained the same:</p><p>The threat of global thermonuclear war.</p><p>Having lost her young son in 2015, my sister has infrequently suggested that Charlie must have died in order to be spared some other horrific event... It's kind of hard to argue with that right now, with Russia's nuclear forces on high alert, their ICBMs aimed principally at us.</p><p>My dad, also a Charlie, is a retired geography professor, and he served in the Air Force way back when, as an officer. He has a pretty good understanding of which cities in America will be important targets to the enemy in the event of a nuclear exchange.</p><p>Kalamazoo is an unassuming rail and freeway hub connecting millions of people between major cities like Chicago, Detroit and Grand Rapids. <i>Strike One</i>.</p><p>We have an airport, a university (with a medical school no less) and two hospitals that serve the whole region. <i>Strike Two</i>.</p><p>And we have Pfizer, where the Covid-19 vaccine is produced, along with other drugs that enhance the quality of American life, such as Rogaine and Viagra. <i>Strike Three</i>.</p><p>In short: Kalamazoo's not gonna make it. The Russians probably have six, eight nukes with our general ZIP code on them (49oo1), maybe more. If the Gods of War decree it, none of us stand a chance.</p><p>Historically speaking, with the sand potentially running out of the hourglass, many bad people have sought to atone for their wrongs. They tried to get it off their consciences before the bitter end.</p><p>Not here. It's easier for them (and now, for us all) to stick our heads in the sand... As if that would save any of us from being flash-fried like toner on a piece of paper stuck in a copy machine.</p><p>pH 2.28.22</p><p>***</p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-79701200776403621562022-02-23T07:48:00.009-08:002022-03-16T07:46:37.467-07:00On Potholes and Autopsies<p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>M</b></span>ichigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is running for re-election this year in a contest that may as well be called "Snow White vs. The Seven Dwarfs". Her victory is as predictable as the potholes that reveal themselves each year when the winter ice sheet recedes.</p><p>While Whitmer's first term was considerably derailed by the Covid-19 pandemic, she ran in 2018 on a rather simple message, meant to appeal to everyone: "Fix the Damn Roads." She might as well run on that platform again, since the roads have most certainly not been fixed, at least not where I live.</p><p>While Kalamazoo itself is a joke, as cities go, poor road conditions in general are not. In India, for example, potholes are responsible for the deaths of 10 people per day. Michigan's motorists are more likely to pay with their savings accounts than with their lives, as their car suspension parts snap and buckle under the strain of unnecessary roughness.</p><p>So we don't invest in the roads here. Call it the Other Kalamazoo Promise: You will be replacing your tires, rims, shocks, struts, springs, ball joints, tie rod ends, wheel bearings and other parts on your vehicle on a regular basis if you choose to live or work here.</p><p>Is it somehow super-expensive to patch potholes? No... About $40 or $50 for the patching material, plus a couple of guys and a truck. Repaving the roads would be a much better solution, of course, and that costs anywhere between $300,000 and $900,000 per mile, depending on width and other physical factors.</p><p>So why wouldn't the city and the county want to <a href="https://wwmt.com/news/local/kalamazoo-to-share-plans-to-reconstruct-sagging-inkster-bridge">invest in our infrastructure</a>, even if the State government won't keep its word to do so? I guess we have other things to spend our money on around here. Lord knows we don't raise enough in taxes - if we did, we wouldn't have a bunch of billionaire <a href="https://time.com/6110450/kalamazoo-foundation-for-excellence/">patrons stocking the larder</a> like we do (something very few, if any, other cities have ever done).</p><p>One of the projects that the wealthy have brought to our town is called WMed. If you have read this blog even a few times, you know that WMed has contracts with nearly all the counties in Southwest Michigan and beyond to perform coroner services. They perform about 1,000 autopsies each year here, at a cost of about $3,300 per corpse.</p><p>If you cheated and used a calculator, you know that comes up to about $3.3 million per year. That's enough money to patch hundreds of thousands of potholes, or to pave between 3 and 10 miles of road each year. So why are our roads so much worse than our neighboring city of Portage?</p><p>Perhaps we have other priorities here. Perhaps the county is too busy fending off lawsuits - from citizens and former employees alike - to budget its resources sensibly.</p><p>Or maybe they just don't care.</p><p>It's kind of easy for me to believe the latter, seeing the way WMed's Chief Pathologist, Joyce deJong, lied her ass off on my nephew Charlie's death certificate. Even after she changed her story, she still refused to change the document!</p><p>If I lie to my boss, I get fired. If you lie to your boss, you get fired. But the Medical Examiner in Kalamazoo gets paid whether she chooses to be honest or not and her salary alone could pave, what, another quarter- to half-mile of road. Depending on width. And other physical factors.</p><p>Nothing changes here. No matter what promises are made or who is supposed to keep them, nothing gets put right. Not the coroner, not the roads, not the parasitic clowns who live off our consent to be governed. You can think about this stuff the next time you're waiting for your car to be repaired... I tend to think about it a little more often than that.</p><p>pH 2.23.22</p><p>***</p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-4158580238614082272022-01-26T19:38:00.027-08:002022-02-04T09:02:20.748-08:00Kalte Nacht<p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>N</b></span>azi madman Josef Mengele enjoyed experimenting on innocent children. Among other horrific things, the bad doctor liked to stick them in freezers. History and God alike have damned him for it.</p><p>Mengele got away with his sadistic insanity in real time because, hey, he was a government official when he did it. That's the sort of rotted nonsense most any evildoer will deploy until it crumbles in the face of actual justice.</p><p>Fast-forward to Kalamazoo in the year 2022. And swallow hard.</p><p>Somewhere out there, on this sub-zero night, is an evicted citizen named Issa Smith and her small children. Maybe indoors, maybe not. This time of year, when it gets this cold in Michigan, an industrial freezer would likely be warmer than any local park bench.</p><p>Homelessness, in this environment, is akin to a death sentence. So who bears responsibility? Who would turn a single mom and her vulnerable youngsters out in these circumstances? Not the murderer Mengele; he's dead.</p><p>It was, <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2022/01/kalamazoo-family-evicted-in-freezing-winter-after-court-battle-with-nonprofit-landlord.html">in fact</a>, Kalamazoo County's 9th Circuit Court Judge Alexander C. Lipsey. That's who decided it was in the public interest that children should shiver. Over a landlord-tenant dispute. Like most judges in this morally frostbitten town, he sided with the powerful, against the powerless.</p><p>He's a judge. He has the discretion to do just about anything he wants, within or without the law (I've seen him do it firsthand), and this is the decision he made.</p><p>Look, I'm not going to further excoriate the guy, since it's obvious to any decent person just how fucked up that is. But I will point out that he has made <a href="https://www.fox17online.com/2014/04/07/bronson-faces-civil-suit-for-summer-camp-molestation">rulings in the past</a> that also negatively impacted the lives of single mothers and their little ones - rulings that veer into outright cruelty.</p><p>An objective glance at his history proves that he's practically <a href="https://casetext.com/case/heller-v-dejong">made a living doing it,</a> which may cause you to wonder, why? Why would he harbor resentment for the most helpless members of our society?</p><p>The bargain-bin judge isn't the only public servant to blame around here, though, as dishonorable as he is. Ms. Smith contacted the members of the City and County Commissions in Kalamazoo - her representatives - asking for help. They opted to ignore her.</p><p>It all sounds pretty familiar to us Hellers.</p><p>As a woman and her children may be freezing to death out there tonight, the rest of us at least get the faint comfort of knowing that Lipsey's reign of (t)error is coming to an end. He won't be allowed to run for office after his current term expires because of his advanced age. That's the law...</p><p>Because here in Michigan, we know, throwbacks aren't necessarily a good thing. We know that as surely as we know that the temperatures will plummet in late January.</p><p>pH 1.26.22</p><p>***</p><p><br /></p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-17087962212803823192021-10-28T09:19:00.018-07:002022-02-04T09:16:27.569-08:00Season of the Witch<p><b><span style="font-size: large;">D</span></b>espite all that happens here on Her scorching surface, Mother Earth just keeps rolling along, unimpeded by our mental ideas about time and space, unbothered by the billionaire gnats flitting about her watery, verdant, rocky celestial body. Whatever "it" may be, "it" matters not to <i>Terra Mater</i>.</p><p>For the inhabitants of our solar system's shining blue jewel, frantically flipping the pages on our calendars, it means that we have again reached the end of October. Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, the crops have been picked, the leaves are turning colors, the frost is on the grass. Finally...</p><p>Halloween.</p><p>It is the anti-Holiday, the subject of horror movies, a moonlit celebration of pagan trickery and artful deceit. Disguises. A night of calculated movement in the darkness. Some people would prefer that to be every night, with or without the candy.</p><p>Of course, it has been duded up for daylight nowadays. "Trunk or Treat" has largely supplanted the traditional way of doing things, conducted under the hovering gaze of parenthood in school and/or church parking lots - what good is that?</p><p>The shepherds of utopia have wrung the fun out of Halloween, compared to the way it used to be, there is no doubt about that. And progress only goes in one direction, so we're not about to go trudging back to the wicked old days.</p><p>Amidst the tragedy of the loss of my nephew Charlie, there is still a black light shining on some of the things we shared during his short lifetime. Halloween was one of Charlie's favorite holidays (right up there with his birthday and Christmas). I've written about it here before.</p><p>He was not a Treat-Trunker or whatever the hell you'd call that. He was old school, donning a damn good costume each year, coming home with enough sugar to feed the Army. The kid loved it. And I at least get to live with the knowledge that he got to experience Halloween in much the same way that I did.</p><p>Part of the thrill involved in such stealthy - almost professional - skulking was the fact that there really was danger out there. Some children, being bigger and lazier and less creative than their peers, opted for criminality instead of ingenuity. Going door-to-door in a methodical accumulation of goodies was simply not for them.</p><p>They'd let the others, their victims, do that hard work for them. At the right moment, they'd jump someone, ripping the heavy pillowcase from their frantic little hands, then go thudding off into the gloom.</p><p>Bullies. The very reason that clowns are scary.</p><p>Dedicated Trick-or-Treaters were mindful of that, and would either wear running shoes, or travel in packs. Or both. Bullies can travel in packs, too, after all.</p><p>One of the problems facing society today, another thing that our planet does not much notice, is that bullies run rampant among us, even as belabored adults. In response, the same people who come up with things like Trunk-or-Treat have tried to eliminate bullying from schools by decree. They tried to teach it out of humanity. But that won't work and should not be attempted.</p><p>Our parents taught us how to handle bullies. Ignore them at first, but if they escalate the confrontation, you had to know how to fight. And fight we did. Because bullies don't want to fight; they want to bully. And when you fight them, they generally go find somebody else to pick on.</p><p>We were not shielded from this harsh reality of the world because our elders knew that bullying does not end when childhood does, as if slated to do so on the calendar. They are all around us, among our bosses and co-workers and neighbors and fellow congregants.</p><p>They're on the Internet. They're in our government. They're on the other side of oceans that, like the trees on the street I grew up on, don't seem so big as they used to.</p><p>They are the real-life monsters and demons that we live with for all 365 days of the year. I believe in ghosts.</p><p>And I've known a few witches... Haven't I, Joyce?</p><p>pH 1o.28.21</p><p>***</p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-58670455075697147692021-06-09T15:04:00.014-07:002021-06-10T06:08:30.844-07:00Class of Twenty-One<p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>I</b></span>'d rather not try to impress you with my linguistic skills this time, if that's cool. I'd rather not worry about Oxford commas or dangling participles just now. It's best if I just deliver the information without the butter, the syrup... Mostly syrup.</p><p>This is the year that my nephew Charlie would have graduated from high school. He would have attended the same fine learning institution that all of us Heller kids attended: Kalamazoo's <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/clip/26680253/dr-loy-norrix-dies-at-desk-02-jan-1958/">Loy Norrix High School.</a></p><p>Even though Charlie did not get to experience Norrix in the academic sense, he was familiar enough with the place. We took him to a basketball game or two there, where I fulfilled any Uncle's solemn duty where his school-age nephew is concerned. I taught him how to properly heckle.</p><p>The kid missed out on so much. That happens around here. You can <a href="https://andmakethemcry.blogspot.com/2016/05/chapter-ten-alphabetical-order.html">take my word for it</a> as a Loy Norrix Knight.</p><p>But before I was a Knight, I was a Lancer, at Milwood Junior High. A boy we all knew back then, Billy Fleming, drowned in his own swimming pool in the summer between 7th and 8th grades (we heard). He was a mischievous kid, bright and funny, blonde hair, very much like Charlie was.</p><p>It's quite a shock, having mortality thrown in your face at such a young age. 8th grade is kind of weird, anyway, and when you're that age, you don't yet know how to process things or even how the hell they get processed. And it seems like we kind of collectively forgot about Billy after moving on to high school... Big changes, you know?</p><p>But on the day of Loy Norrix High School's Graduating Class of 1986, we all got a colorful and jolting reminder. There was a huge balloon bouquet in one of the front row seats at the ceremony. For William Fleming.</p><p>Class of Eighty-Six.</p><p>I told my sister about this a while ago - she remembers; she was friends with Billy's older sister - and she arranged for Loy Norrix High School to have a seat available for Charlie, with a similar gesture, when his class takes that sweet stroll across the stage.</p><p>Congratulations, kids...</p><p>Go <b><span style="font-size: medium;">KNIGHTS</span>.</b></p><p>pH 6.o9.21</p><p>***</p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-15576877606966410602021-05-15T05:51:00.007-07:002021-05-19T06:00:44.536-07:00Behind the Mask<p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>T</b></span>he CDC has issued its decree that America can finally take off its collective mask. So we can all see each other's faces. Notice we are not smiling.</p><p>What is there to be happy about? We are all standing at the bottom of a hole looking up. The future holds for us not some utopian better thing, but rather, the same thing we had before.</p><p>Not good enough.</p><p>They want us to return to work, but at the same wages. They want us to go back to the stores, but with higher prices. They want us to all get along, but they won't end the constant gridlock.</p><p>Who are "They"? The government, of course, and its obligatory corporate paymasters. This is not a rant about Big Government, however; at least Big Government thought to throw some money at us. No, upon further review, the problem is (and always has been) <i>small</i> government.</p><p>Unless you really stick your head out and bother them, the federal government doesn't have time to take stuff personally. Large cities excluded, your local government likely doesn't have anything else to do, and that can be detrimental to every citizen.</p><p>Sometimes the results can be as devastating as the horrific fate that befell George Floyd and others. That's classic small government abuse (or, y'know, murder). Yet the use of soft power against the people can be almost as harmful.</p><p>That's the deal here in Kalamazoo. We've got an uppity Medical Examiner (Joyce deJ<span>o</span><span>ng</span>) who made a sickening mistake in classifying my nephew Charlie's death as a suicide. This was devastating to my sister, and to my whole family, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask for that official public record to be changed.</p><p>But change it they won't. They defended their decision - which <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3756574615810228774/1683903393910834219">they admit was erroneous</a> - all the way to the State Supreme Court. And as residential taxpayers in this County, we even <a href="https://andmakethemcry.blogspot.com/2020/02/invoicentory.html">provided the funding</a> for them to do it.</p><p>That's unacceptable. What is also unacceptable is the fact that the same Medical Examiner surreptitiously shared information with the wannabe-plaintiffs who sued me, attempting to take this blog down, because she didn't like it. That idiotic endeavor failed, and amidst that failure, mistakes were made. Perjury was committed.</p><p>Then they did what? What? They took out their big brooms, and swept it all under the rug. No dirt here in Kalamazoo! See? Nothing that's bad for you. No reason to wear a mask.</p><p>Since the people who run my County are so fond of those brooms, I have a suggestion, another way they might consider using them:</p><p>Climb on. And fly away.</p><p>pH 5.15.21</p><p>***</p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-78151917353283290752021-04-11T09:19:00.005-07:002021-04-11T09:44:26.830-07:00Odds and Ends (Justify the Means)<p>As life goes on without my nephew Charlie, I often find myself at some juncture or other thinking, "The kid would have loved this." Other times, obviously, I find myself taking the opposite point of view.</p><p>The coronavirus pandemic has staying power here in Michigan, even if the governor does not. She has been reduced (by our legi$lature and our ©ourts) to public pleading: Stay at home, wear your masks, wash your hands.</p><p>I don't know how many of us are buying in anymore in certain parts of the state. Our urban centers are hit the hardest. I would not call Kalamazoo a real city - no chance of that ever happening - but it could provide a haven for those who want to get away from the spread.</p><p>Nationally, 10 percent of the population has tested positive for Covid-19. While Grand Rapids is in the Top Ten cities where cases are concerned, our polluted little river valley is not. Here, only 1 in 16 County residents have experienced the virus.</p><p>Why, you're just as likely to be the victim of a crime in our city limits, no greater statistical likelihood than that. And most of those are just property crimes.</p><p>The violent crime rate here is about three times higher than the state average, sure, but it's still lower than it is in, like, Detroit. (Assaults, mostly; barely over a hundred rapes each year and only a double-handful of murders.) And, least heralded of all, we've made a lot of progress on our feral cat problem.</p><p>Only 580 residents in Kalamazoo County have been hospitalized by the virus, about 1 in 500... 287 deaths, which is less than 1 in 1,000. That's the same fatality rate associated with motorbike racing, and who does that? Maybe that's why fewer than 1 in 4 of us have been vaccinated here...</p><p>Anyway, even though Charlie can't be here to see all of this, you can be! Save yourself from the pandemic. Leave your disease-stricken metropolises and come to Kalamazoo.</p><p>Just don't look at the Townies the wrong way.</p><p>pH 4.11.21</p><p>***</p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-36069471165142904502021-03-26T04:24:00.012-07:002021-03-26T05:10:16.452-07:00Timber<p><i>"Consumers signing any contract with a business do so with the expectation that they will be treated fairly." - Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel</i></p><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;">***</span></p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">A</span><span>s</span> a consumer, and as a citizen, I have two reactions to the Attorney General's broad statement, which is in reference to a logging company lying to its customers about how much and what kind of timber it had removed from their properties.</span></p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;">First reaction: Uh, no.</span></p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;">Second one: Thanks for nothing, Dana.</span></p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;">As a citizen of Kalamazoo County, I am also bound as a consumer to the contract the County has signed with Homer Stryker School of Medicine (alias: WMed) to conduct forensic pathology work. Y'know... Coroner services.</span></p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;">When the <strike>lying skank</strike> Medical Examiner, "Doctor" Joyce deJong, bungled my nephew Charlie's death certificate in 2015, and even admitted that she made up the official circumstances she used in erroneously determining Suicide, she was not made to treat us fairly. </span>Anything but.</p></div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;">Of course, the Attorney General and everybody else knows about the whole thing already. If she doesn't know - and it is possible; Michigan's adult literacy rate isn't what it used to be - then I have two more reactions, as a citizen and as a consumer:</span></p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;">First reaction: Shame on you, Dana.</span></p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;">Second one: Start at Chapter One.</span></p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;">I know, it's easier to take a stand when there's nothing but lumber at stake. You don't have to go out on a limb for anybody. No one sees that your bark is worse than your bite. You're not a wooden politician, no. You're the Lorax. You speak for the trees.</span></p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;">But not for the people who elected you.</span></p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;">The facts: If one dies here, the coroner can capriciously make up anything she wants and put it on one's death certificate. No Commissioner, no Representative, no Senator will help you. No judge will step out of the County line to relieve your family of their anguish, from lowly Circuit Judge Lipsey to the Michigan State Supremacy Court.</span></p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;">At the very most, all these selfish ham-and-eggers will do is listen politely, smile and nod and check their manicures, and then when you leave, they'll go right back to doing what they were doing, which is nothing. They do nothing, they care nothing.</span></p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;">That's why nothing ever changes here in Little Shitsville. Not since I was a kid. Unless it was to change for the worse.</span></p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;">And really, this is all that awaits any weary traveler that jumps off I-94 on any of our, what, four freeway exits. Take it from one who knows:</span></p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;">Don't come here. Don't spend your money here. Don't look for an education or a job or a home here. Don't raise your kids here. Unless you want to be drowned in your own tears. Because that's all what ever happens in Kalamazoo.</span></p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="color: black;">pH 3.26.21</span></p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr">***</p></div>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-62460635773186570872021-03-04T03:13:00.012-08:002021-03-04T03:55:36.299-08:00Miracle Miles<p><b><span style="font-size: large;">B</span></b>oys love cars. Or, at least, all the boys I knew growing up did. Charlie carried that auto-adoration in his heart, too. He would often use them as a play space in the driveway. He made forts in the backs of the SUVs. He even stowed away in the back seat of my sister's car when she went to work on one fine, eventful day - but that's another story.</p><p>All <a href="https://andmakethemcry.blogspot.com/2017/11/vrrooomm-vvrrroooommm.html">the cars that Charlie knew</a> are long gone from the world now, just as he is, having succumbed to catastrophic failures or fatal accidents. As a matter of fact, even the cars that replaced those ones are on their way out. The years and the miles, the tears and the smiles, those things take their toll.</p><p>When I came home from Phoenix in 2011, I was driving a Hyundai which I called Little Grizzly (or The Gray Ghost, depending on whether it was running or not at the time). It had a 16-valve engine and a stick-shift, and the first time I took my nephew for a ride in it, I warned him:</p><p>"Buckle up, kid. Uncle Paul drives crazy sometimes." </p><p>Which he loved with gleaming eyes. </p><p>My Uncle-ish pleasure was doubled when I later heard him say to one of his friends, upon climbing into the back of the Little Grizzly to be taken someplace, "Buckle up, man. Uncle Paul drives crazy."</p><p>The Gray Ghost outlived Charlie. But not by much. Its replacement, a black Neon that he would be driving to school and back by now, is limping to its own finish line. Between Michigan roads and Michigan weather, the car has about had it.</p><p>Yesterday, my sister and I drove out close to Lansing (an hour away) to look at a used car, a Buick. The car was immaculate, clearly having been babied and garaged its whole life. I stuck my head underneath it to look at the frame, and was amazed. Solid steel coated in factory paint. Not a speck of rust.</p><p>You see, it's not just the water that gets them, even though Michigan has rainfall on par with Seattle or any other rainforest. It's the tons of rock salt they put on the roads in winter, you know, to save lives. The salt-slush freezes on to the undercarriage of the cars and trucks here, for weeks or even months, and eats them until there's nothing left. Corrosion is more than a metaphor here.</p><p>The other thing I noticed about buying a car out of town: Normal people. You do not run into that when searching for a used car here. Basically, Kalamazoo can be boiled down into four subgroups: Bums, thieves, tweekers and crazies. The nice couple with the Buick did not meet any of those criteria, which is why they don't live in Kalamazoo.</p><p>My sister bought the Buick. She deserves a nice vehicle after all that has been done to her here.</p><p>And so before us all lies the open road. Like the instructions say... Tear along the dotted line.</p><p>pH 3.o4.21</p><p>***</p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-46814884896056706472021-02-19T07:27:00.022-08:002021-02-22T08:03:40.436-08:00This One's For You, Erik<p><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b>here is an occasionally-expressed sentiment that we run across in our <a href="https://blog.usejournal.com/takeaways-from-the-story-of-sisyphus-and-the-rock-81721c6e499">Sisyphean</a> struggle, a variant of, "Why can't you just let it go?" It's tempting to take offense to that, even if the utterer is unaware of his or her idiocy in the moment.</p><p>My answer is always short and simple: Kalamazoo County is not telling the truth in the case of Dennis Charles Wolf. Nobody here wants anything more than honesty (yet). <a href="http://chng.it/2fRKLbzCcZ">Public officials are employees</a>. Who among us would tolerate our workers lying to our faces?</p><p>Secondarily, of course, is the noble notion of not wanting to see this happen to anybody else. But it's hard to fly that flag in this place, where fresh winds seldom fill our sails. Such things become harder to justify when you know it's been done before.</p><p><a href="https://m.facebook.com/JusticeForErik/posts/2044770779089123">Ask Erik's Army.</a></p><p>Erik Cross was a kid about the same age as I was when he was killed in 1983, run over by a car as he walked home from a party on an otherwise-normal summer night in Southwest Michigan. His family believes it was a case of horrifying murder. <a href="https://www.google.com/amp/s/wwmt.com/amp/news/local/marching-for-justice-eriks-army-demands-resolution-in-37-year-old-cold-case">They seek justice to this very day.</a></p><p>Seems they can't let it go.</p><p>And I don't blame 'em.</p><p>What they are up against is more monstrous than what we've experienced. Imagine living with the knowledge that your loved one's vicious killer still roams free (<a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2016/06/cold_case_homicide_suspect_bac.html">for the most part</a>). </p><p>They're not shy about exposing the details, either. My sister and I got sued for exposing someone's disturbing criminal history - in Michigan they call that defamation - but Erik's Army is a bit more strident, a bit more explicit than that.</p><p>I completely understand their reasons for being this way. They've run into the same roadblocks that we run into, year after year. It basically amounts to a cowardly County prosecutor who isn't about to take on any case that he doesn't know for sure he can win. <a href="https://www.mlive.com/opinion/kalamazoo/2013/09/julie_mack_whites_blind_spot_a.html">(In other words, one against White people.)</a></p><p>For their part, Michigan's Attorney General's office <a href="https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/2020/01/24/michigan-ag-not-enough-evidence-to-file-charges-in-1983-cold-case-murder/">did no more for the Cross family</a> than they did for my family (less, actually). They, too, may not want to actually <i>work</i>. The cream of the Slacker Generation crop, they prefer to cash their checks, gobble down their meals and look good in the papers... All for rather handsome pay.</p><p>Erik Cross deserves justice. So does my nephew. But<a href="https://wkzo.com/2020/02/27/kalamazoo-county-prosecutor-running-for-reelection/989091/"> Jeff Getting doesn't have to do his job.</a> He ran unopposed. Nobody else wants to be him, or anything like him.</p><p>It should all make you wonder: Why would anybody want to live here? Absent justice for those who deserve it, there is no answer to that question, and none of us can afford to feel safe. Or whole.</p><p>pH 2.19.21</p><p>***</p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-8044442914611645122021-01-30T09:56:00.014-08:002021-02-05T12:18:17.478-08:00Whether Report<p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>S</b></span>ince not much is happening around here this time of year, I guess I can fall back on the weather. Global warming has not affected Michigan as much as it has other places. It's actually a little milder in the summer these years, and the winters don't bring as much snow.</p><p>We can blame the annual polar vortex for that. Instead of getting wet weather from the Southwest pushed in our direction, turning rain into snow, we get cold, intrusive air from a thousand miles north of us, nesting over the Great Lakes. It makes Siberia seem like <a href="https://youtu.be/uepk00K-vfE">summer in Siam</a>.</p><p>It snows once in awhile. And because it's so cold, day and night, that snow sits around for months, getting dirtier all the time. It's as bleak as a moonscape here. The only warmth comes from the prevailing Westerly winds bringing Chicago's emissions right into the funnel of the Kalamazoo River Valley.</p><p>The pandemic took a bad situation and made it worse. Even the animals have moved out of the woods and into town. It's not uncommon to hit deer on roadways where they were never seen before. Illicit urban hunting has become a thing, the most brazen form of poaching... So, yes, the economy in Michigan is so bad now that people are killing and eating the animals.</p><p>Naturally, property crime has increased. Someone just cut the catalytic converter out from under my Ford a couple of weeks ago. Muggings are sure to rise, purse snatchings, break-ins, stuff like that.</p><p>Most people don't even bother to call the police, because they're pretty sure the same thing will happen as did the time before: Nothing. What can the police do? Even if they were to prosecute every crime that happens around here, the courts don't seem to be able to make sense of much of anything.</p><p>So if you're Walter White, you're doing great; otherwise, you're just another victim of our woeful economy, a collateral casualty resulting from the dull, vapid mediocrity of <a href="https://www.wmuk.org/post/kalamazoo-commission-divided-city-manager#stream/0">our hapless local officials.</a></p><p>We have a governor who would love to do all sorts of nice things for the people, as any good Governor would want to do, but an opposition party in the legislature that would just as soon tie her hands behind her back, some more literally than figuratively.</p><p>It's hopeless.</p><p>Wayfarers be warned: For the vast majority of the United States, Michigan is North of you. Let that be your compass - just don't go North - because once you get up here, the sun disappears and the needle just spins around and around and around...</p><p>pH 1.3o.21</p><p>***</p><p><br /></p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-38758986916756129492021-01-25T10:12:00.008-08:002021-06-04T13:26:10.643-07:00Quacks Like a Duck<p><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">I</span></b> just sent the following to one of the local reporters who is looking into the unfortunate case against my sister, Charlie's Mom. And it's not the only thing I've sent.</i></p><p>***</p><p>Hello. Please see attached, a long-ago-sent email from then-Corporations Counsel Thom Canny (I think he works in Probate now) having to do with my sister's case. In his <a href="http://andmakethemcry.blogspot.com/2019/09/exhibition-day.html?m=1">letter to my sister's lawyer</a>, at the end, you can see that Kalamazoo County tried to violate my free speech rights. They sought to make the changing of Charlie's Cause of Death contingent upon my legal silence.</p><div>After we rejected that offer (or attempted extortion, whatever you want to call it), Redmond sued me, with the plaintiff receiving a fax from the Medical Examiner [<i>Redmond <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/11FuXSFE3XL2NzqERPDV1a5CZ0ntA6-H1/view?ts=600f13dd">lied about having received it</a> under oath - pH</i>]. This resulted in one blog post being removed by Judge Lipsey's ex parte Order, several others modified out of fear of further claims, and a chilling effect - exactly the County's intent.</div><div><br clear="none" /></div><div>It was in that endeavor that Martha Redmond committed perjury. So I am not stretching it by saying that the Medical Examiner is directly involved in this horrible lawsuit against my family, which would prefer to grieve in peace.</div><div><br clear="none" /></div><div>I hope this makes sense, although I doubt it. It doesn't make sense to me sometimes. But it's a big part of the story. Why did Joyce deJong send that fax to Martha Redmond? And what other communications did they have? Unanswered questions.</div><div><br clear="none" /></div><div>When I filed a FOIA request with Kalamazoo County for all communications between Joyce and Redmond Funeral Homes, the reply I got was that no such communications existed. But obviously one did, with both sender's and receiver's information stamped on the document! So, Joyce, too, lied in this case, about the same thing.</div><div><br clear="none" /></div><div>Combined with the Canny letter, it's pretty clear that my civil rights were violated by the County where the First Amendment is concerned, and Judge Lipsey (who oversaw both my sister's cases somehow) was going to sweep it all under the rug.</div><div><br clear="none" /></div><div>Have a good day. Sorry to take up so much of your time with this.</div><div><br /></div><div>***</div><div><br /></div><div>pH 1.25.21</div>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-42151779759970884262021-01-25T09:53:00.002-08:002021-01-25T09:53:38.225-08:00Disrespect for the Dead<p> <b style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">J</span></b><span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif;">ust in case you're behind on your annual quota of nightmares, here is a supplemental one fresh from America's Nightmare Garden, Kalamazoo County.</span></p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif;">Check that... It's <i>Defendant</i> Kalamazoo County this time. The crowd with the pitchforks and torches is heading for the Admin building again, over basic larceny by conversion, looks like.</p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif;">The outgoing County Treasurer, Mary Balkema, could probably care less. She got thumped like a tub in last month's historic election, and will soon be filling out job applications, one might suppose. But it's her shop that made headlines this week, sort of.</p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif;">I'll link you to the article, which tells the horror story better than I'll be able to, but the gist of the grist is simply this: If you die here, and owed delinquent taxes on your property, we'll seize that property and sell it.</p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif;">Yeah. Now imagine your foreclosed home sells at auction for, say, $79,500... But the outstanding tax debt was only $14,500. That means the deceased citizen's heirs would have $65,000 coming their way, seem right? <a href="https://wwmt.com/news/local/foreclosed-homeowners-son-files-suit-to-force-kalamazoo-county-to-pay-up-on-tax-sale" style="color: #993300; text-decoration-line: none;">Yep, seems right.</a></p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif;">And that <b>is</b> right as of only very recently. Kalamazoo County used to simply keep the funds. Screw the people. But we didn't change our stripes; the Michigan Supreme Court had to change our stripes for us last July after a lawsuit was filed. Which is usually how things have to be done here.</p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif;">However, the state Supreme Court didn't tell counties WHEN they had to pay back the money, and so Kalamazoo doesn't do it at all, which is how we got sued. From the horse's front end:</p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #121212;">"They're kind of punting it to the Legislature for them to make a legislative fix," </span><span style="color: #121212;">says</span><span style="color: #121212;"> Balkema, who knows a thing or two about the subject</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-size: 16px;">, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: inherit;">having been kicked out of public office by the voters just weeks ago.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="color: #121212;"><span style="background-color: white;">Balkema has also mercilessly foreclosed on people's homes, for as little as $2,000 in tax delinquency. Much of that money was funneled to her favorite contractor, or given to the charity run by the mother of County Commissioner Stephanie Moore. This culminated in an investigation by the Michigan State Police, at the behest of former Corporations Counsel Beth White, who was summarily fired.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="color: #121212;"><span style="background-color: white;">(White turned around and filed a wrongful termination lawsuit, and the county reached a settlement with her, shelling out $300,000. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212;">This is all old news here, okay? </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212;">Old news. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212;">Like so many other cases in Kalamazoo that will turn your stomach.)</span></p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="color: #121212;"><span style="background-color: white;">So I am glad to see Visser Law suing our County. I hope we lose big and are forced to pay. In fact, I may even </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212;">start a petition drive to </span><i style="color: #121212;">raise</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212;"> our taxes in Kalamazoo County across the board, in order to make whole those victims of the cruel, sausage-fingered idiots who run this asylum.</span></p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="color: #121212;"><span style="background-color: white;">Now, what was the other item I was looking - oh, yeah... That's right.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="color: #121212;"><span style="background-color: white;">When considering the goings-on in a dirty little shire like ours, it should come as no surprise that Michigan schools have <a href="https://wkzo.com/2020/12/11/80005/" style="color: #993300; text-decoration-line: none;">fallen quite short</a> on the number of pupils they expected to have, by about 53,000 kids.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="color: #121212;"><span style="background-color: white;">Local media estimates our share to be a 5% decrease in the student body, with 690 "lost" learners. This, despite The Kalamazoo Promise, a program that provides college tuition for those who can survive the Kalamazoo Public School system. (Having run that gauntlet myself, I can tell you, there are easier <a href="https://www.studentdebtrelief.us/news/does-the-military-pay-for-college/#:~:text=pays%20for%20college.-,Military%20Tuition%20Assistance,exceed%20%244%2C500%20per%20fiscal%20year." style="color: #993300; text-decoration-line: none;">ways to pay for college</a>.)</span></span></p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212;">A five-point drop, though, that's pretty startling. Imagine if this was way back when Titus Bronson was in charge. Imagine the little one-room schoolhouse with 20 children in it... And then imagine, one day, one of them just </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212;">doesn't show up anymore.</span></p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212;">Call him Charlie. A</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212;">nd don't expect this place to care.</span></p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="color: #121212;"><span style="background-color: white;">pH 12.18.2o</span></span></p><p style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="color: #121212;"><span style="background-color: white;">***</span></span></p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-5121662711817407352020-12-05T06:48:00.021-08:002020-12-10T07:22:28.350-08:00The Cowards of the County<p><b style="font-size: x-large;">T</b>he past few presidential elections in the United States have shown us one thing. County governments have too much power - too much importance commensurate with the functions they actually have to perform. The will of half of the nation's people should never be placed in the hands of a few counties, but that is indeed the case, every four years.</p><p>And what do these peculiar creatures do with this power? Sometimes they get busy feathering their own nests. Or doling out favors to those who are owed them. And sometimes they take that opportunity to reach into the Payback Bag.</p><p>My county, in particular, seems a little bit more concerned with personal matters than it does with carrying out whatever the hell its functions really are. This becomes tiresome even to the people who work there. The turnover rate is alarmingly high, so high in fact that the office of Corporations Counsel now sits vacant. They've been farming that stuff out for a long time now - at no small expense to the taxpayers.</p><p>Other things cost the taxpayers a pretty penny now and then. The most recent example is <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2020/11/kalamazoo-county-pays-out-300k-in-settlement-with-fired-attorney.html">the settlement that had to be reached with </a>former Corporations Counsel Beth White. White was fired, thank God, a while back and so filed a federal lawsuit against Kalamazoo County for wrongful termination and such.</p><p>Part of her lawsuit demanded she be reinstated to her job, with full pay and benefits of course. Perhaps she felt she had some unfinished business here in our polluted little river valley... With me.</p><p>After all, Beth did try to turn me in to the Undersheriff, ostensibly for threatening our wrong-doing M.E., Joyce deJong, which was patently ridiculous. I'd guess that it made her look stupid. And it may have played a part in her firing. (I would hope so.)</p><p>Anyway, after getting canned, Beth rolled back up to Kent County, where she went on to lose an election in November... Like the Quakers say, tough oats.</p><p>Her pricklily-worded lawsuit specifically mentioned County Commissioner Julie Rogers. Ms. Rogers is now my House Rep in the Michigan state legislature, having won her election in November, unlike Beth.</p><p>Like Beth, Ms. Rogers knows damn near every detail about our case(s) having to do with my nephew Charlie's erroneous Death Certificate. So does my state senator, Sean McCann. So do most of the County Commissioners. So do all of Beth White's predecessors going back to Thom Canny. So does Kalamazoo County's 9th Circuit Court. So does the Michigan Court of Appeals, and the Michigan Supreme Court. So does the Attorney General. So does the Southwest Michigan chapter of the ACLU. So do half the attorneys in this town. So do half the reporters who cover it.</p><p>So do you.</p><p>Some might ask: Why. Why would anyone go out of their way to compound the grief of a mother who lost her child? Why completely ignore the wishes of some of the citizens who sign your paychecks? Why risk your political futures (read: Your careers) by irritating a high-volume blogger?</p><p>It doesn't make any sense.</p><p>If you never want to find out, all you have to do is never come to Kalamazoo County, and that's my recommendation anyway. If only Beth White had known.</p><p>pH 12.o5.2o</p><p>***</p><p><br /></p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-15256440106513314532020-11-21T07:32:00.020-08:002020-11-30T06:41:24.765-08:00Seasoning<p><b><span style="font-size: large;">I</span></b>t's hunting season. I don't do that anymore, because I enjoy access to food, and I don't find it sporting to destroy nature on a full stomach. Even so, every morning well before light, my eyes snap open and my brain is activated. This time of year, I still feel like I belong in the woods.</p><p>I have a small game license if I need it. I stay up on the regulations so I can freely exercise that privilege. And one has to pay careful attention because they change quite frequently. For instance, you can hunt deer over a limited quantity of certain types of bait in the Upper Peninsula this year, but not in the Lower Peninsula.</p><p>If you get confused about that, you might well run afoul of Michigan's Department of Natural Resources, as represented on the ground by their Conservation Officers. These men and women are the most highly trained law enforcement agents in the state of Michigan. They have nearly unlimited power to arrest people or to confiscate their property.</p><p>You can bet that if a DNR officer submits a complaint to your County prosecutor against you that the case will be taken up, and that you will shell out thousands of dollars if you've done something wrong, like killing a deer without a license. In short, they can mess your life up.</p><p>They can save your life, too. Whenever a motorboat dies out on the water, or whenever an ATV rider hits a tree, or whenever an unlucky angler falls through the ice, or whenever a little kid gets lost in the woods, there is almost always a CO involved in rescuing that person.</p><p>When the state of Michigan decided it could not trust Enbridge Energy to tell the truth about the condition of an antique oil pipeline running through the Straits of Mackinac in the Great Lakes, they sent their own dive team, consisting of DNR officers, to the bottom of the lake to get footage. Once they saw it, they <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/11/13/whitmer-moves-shut-down-enbridges-line-5/6279755002/">ordered the pipeline shut down.</a> Not many other states have the ability to do that.</p><p>However...</p><p>Law enforcement should also exist to protect people in the same way that they protect fish and ducks around here. And in the tragic case of my sister's son, that has not been our experience. She has been damaged by this. Literally.</p><p>I have made no secret of the fact that the two plaintiffs who are suing her both committed <a href="http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(vqf4f2cifhei0tfc0vju420s))/mileg.aspx?page=GetObject&objectname=mcl-750-423#:~:text=(1)%20Any%20person%20authorized%20by,not%20more%20than%2015%20years.">perjury</a> during deposition testimony. Nobody cares. But they care about this:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvI-SegXIyq14TyYUu189R2DonQ9ulkZubqA3UuH6NH7S26Iy8Bm5KgvKOQMfKfTM6Xhe6vpADEYfUIf0JYp_ixeiFH8E-KXpYqwpfZMSYnfC1bNdNjTpH14UmnRyOG02DscIldXKVNEEA/s1255/20201121_100333%257E2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1121" data-original-width="1255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvI-SegXIyq14TyYUu189R2DonQ9ulkZubqA3UuH6NH7S26Iy8Bm5KgvKOQMfKfTM6Xhe6vpADEYfUIf0JYp_ixeiFH8E-KXpYqwpfZMSYnfC1bNdNjTpH14UmnRyOG02DscIldXKVNEEA/s320/20201121_100333%257E2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>(Courtesy of <i>Michigan Outdoor News.)</i></p><p>In other words Kalamazoo County will be prosecuting the Infamous 2020 Daddy-Daughter Spring Turkey Conspiracy, wholeheartedly, just in time for Thanksgiving. But if you are a <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Redmond+Funeral+Home&oq=red&aqs=chrome.2.69i59l3j69i57j69i60.3082j0j7&client=ms-android-mpcs-us-revc&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#wptab=s:H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgVuLWT9c3LMm1yDEtynrE6M4t8PLHPWEpu0lrTl5jtODiCs7IL3fNK8ksqRTS4mKDshS4-KWQ9WkwSPFyIQvw7GLi98lPTswJyM8MSi3LTC0vXsQqU5Sakpufl6KQVpqXWpSYo5CRn5uqUASRBgCLiQSDigAAAA">certain funeral home</a> owner and her certain ex-con employee, you can <a href="https://ceflawyers.com/blog/what-did-you-say-a-claim-for-defamation-in-the-internet-age/">push a court case</a> against my sister for FOUR YEARS before even getting a trial date from a Circuit Court judge who has powdered the plaintiff's backside through the whole sickening ordeal.</p><p>That happens to be same judge who dismissed my sister's timely Appeal to have her son's Death Certificate corrected to reflect what the <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/michigan/court-of-appeals-unpublished/2019/345164.html">mendacious Medical Examiner</a> admits to be factual... And <i>that</i> happens to be the same mendacious Medical Examiner whose department faxed a rather key document to Martha Redmond, who later lied under oath about having received it.</p><p>It's enough to drive a person to shoot <a href="https://www.thewhiskeyshelf.com/wild-turkey-101-review/">Wild Turkey</a>.</p><p>pH 11.21.2o</p><p>***</p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756574615810228774.post-7933141540641266182020-10-25T09:11:00.016-07:002020-11-05T05:21:17.784-08:00American Armpit<p> The boy shouted, in half-play exasperation, "I hate Michigan! I hate it!"</p><p>No, this isn't about football.</p><p>My nephew Charlie had just returned from his first trip to Florida, and his home state had given him the kind of cold, wet welcome for which it is known worldwide.</p><p><i>Why does the wind in Wisconsin always blow to the East? </i></p><p><i>Because Michigan sucks!</i></p><p>Charlie loved Florida. (Millions of people do.) Visiting with family down in the better paeninsula offered him sunshine, the ocean, good food, warm breezes, interesting people, exotic flora and fauna, sunshine.</p><p>Upon his return, Michigan offered him... Snow pants.</p><p><i>How long does winter last in Michigan?</i></p><p><i>I don't know, I've only been here for 10 months.</i></p><p>Perhaps you have heard of the plot that the FBI foiled, wherein a bunch of militia types conspired to kidnap and possibly kill our governor. It made the news here, too, but it landed with all the impact of a shrug. Stuff like that falls into a crevasse that exists in between that which is accepted and that which is expected.</p><p>Any of those alleged maniacs could have been the guy next door.</p><p><i>The State Bird of Michigan is the Mosquito.</i></p><p>Our land and water amounts to a steeping toxic brine, with citizens being routinely exposed to lead, PFAS, chromium chloride, and so much more. What has ever been done about it? From oil in the Kalamazoo River to uranium in the Detroit, even nuclear waste leaking into Lake Michigan, the entire Mitten might as well be a Superfund site.</p><p>During the season, and with a license, you can catch and keep six legal-size walleye a day (the fish, I'm saying) per the rules set forth by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. But they only recommend that you eat a dozen of them per year due to mercury, shit like that.</p><p><i>What do they call accomplished, beautiful people in Michigan? </i></p><p><i>Visitors.</i></p><p>But, wait, that's not all. As you are driving to your chemotherapy appointment, you are very likely to have the wheel knocked clean off your car by one of our famous reservoir-like potholes. Actually, that's one of winter's only advantages; the pack ice tends to fill them in.</p><p>Our governor ran on the slogan, "Fix The Damn Roads." Of course, between dealing with the pandemic and dodging the camouflaged kidnappers, she hasn't gotten around to doing that yet... Maybe in her second term?</p><p><i>When bad people die in Hell, they go to Michigan.</i></p><p>Here are the facts: If your house is burning, there is no guarantee that the fire hydrant nearby is going to work. If you are drowning in the surf of our Great Lakes, there is almost no chance of you being saved by a lifeguard, because there aren't any at the vast majority of beaches. </p><p>And if your child - who has the good sense to prefer someplace else - dies in an accident, well, there is a very good possibility that the local hack coroner will monarchically declare your tragedy to be a suicide... <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2016/12/man_cleared_in_toddlers_death.html">Or a homicide</a>.</p><p>Whether you like it or not.</p><p>No joke.</p><p>pH 1o.25.2o</p><p>***</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Paul Hellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17285419985419099701noreply@blogger.com