Facie’s Ramblings

Litter is my biggest pet peeve. It bothers me even more than when someone uses a hyphen instead of an em or en dash, and that is really saying something. I have said many times, in many mediums that there are only two acceptable reasons to litter: Someone is threatening to kill you if you don't throw your empty McD's bag, water bottle or losing lottery tickets out of the car. Continuing to carry your grocery bag of wing bones, bag of chips, or half-eaten burger will impeded your ability to run away from a would-be assassin. I am tired of people having no regard for their community. But I am even more tired of having to look at it when I walk my dog nearly every day. So most days (not including a couple of winter months) I pick up things along our 1-2 mile neighborhood stroll. Fortunately, because I do this so often, most days I have just a couple of things to pick up. Unfortunately, last year, my perception of litter became more heightened, and I started to become bother...

This post is going to be about George Zimmerman being found not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin. But not completely. Let me start off by saying I did not follow the trial closely. I did, however, read a few AP articles over the past week or so. About the only thing I can say with certainty is that I was neither in the courtroom nor on the jury. So I do not have the benefit of all that testimony and evidence. And neither did you (unless you were there). But the comments I have read on Facebook? They are all over the place. Based on various comments, George Zimmerman could have been a racist (a Hispanic man can be racist against a black man), a vigilante, someone trying to protect his neighborhood, or someone trying to defend his life. He could have started the fight, or he could have been the one fighting back. He may have been following neighborhood watch guidelines, or he could have been overstepping. I think he had some sort of a record, but not sure. Trayvon Martin could have...

I spent almost three hours last evening reading the Freeh report. Hubby asked why I would waste my time doing so, and I said that as a Penn Stater and someone who has given Paterno the benefit of the doubt, I needed to read it. Too many people were commenting in various places without having read more than the press release or parroting what others have said, and I didn't want to be one of those people. Unfortunately, I am one of those people who are having trouble putting all my thoughts and opinions into coherent statements. In fact, I have edited and pretty much changed this post three times. What follows is rambling and disjointed, which is due in no small part to my difficulty in wrapping my head around so much information and trying to reconcile that with my wanting to think the best about people. :-( Do I feel differently since yesterday, when based on the press release and some of what I had read, it appeared that JoePa knew more than he let on? Not a lot. In fact, he and...

I am currently about a 1/3 of the way through the Freeh Report, the investigation about what Penn State did and did not do in regards to the Sandusky nightmare. As you can imagine, I am most concerned with JoePa's role, having greatly admired him. I wanted to wait until I had read the entire report, which I plan to do this evening, but even without yet doing so, I wanted to share some opinions I have formed so far, pretty much off the cuff. Joe Paterno is not looking as good as many of his followers (including me) had hoped he would. It seems pretty clear that he (and former President Spanier) knew about the 1998 shower/bear-hugging incident, something he/they denied before, which makes his/their actions (or inaction) regarding the 2001 shower incident all the more troubling. I did, however, feel slightly better knowing that JoePa told Sandusky he was never going to be coach before the 1998 shower incident occurred. People have speculated it was the other way around. What I a...

After my last gun-related post, you might think I would try for something more light-hearted. But, alas, you would be wrong. In the news around here lately have been a few somewhat-related subjects, at least to me. I have mentioned one topic before, the Western Psych shooting. Recently, things have come out that suggest the shooter was disturbed enough that something should have been done before the shooting ever occurred. Among other things, he went to UPMC Shadyside with a baseball bat twice in 10 days to threaten employees. But yet no one thought to call the police or refer him for a mental health evaluation. Did the employees just not take it seriously? Did it fall through the cracks? On the other hand, there are the oft-occurring-as-of-late bomb threat s on Pitt's campus, particularly at the Cathedral of Learning. Every time someone calls in or somewhere scrawls a threat, the police take action, which means everyone has to evacuate the building(s) while the building is ...

In the past few days, I have read in the paper/saw on the news two heinous acts against children. A boyfriend of some woman beat her 11-year-old son over the course of a nine-hour period, and the boy eventually died. I won't go into any more details, other than to add that the mother waited over an hour after she got home before calling 911, because what I just wrote is so disturbing as it is. Then last night, I saw on the news (and read this morning) that another boyfriend of another woman sexually assaulted a three-month old. I am so incredibly sickened and angered by this. What normal person would not be? And that is the thing: these people cannot be normal.There are lacking something, but what I do not know. In the first horrendous crime, some neighbors who were interviewed cried, saying they should have done something. This made me wonder, how many people hear screams or crying down the street or down the hall and actually call the police. Would you? I am one of thos...

I spent over an hour today trying to resolve an online banking issue. For some reason, when I paid my sewage bill last week, I chose the old bill payee, the one that has not been the payee for over three years (our water company took over for the sewage company, FYI). I won't bore you with the details of the various phone calls and time spent online. And, yes, the error was all mine (why I did not delete the previous/old payee, I don't know). But it does make me wonder how accounting works in companies. When my check was electronically deposited into the old sewage company's account, didn't they check to see why they were getting money from us, when they had not in years? Can anyone explain that? It does not help that I am tired today. Tired because there was a domestic dispute three houses away last night after 11, when I was sound asleep. Unfortunately, when four or five people are shouting in the streets nearby, as a light sleeper, I will hear them. The upside is t...

Last night I attended a local crime watch meeting. There was what I considered a decent turnout, probably about 75 people, though less than one of the first meetings, which had close to 200. Crime, for the most part, has gone down in my neck of the woods. Fortunately, the police caught a daytime burglar last year, which resulted in burglaries dropping from an average of about 31 per month to about 11 per month. What is interesting to me is how the burglar was caught. A woman came home to see a guy getting into a car in her driveway. She was fortunately able to provide a good description of the perp and the car to the 911 operator (more fortunately, the perp just wanted to get away and not hurt her). This information enabled the police to locate the car/perp, although the officer in pursuit at first did lose him. Fortunately again, another resident noticed this car speeding away, so he pulled over on the side of the road and flagged down the officer to let him know in which d...

I am spitting mad about the whole Ben Roethlisberger thing. Well, maybe not spitting, but definitely yelling mad. In fact, pretty much every time something about him (and particularly his voice) has come on the radio the last few weeks, I scream, often something like, "@sshole!" Of course, he is not the only jag-off on that team. I have never had a problem with the pay athletes receive. They entertain me, sometimes actually bring me joy, and I don't believe that we all should be making the same amount of money. I am all for capitalism. But as I continue to read about the crap these people (see previous post, from last week) are doing, I am starting to change my stance. I don't buy the whole athletes-are-heroes idea. Teachers, doctors, nurses, firefighters and police officers, volunteers, parents especially. Those people should be heroes. But the reality is that kids tend to look up to sports stars. So when Big Ben, looking all WWE, said he wanted to be a role mod...

April is normally a month of hope. The first full month of spring. Typically Easter falls within it. We usually end up with at least a week or two of nice weather (one year we had a week in the 80s). People spend time outside. Baseball season starts (remember, no one starts with a losing record!). This April, however, and particularly over the next two weeks, I will be thinking about the one-year anniversary of some sad things that occurred within a seven-day period last year. The tragic death of Amy's (from Callapitter) children. I will be sending her good thoughts and vibes over the next few weeks. As difficult as this last year has been for her, I am surmising the anniversary will be trying in a different way. I am, however, glad to see that plans for the playground memorializing her children are coming together. If you are interested in donating, please go here. The slaying of three Pittsburgh police officers. Sadly, someone is killed almost every week in and around the ci...

Last evening, I had a scary experience, though not so much for me. While playing with Jordan, I heard yelling down the street. I looked outside, but saw nothing. A few minutes later I heard it again, and this time Brian had opened the window and said he could actually hear people hitting/punching each other. As a member of the local crime watch, I did what I should do: I called 911. I could hear the call being recording, which kind of freaked me out. But what made me stop cold was when the 911 operator asked me if there were any weapons. I was several houses away and it was dark, so there was no way I could tell that. But I immediately thought back to last April when the three Pittsburgh police officers were killed responding to a domestic disturbance, thinking there were no weapons. And just last month a Penn Hills police officer was shot to death while sitting in his car, again responding to a disturbance. As the 911 call was wrapping up, a car with the "fighters" drove...