THERE IS NO CODE INTENDED BY ME ON THIS PAGE.
May 5, 2011
This morning, I tried to talk to the supervisor at the DOL about the fact that I shouldn't be getting abused by any of the staff here. He said "As long as you're looking for work here, then we're good." I had started off the conversation by saying that I thought he probably knew who I was and that I have done nothing here but be productive, which I'm sure is as true of me as it is of anyone else who comes in here at any time. For me to try to restore my reputation, try to deal with online accounts, and generally be productive while I'm here can only help me find work even if I'm not spending the entire day directly applying for jobs. When he said "As long as you're looking for work here, then we're good," I looked at him and said, again "There's just no reason why I should be getting abused here." Then I ended the meeting.
Since that conversation, I have done absolutely nothing that was not strictly, specifically, and locally work-related. However, the female staff member who sat in on the meeting with the supervisor and me at the supervisor's request has been in and out of this room, coughing loudly and pointedly every time that she goes by me.
I've already applied for one work-training program; I did that weeks ago. I was the first person to apply for it this term; they hadn't even started looking at applications yet. I went to a job fair. The particular staff person who's making her presence unnecessarily known this morning helped me print out other job information that I found in this office.
I'm in the process of applying for another work-training program now; that's what I've been doing with my morning.
I don't think that my reporting, online, about my being abused at the Department of Labor is inconsistent with looking for work. For me to be unable to use the resources here because I'm constantly being harassed by members of the staff until I can't stand being in the building isn't going to help me find a job. Obviously, talking to this woman's supervisor didn't do me any good at all. It's not as if I accused her while we were in the meeting; I hadn't even asked her to be there, but it seems as if all the conversation did was confirm for her that she's free to treat me any way she wants to, with his blessing.
Copyright L. Kochman May 5, 2011 @ 11:30 a.m.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 5, 2011
--Despite the unhelpful picture that the New York Times put on its front page today, I’m going to repeat my assertion from yesterday that it’s my impression that the more respected, metropolitan newspapers, publications and media sources have been generally quicker to notice and note the value of my written work about the issues than harassing newspapers and much of the other media located in Vermont have been. Today, the Burlington Free Press bludgeoned on, true to its pattern since the truly sick James Fogler took over as President and Publisher at the beginning of September, 2010.
The Burlington Free Press has had a great deal of support for its criminally oriented activities from local and state politicians, schools, businesses, police departments and powerful individuals. Chittenden County is a concentrated area for such money and power as exist in Vermont and the support from elected and school officials and others there carries clout. That’s most likely the reason that the Free Press has felt safe overriding complaints that it gets from the community at large about its behavior.
--Like the Burlington Free Press and the Times Argus, USA Today is a Gannett publication.
For people who are feeling overwhelmed and upset about how many harassers there seem to be; like newspapers and TV channels, a lot of magazines are owned by the same few media companies. Even though the harassers are big and powerful, it’s not completely true that everything and everyone reached the same conclusion or that they all have the same goal.
--I’ve been seeing posters around for “Stamp Out Hunger,” with the children’s characters from the cartoon “Family Circus.” Many if not most of the syndicated cartoons have been part of the harassment. That was one of the most macabre, early features of the situation, and the impetus for one of my favorite jokes that I ever made about it.
Since, when I got out of the hospital at the end of March 2011, 22,000 people had added my Weebly blog as a “Like” on Facebook compared to the 10,000 that were there in November 2010, and since it’s been almost a year since I first made the joke, I will repeat my feeling that the cartoon involvement in the harassment is the sexual harassment equivalent of Chucky, the fictional, murderous doll of the movies of the same name.
I looked at the “Stamp Out Hunger” website, and right there in the bag of groceries is a packet of “Goldfish” crackers, along with big bottles of “V-8.” One thing that continues to confuse me about these issues is why anybody WANTS to be that gross. Who wants to talk about sex ALL THE TIME, to refer to it ALL THE TIME, and to include it where it doesn’t belong?
“Stamp Out Hunger” seems to be primarily a production of the National Association of Letter Carriers, so there’s the government again, using a supposedly benign activity involving children to be gross and awful.
“Stamp Out Hunger” is going to be on May 14, 2011.
I also looked at the list of sponsors at the end of the first page of the website for “Stamp Out Hunger.”
Some of the sponsors look as if they want to be harassing, and some of them don’t. Here’s the list of them; I haven’t looked at them extensively, so some of them may have harassing references that I didn’t see.
--National Association of Letter Carriers (their website has a big sign on the front page that says “5-Day is the Wrong Way” and references to flooding, tornados and Representative Stephen Lynch. The bill associated with Rep. Lynch is Number 1351: I’m 36. That was just on the first 1/3 of the first page. For people who are new here, the stoning sentence for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani in Iran sometimes gets mitigated to hanging. Amnesty International has seemed to be of the opinion that Ms. Ashtiani and other prisoners like her ought to be let out of jail, and I agree; there’s no reason to believe that she killed anybody, and accusing a woman of adultery isn’t a good reason to put her in jail, let alone to kill her.)
--National Rural Letter Carriers Association (Another reference to Rep. Lynch’s bill, 1351.)
--Campbell’s Soup
--Feeding America (seems to have a lot of corporate sponsors)
--United States Postal Service
--Valpak
--AFL-CIO
--Uncle Bob’s Self-Storage
As I went through the first pages of the websites, I noticed that, aside from the one for the National Association of Letter Carriers, even the ones that mean to be sexually harassing are much less explicit than the same kinds of websites would have been a year ago.
--The way I look at this situation is this; people are supposed to be able to stop being made the target of references to sex and to their gender when they want to do so. When people do not stop making references to sex and to your gender, especially when they know that you want them to stop doing it, it’s harassment, and harassment is correctly illegal. The fact that the President and others who support him have been endorsing harassment and other very unethical things doesn’t make those things ethical.
There is nothing that a person can do that makes him or her deserve to be harassed. There’s nothing that I’ve done or could have done, or could ever do, that has made or could make me deserve what’s happened.
--Here’s a question which I ask not out of self-pity of any kind but out of practicality; who’s going to hire me? Any business that hires me that doesn’t want to abuse me is going to be instantly attacked by President Obama and his supporters.
I never set myself up as an enemy of this President for any reason other than his unethical activities. He has bullied me and encouraged the country to bully me for no good reason.
Copyright L. Kochman May 5, 2011 @ 4:44 p.m.
May 5, 2011
This morning, I tried to talk to the supervisor at the DOL about the fact that I shouldn't be getting abused by any of the staff here. He said "As long as you're looking for work here, then we're good." I had started off the conversation by saying that I thought he probably knew who I was and that I have done nothing here but be productive, which I'm sure is as true of me as it is of anyone else who comes in here at any time. For me to try to restore my reputation, try to deal with online accounts, and generally be productive while I'm here can only help me find work even if I'm not spending the entire day directly applying for jobs. When he said "As long as you're looking for work here, then we're good," I looked at him and said, again "There's just no reason why I should be getting abused here." Then I ended the meeting.
Since that conversation, I have done absolutely nothing that was not strictly, specifically, and locally work-related. However, the female staff member who sat in on the meeting with the supervisor and me at the supervisor's request has been in and out of this room, coughing loudly and pointedly every time that she goes by me.
I've already applied for one work-training program; I did that weeks ago. I was the first person to apply for it this term; they hadn't even started looking at applications yet. I went to a job fair. The particular staff person who's making her presence unnecessarily known this morning helped me print out other job information that I found in this office.
I'm in the process of applying for another work-training program now; that's what I've been doing with my morning.
I don't think that my reporting, online, about my being abused at the Department of Labor is inconsistent with looking for work. For me to be unable to use the resources here because I'm constantly being harassed by members of the staff until I can't stand being in the building isn't going to help me find a job. Obviously, talking to this woman's supervisor didn't do me any good at all. It's not as if I accused her while we were in the meeting; I hadn't even asked her to be there, but it seems as if all the conversation did was confirm for her that she's free to treat me any way she wants to, with his blessing.
Copyright L. Kochman May 5, 2011 @ 11:30 a.m.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 5, 2011
--Despite the unhelpful picture that the New York Times put on its front page today, I’m going to repeat my assertion from yesterday that it’s my impression that the more respected, metropolitan newspapers, publications and media sources have been generally quicker to notice and note the value of my written work about the issues than harassing newspapers and much of the other media located in Vermont have been. Today, the Burlington Free Press bludgeoned on, true to its pattern since the truly sick James Fogler took over as President and Publisher at the beginning of September, 2010.
The Burlington Free Press has had a great deal of support for its criminally oriented activities from local and state politicians, schools, businesses, police departments and powerful individuals. Chittenden County is a concentrated area for such money and power as exist in Vermont and the support from elected and school officials and others there carries clout. That’s most likely the reason that the Free Press has felt safe overriding complaints that it gets from the community at large about its behavior.
--Like the Burlington Free Press and the Times Argus, USA Today is a Gannett publication.
For people who are feeling overwhelmed and upset about how many harassers there seem to be; like newspapers and TV channels, a lot of magazines are owned by the same few media companies. Even though the harassers are big and powerful, it’s not completely true that everything and everyone reached the same conclusion or that they all have the same goal.
--I’ve been seeing posters around for “Stamp Out Hunger,” with the children’s characters from the cartoon “Family Circus.” Many if not most of the syndicated cartoons have been part of the harassment. That was one of the most macabre, early features of the situation, and the impetus for one of my favorite jokes that I ever made about it.
Since, when I got out of the hospital at the end of March 2011, 22,000 people had added my Weebly blog as a “Like” on Facebook compared to the 10,000 that were there in November 2010, and since it’s been almost a year since I first made the joke, I will repeat my feeling that the cartoon involvement in the harassment is the sexual harassment equivalent of Chucky, the fictional, murderous doll of the movies of the same name.
I looked at the “Stamp Out Hunger” website, and right there in the bag of groceries is a packet of “Goldfish” crackers, along with big bottles of “V-8.” One thing that continues to confuse me about these issues is why anybody WANTS to be that gross. Who wants to talk about sex ALL THE TIME, to refer to it ALL THE TIME, and to include it where it doesn’t belong?
“Stamp Out Hunger” seems to be primarily a production of the National Association of Letter Carriers, so there’s the government again, using a supposedly benign activity involving children to be gross and awful.
“Stamp Out Hunger” is going to be on May 14, 2011.
I also looked at the list of sponsors at the end of the first page of the website for “Stamp Out Hunger.”
Some of the sponsors look as if they want to be harassing, and some of them don’t. Here’s the list of them; I haven’t looked at them extensively, so some of them may have harassing references that I didn’t see.
--National Association of Letter Carriers (their website has a big sign on the front page that says “5-Day is the Wrong Way” and references to flooding, tornados and Representative Stephen Lynch. The bill associated with Rep. Lynch is Number 1351: I’m 36. That was just on the first 1/3 of the first page. For people who are new here, the stoning sentence for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani in Iran sometimes gets mitigated to hanging. Amnesty International has seemed to be of the opinion that Ms. Ashtiani and other prisoners like her ought to be let out of jail, and I agree; there’s no reason to believe that she killed anybody, and accusing a woman of adultery isn’t a good reason to put her in jail, let alone to kill her.)
--National Rural Letter Carriers Association (Another reference to Rep. Lynch’s bill, 1351.)
--Campbell’s Soup
--Feeding America (seems to have a lot of corporate sponsors)
--United States Postal Service
--Valpak
--AFL-CIO
--Uncle Bob’s Self-Storage
As I went through the first pages of the websites, I noticed that, aside from the one for the National Association of Letter Carriers, even the ones that mean to be sexually harassing are much less explicit than the same kinds of websites would have been a year ago.
--The way I look at this situation is this; people are supposed to be able to stop being made the target of references to sex and to their gender when they want to do so. When people do not stop making references to sex and to your gender, especially when they know that you want them to stop doing it, it’s harassment, and harassment is correctly illegal. The fact that the President and others who support him have been endorsing harassment and other very unethical things doesn’t make those things ethical.
There is nothing that a person can do that makes him or her deserve to be harassed. There’s nothing that I’ve done or could have done, or could ever do, that has made or could make me deserve what’s happened.
--Here’s a question which I ask not out of self-pity of any kind but out of practicality; who’s going to hire me? Any business that hires me that doesn’t want to abuse me is going to be instantly attacked by President Obama and his supporters.
I never set myself up as an enemy of this President for any reason other than his unethical activities. He has bullied me and encouraged the country to bully me for no good reason.
Copyright L. Kochman May 5, 2011 @ 4:44 p.m.