Where is Chilly S?

Labor Day story: San Mateo Hero...

Bill Bliech, on of the dispatchers in this article has been a friend of mine for about 25 years and we still talk via internet almost every day. I just though we should congratulate a good worker who does an important job here on May 1st, International Labor Day.

Unsung heroes':San Mateo dispatchers awarded for response

By Dana Yates

San Mateo police Dispatcher Bill Bleich fields calls at the department’s dispatch center. The 18-year-veteran was one of three San Mateo dispatchers who recently received a county award for the way they handled a deadly incident on Hobart Avenue last year.

It was a bland Tuesday morning when the dispatchers at the San Mateo Police Department answered a 911 call with nothing more than the sound of children crying and a mother trying to comfort her kids.

“I heard the mom saying ‘it’ll be done soon,’” said San Mateo police Dispatcher Bill Bleich.

The call started a string of events that ultimately ended in an officer-involved shooting, a heroic rescue of children and the death of a desperate mother at the hands of a deranged stalker. What happened between the first 911 call from 24-year-old Loan Kim Nguyen and the final flurry of gunfire from Raymond Gee that took both their lives was in the hands of three San Mateo dispatchers. For their level-headed management of the adrenaline-fueled situation, Supervisor Rita Thibodeau and dispatchers Dave Barton and Bleich were recently awarded the 2008 San Mateo County Center of Excellence Award by other county dispatchers.

“They’re really the unsung heroes of the department and really the lifeline to the community,” said Deputy Chief Mike Callagy.

The three dispatchers working on Nov. 28 received the first wireless 911 call from Nguyen. They could hear children crying and a mom’s voice, but little more than that. Tracking devices located the cell phone tower from which the call was transmitted, allowing them to dispatch an officer to the general area. The officer was dispatched to the area of 13th Avenue between Palm Avenue and El Camino Real, Bleich said.

The officer was in a neighborhood with homes, multi-story businesses and one large apartment complex. Finding a victim with such limited information was nearly impossible.

Thibodeau heard her co-workers needed help and immediately moved from her nearby office to the dispatch desk. As Thibodeau was contacting the cell phone provider to learn the identity of the cell phone owner, another 911 call came into the dispatch center.

It was a man claiming his wife needed help. The address he gave them was close to the cell phone tower from which the previous 911 call came, Thibodeau said.

Dispatchers asked a very important question: What is your wife’s cell phone number?

That question led dispatchers to link the two calls and immediately send an officer who was already in the area to the couple’s Hobart Avenue home.

What happened after that seemed to happen over the course of 15 minutes, Thibodeau said.

In reality, it was a long and scary event that included shots being fired at officers and a standoff requiring the San Mateo County SWAT Team. The team of dispatchers managed a situation all the while worried that one of the 20 other police personnel on duty that day could have been shot and possibly killed.

Managing the situation went far beyond dispatching an officer and waiting for a response.

Thibodeau went as far as instructing the staff of a nearby day care center to shelter in place while the SWAT Team was across the street. The instructions included exactly where in the house to stand and how to respond in the event of gunfire, said Lt. Mike Brunicardi.

“They’re just outstanding. I wouldn’t want anyone else here,” Brunicardi said.

Time to sink in

For dispatchers, there is seldom closure. Most of the time they never know what happened on any given call. This time they did — by way of their co-workers and the press.

“Sometimes it takes a while to sink in. It sunk in a little when I went home for lunch. It really sunk in when I saw the press [reports],” Bleich said.

What happened that day was well documented.

Gee laid in wait on the side of the home Nguyen shared with her husband Dennis Quan. Nguyen called her husband after he left for work that morning reporting that the power had gone off. Quan returned home and switched the power back on, noticing that the garage door was partially open.

Police believe Gee gained entry into the home by switching off power to the house and opening the garage door. His fingerprints were identified on the power box on the side of the house.

He brought with him a bag that included a knife, handcuffs, pepper spray and prescription muscle relaxants.

Gee met Nguyen at a Halloween party and obtained her cell phone number by allowing her to use his phone to call hers when she lost it at the party. He also tracked her on Facebook.

Gee opened fire when police responded to the house. The SWAT Team was called in and a standoff occurred. Fearing for her life and the safety of her children, Nguyen told police she was going to lower her children out of a bedroom window to a SWAT vehicle below. As she was doing so, Gee opened fire through a bedroom wall, striking Nguyen and narrowly missing officers. Gee was later found dead of self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

‘Unique profession’

For Bleich, the call stands out as the worst call in his career. For Thibodeau, it is another in a long history of interesting calls.

Calls that involve small children, sometimes calling in domestic violence, affects Thibodeau and Dispatcher Briana Coons the most.

It was Coons’ second day on the job when the Hobart incident was called into 911. She was at City Hall, but immediately returned to the department to do what she could to help. A part-time City Hall dispatcher also arrived at the Police Department to help field the many phone calls flooding the dispatch center that day, Thibodeau said.

Coons was undergoing a rigorous introduction to the department, which includes six months of on-the-job training — three answering phone calls and three dispatching officers.

“It’s a unique profession unlike any other. There are no classes for this. There are no criminal justice courses to take to learn how to be a dispatcher,” Callagy said.

San Mateo dispatchers work 10-hour shifts and cannot leave their station unless specifically scheduled to do so. It’s a multi-tasking job. Most of the day is spent prioritizing calls and referring people to other organizations for help. Sometimes dispatchers are faced with a major incident. Sometimes it’s a call of a deer head on someone’s doorstep or the “Beebusters” employee climbing trees at night to extract hives.

“Sometimes I think people think it’s all about Code 3, lights and sirens, all the time, all day. We usually spend the day giving a lot of referrals to other agencies,” Thibodeau said.

It also takes its toll on people. Those who don’t make it past the first six months are usually shocked by the strange hours. Thibodeau said a strong support system is necessary to get through the schedule of odd hours.

“Someone has to be here 24/7. Someone has to be here on Christmas. Someone has to be here on New Year’s Eve. Someone has to be here on their anniversary” Thibodeau said.

And then there’s the name calling. For the most part, the dispatchers seem to easily brush off insults from stressed out callers.

“They’re not calling on the best day of their life. I’m OK with that,” Thibodeau said.

Considering their daily duties are often unrecognized by the public, who generally thank the officers who actually respond to an emergency, the dispatchers were happy to accept for the first time the county award from their peers.

“In the public eye we’re kind of anonymous,” Thibodeau said.

Once every 28 years...

I want to pass something along that might kind of mean something. Today, Tuesday April 7th at Sundown or Wednesday at sunrise, there is a special Jewish prayer to be said. It is called Birkat Hachama and it only happens once every 28 years and is sort of a thank you for G-d creating the world or at least the sun. You can check it out on wiki:

Я хочу пройти, кое-что по этому могло бы отчасти означать кое-что. В этот вторник в Закате или в среду в восходе солнца, есть специальная еврейская просьба, которая будет сказана. Это называют Биркас Гохама, и это только случается однажды каждые 28 лет и - вид спасибо за б-г создание мира или по крайней мере солнце. Вы можете проверить это на wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birchat_Hachammah

I don't think you need to be Jewish to understand this or even to be particularly religious, but should you think of it, and if you thought that saying thank you for life on earth might mean something, you can say at about sundown Tuesday these words and maybe it will be some connection to our mutual heritage:

Я не думаю, что Вы должны быть еврейскими, чтобы понять это или даже быть особенно религиозным, но если Вы думаете об этом, и если Вы думали, что высказывание спасибо за жизнь на земле могло бы означать кое-что, Вы можете сказать в приблизительно закате во вторник эти слова, и возможно это будет некоторая связь с нашим взаимным наследием:
ברוך אתה ה' אלהינו מלך העולם עושה מעשה בראשית
(Барух ата хашем элохэйну мэлэх ха'олом аусэ маусэ бэрэшис)
(Baruch ata hashem, eloheinu melech ha'olam, a'useh ma'useh bereshis)

"Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the Universe who makes the works of Creation."

"Благословлены Вы, Господь, наш бог, Король Вселенной, который делает работы из Создания."

400 newspapers and 900 Polish corruption posts…

The reason why I am typing right now is because I feel some necessity to say something about another milestone in my blogging history. There are actually two milestones going on here- the Polish Police and Administrative Corruption Page is waiting to have its 900th post posted (I post them in advance to cover my "one yellow story a day" framework) and the Being Had Times is being published for the 400th time today.

I guess in the end we might say only that these are round numbers and, as I have just celebrated, or better, did not celebrate my 45th birthday for exactly the same reason, round numbers don't really mean crap. This thought actually was not mine but came instead from a 40ish neighbor lady who has obviously given aging some thought herself. But then again, maybe these sorts of things do have meaning. On an average, it takes about 2.5 hours to make a newspaper. Sometimes it takes longer on poor news days and sometimes there were technical snafus and I do remember losing 2 or 3 finished papers which had to be completely redone. I also have not been perfect at this and I think, if I remember correctly, I did not publish one time for computer failure, choosing not to do it at the internet café, something I had done once or twice. I think I have done these a couple of times on the road as well. Generally though, this two and half hours is a reasonable amount of time to plan on being spent every Wednesday and Sunday and I guess this means that I have spent at least 1000 hours of my life making these papers. We can also probably double that number for Story entries and then add in again for letter writing and other such duties and I am not even going to begin thinkinig about the book. So, in any case, this isn't nothing.

But again and again and again, it is not the quality or content of these web spaces that was at the heart of making them, nor was it ever about creating an artificial celebrity for my ego to play with. I mean, I don't actually like drawing attention to myself very much. I like getting attention for work I've done, this is cool, but on me personally, no. It is also not a money making enterprise in any way. Well, getting some money from this would have been nice, but basically about the only positives is that it has led to some interesting encounters and some new friends and I have been written to by students, business people and folks with roots in the region, so this is always nice. Eventually, the whole Being Had Blog was created only for the specific purpose of keeping alive on the web that Polish incident which happened so long ago. It has always been about being pulled out of my life for a year, the resulting damage to the people around me and about trying to create a situation which might make it difficult for this to happen for others. This is not to say that this newspaper and the Story are irrelevant- I have seen many things I have written have an effect on the general argument about Belarus. But it is only an advertiser to lead people to the book which is on the sidebar in WORD or PDF form and has so far been read, well, downloaded, a couple of thousand times. And, it is about corruption.

I hate corruption.

Despite the endless arguments I get from idiots (no apology) who seem to think that the highest level of enlightenment available to them is that they understand that there is corruption! (This great knowledge being I suppose their wake up call from the largess of childhood). "Hey Adam," they say, "don't be naïve. You gotta understand how things work!" And this from EVERYBODY. But I say no.

That's me beating my head against the wall at the bottom of the sidebar. And this is me, sitting next to the computer, a 25 watt bulb lighting the keyboard at four in the morning almost eight years later. And yea, as it always is, I am still griping and still publishing story after story after story about how screwed up and nefarious the people who stole my time were and are. And this is you too George W! This is me still trying to say that the world does need character before nepotism, pride of accomplishment before payoffs and responsibility and vested interest before standing in the road. It must be. Why must we only say that this is the way it is? I mean, why fight cancer if all we want is for things to be the way they are. Why bother?

What? Not fight cancer? Haven't you ever seen anyone with cancer? Don't you know how horrible it is?

Yes I have. And you know what? Corruption is cancer.

And here's one example. How about sport? Do you want to tell me that knowing that one team or player has less of a reason to try hard than another (the standings, the draft, etc) is a factor in making your bets on the game? Ok, this is reasonable. But sometimes teams that want to win lose because of the pressure. Tiger Woods doesn't win the open, Rocco Mediate losses it. And so does Sean O'Hair. But my question is this: would you care about these guys if you found out that O'Hair didn't choke and go 3 over par in the fourth round but was paid to do it? And as for another sport analogy, where are Bonds, McGuire and Sammy? Thousands write in to forums saying that we don't need Saint McGuire in the hall because in addition to all of the time he spent practicing his craft and lifting and running and training, and regardless of how much he gave us by playing how he played, he also added to his testosterone count via something other than Wheaties. Apparently we hate the thought of cheating so much, we happily throw these guys away despite the fact that they were literally gods to us in their time. We throw them and much of our love for the sport away along with them.

This is an example of corruption.

But listen to me: 200 players, owners and referees have been arrested in Poland for corruption and bribes in their premier league. You want to bitch about American baseball players being juiced because it makes it harder for you to enjoy strat-o-matic baseball? I'm talking here about a whole country of 1919 Black Sox. I'm talking about 900 entries about Poland and Polish people and Polish politicians- I am talking about an entire geographic entity, an entity which prides itself on being religious by the way, which cannot and does not believe in anything it does as being clean, or right or beautiful or even real.

Jesus.

So I bother. Of course it is still relevant. It is relevant everywhere. It'll be relevant until we, and that's a cool word there- we, until we decide we don't want it anymore. And I'm saying we shouldn't want it. I'm saying that fighting corruption is important. And all I have been doing is using my own experience as an example. It's not for me. It's never been for me. It's just what I have been given to do as my service to the world and I believe what I am saying is right.

Well, actually, I do it for that and because of one other little thing: When I was in Poland, the only actual argument ever brought against me in that farce of a trial was that, in the words of Stanislaw Wiesniakowski, the surely to be sainted public prosecutor, the damage to Tomas Zaremba's car could have be cause by a human hand. Now, we are not talking specifically my hand. They had my finger prints, there was very good evidence that the damage was pre-existing and also Zaremba himself used an estimate of damages to his car in court which was made some six weeks after our meeting after yet another vehicular incident. No, they justified taking a year of my life only because the damages to the car could have been caused by a hand.

So because of that, my argument for the continued publishing of these web objects is simply this:

After 400 newspapers, about 600 Stories and 900 entries in the Corruption journal, don't you think it is possible that my little affair could have been staged by Poland?

Anyway, again and again, thanks for reading me and for all the support.

Cheers.

A little teaching...

I had a bit of a victory today. I don't get many of these, or so it seems. But today I won a couple of battles and this feels good, as such a thing should. But of course it is tainted by the weight of the audacious ugliness that surrounds me. I know that this last was a bit dramatic and believe me, I am the last one to be in search of any extra drama. But it has been a difficult road and the war which seems to want to exist around me, though fought without a single shred of reason or wisdom or logic or moral right, does seem to be in want of an opponent and I, in all of my glory and ineptitude, seem to have been chosen here to represent all of the dreaded US of A in the minds of our post communist, Pinsk proletariat. And again, pardon the drama but this is about what I get here at the moment and in any case, I thought I would write a bit about today's victory as a means of leaving a reminder that there at least was supposed to be something nice and real and interesting going on here.

The victory was simply the momentary success of a pair of students. I teach English here and though I do like to claim a reasonable ability at the craft, actually having students advance and learn and grow and perhaps more specifically, have an exceptional day, is of course what it is supposed to be about. For any teacher, I would think that a victory for our students is our victory as well and so this is the game. But today, or actually yesterday as I didn't finish this last night, I proved a point to a pair of students, one a grown man and the other a girl of 10, that they could understand and actually use the language of Shakespeare, Steinbeck, London and Hemingway and that having this ability might help forge perhaps a brighter future. Or, in the case of the girl, to simply understand that great things are possible if one only is willing to try a bit.

But why it is even necessary to write about something like two students having a plateau is another part of this. This business of mine, and I am speaking about my private teaching here in Pinsk, is in the doldrums at the moment. I am not really willing to place the blame on the economic crisis though obviously, this is a part of it. But a much bigger reason has been both my decision to only try and work with more advanced students and the political pressure which has always been placed on me by the Ministry of Education and the local Bolshevics from the middle schools and universities.

That first limitation was set up as a reasonable response to the second. If the educational authorities were against me, their official reasoning was that they only wished to use their own locally trained teachers (This is not the real reason, Poland and corruption were, but anyway...) and they didn't wish to take jobs away from their own underpaid products of post soviet language education: nepotism before talent as Losha would say. But in any case, this seemed to be enough to justify their continued suppression. My decision then was, if I couldn't be recomended as effective and helpful, which I am, then I would agree that I didn't even want the common denominator, the student who sat passively staring at their cell phone and wondering where their next block of sexual stimulation would be coming from. Of course I wanted to be helpful (and to have more students), but if they were going to sit there throwing eggs at me, it did seem to add insult to injury to take responsibility for those students who weren't even willing to put pen to paper or allow for some reasonable study time to try and figure out that having a verb in every sentence might actually mean something. And of course there was the moral issue of actually taking money from people who only have $200-300 a month to work with. Yes, it is noble for a parent to try and help their children but if the children themselves won't even put up a fight to try and honor that 10-20% investment every month, I just couldn't agree to take their potato and bread money.

So over the course of this school year, when I did have a number of students who thought to do something other than read their books and work on their sentence structure, I made some cuts. Now, I try to run a kind table and I always have coffee, tea, cookies and crackers available. I don't ask for any extra money for materials and have pens and paper and a copier available. I also allow for extra time, e-mail communications, unlimited questions via telephone and even hand out my own books and movies when it is helpful, all at no extra charge. But in my mind all of this pleasantness is simply there to create a comfortable atmosphere for learning. But if the students aren't learning, or aren't even willing to try and learn, then you have a situation where you have children who only come for the free food and access to friends and to me, this means that someone is stealing the money. And so after some reasonable time for them to get the point, they are asked not to come back.

I believe by doing this that am being fair to their parent's pocketbooks. And it is not like I am such a hard ass; if the parents would agree that they don't care if there aren't any results and that their money is basically being spent on their children pleasuring themselves, and if the children would agree not to be a disruption to other students who might actually want to learn a little English, then hey, what the hell: As long as we understand each other, right? But this isn't how it goes because straight away the lazy ones go about slandering me as being a crap teacher. Of course it is my fault that the information didn't go across the table and it all had nothing to do with how much time was spend drawing, passing notes and waiting for messages from their friends on their cell phones.

This is where the problem has been. I get bad press from crap students trying to save face for having wasted their parent's investment and from the teaching authority who are defending the perpetual use of wrote teaching techniques from the time when keeping students well behind the iron curtain was of more important than allowing for the opportunity to speak to a larger section of the general population. And because I am George Bush. In any case, this has limited the amount of students who come to me and this is bad for business.

But that this is the situation makes victories like yesterday all the more sweet. That 10 year-old girl never studied English in her life. She has been taking German in school, so the letters and sounds were not a problem, but other than this she had never experienced a word before coming to me exactly 3 months ago. Now I explained to her parents when she did come what was required of her. I told them that though I did not ask for more than say, 30-45 minutes a day of study, I did require that time and that the student be prepared for every class. I also recommended one book to help with practicing grammar and started her off straight away translating Dr. Seuss into Russian using a dictionary. Both her parents were in the beginning a pain both to me and the girl, doing her homework for her, trying to explain grammar points and asking me why I wasn't doing this or that- but I held my ground and advised that she was the one who was learning here and she was the one who needed to be doing the work. After some little time, they stepped back a little and the girl started to learn.

My promise to them was that she would have something like reasonable competence in about six months to a year and that it would take her about 3 months to master the basic grammar. Yesterday, all the girl did was successfully, and without practice or preparation, do a grammar exercise that several adult students never mastered. To do the exercise, four decisions need to be made in each sentence concerning the wording of the verb in two separate forms. I did work with her on this, and explained it several times, and she even missed a class, her mother calling me saying that what I was doing was too intense for her. But she showed up yesterday on time and in a good mood and a bit ahead of schedule, I simply asked her to try the fabled student killing #174 and she got it right the first time. After this, I asked her to try simply reading her book, rather than worrying about the words she didn't know, this time reading a bit more quickly and adding emphasis on the story telling. And where until this moment, she had managed only six chapters over perhaps three weeks, yesterday in about 45 minutes we managed three whole chapters, the action so intense that even Anya was enthralled at the story telling. I guess the information had made its way across the table and needless to say the girl went home with something good to say to her parents.

The story was basically the same for the adult student. He is a businessman who wished to find a way to have a better relationship with foreign partners. His initial few months were often stormy. He put in his time in studying, more than I had asked for, but he never felt he could get a hold of the basic grammar and several times literally pounded my computer demanding that I show him why there were not several possible meanings to the sentences he was reading. "Why am I studying so much but actually getting worse?" he raged. The answer of course was to focus on the English and not the translation into Russian, an absolute imperative of western language teaching but completely antagonistic to the Russian style which basically treats learning a second language the same as studying mathematics or biology; everything stays on the page in front of you and is analyzed, dissected and discussed in Russian. And of course yesterday, after agreeing to progress without using Russian (at least out loud) the words finally started to come in and go out at something more resembling a conversational pace. Now, he still never gets my jokes, but he's getting there and also left the table feeling a bit more talented had he had before coming.

So that's the story. I'm heading into the last two months of this year extremely proud of the students who are with me. I have no failures this year and all are already conversational and able to read and write and speak and understand. The middle school students who have been with me have mastered their school English classes, several have had changes of heart regarding professions and all have chosen to allow themselves to think a bit more upward and to be a bit higher in their aspirations. The adults all have chances to be better connected to the world and even the children are aware of what they are doing and have become better students over all. I would have liked to have done more but I worked with who I had to work with and I think that my record speaks for itself.

But in the end, I chose to come to this town and I chose to try and be an English teacher here. There is nobody to complain to about any politics or under-the-table games which seem to be such a part of the fabric of the world I live in. It is of course all just part of the show. But yesterday… yea, yesterday was a very, very cool day. Yesterday, I very good teached English Language.

More mail...

My beautiful and honest face as portrayed elsewhere in my cowardly and deceitful website...

Got some flack about posting the last letter, the author thinking intellectual property and such. And I tried to tell him that actually getting intelligent and thoughtful mail was a bit of a blessing. To prove the point, I just got this one about five seconds ago from someone who either is or at least identifies with the marines. Hope he doesn't live to close to a high school...

Anyway, just thought it was worth a print just to give y'all a peak at the joy that is my post Polish existance and...uh, you know, keep an honest face.

From: This sender is DomainKeys verified "REDCELL" usmcwb@gmail.com
To: beinghad_mail@yahoo.com

Hey dirtbag,

I guess that's why you face away from the camera huh? You filthy coward. You live in a shithole called Belarus, where CORRUPTION is the very fabric of daily life and you think you know what's happening in Poland? You're clueless. FYI you zionist pig, Belarus is the most corrupt former Warsaw Pact country currently in existance. Just ask your new Belarussian president...oh wait I forgot...he's a Russian puppet and a near dictator. You're a complete moron. Show you face coward!

Note: And you have a nice day too...

Critic at large...

From: Gary G
Subject: Your book
To: beinghad_mail@yahoo.com
Date: Friday, March 13, 2009, 8:04 AM

Franz Kafka

Hi Adam: I have finished reading your book. I believe you display considerable talent for describing people, their personalities, emotions and situations. Moreover, you accomplish it all with sardonic humor and delicious irony. Your depiction of the Kakfian universe you had entered and the paranoia that ensued is very effective and grabs the reader's attention. With all due respect, however, there are two points that don´t seem to add-up. Irrespective of the vagaries and inadequacies of the Polish judicial system, I asked myself what would have transpired if the exact same incident had occurred in Paris or Madrid. In my opinion, it is highly probable that you would have been arrested for assault and battery, prosecuted and convicted. I appreciate the fact that the accident could have left you maimed or dead . Your outrage at the time is understandable. Claiming self-defense, however, would not have gotten you off the hook. Striking someone who happened to be an off-duty cop? Is one to believe the French system of justice, for example, would have been more sympathetic towards you? Secondly, in my experience embassy staff of most nations provide pretty basic assistance to their fellow citizens overseas. I remain unconvinced that what you witnessed was substandard help. I am interested in learning about the new book you are writing on life in your adopted country. Wish I had some talent for creative writing. I, unfortunately, tend to come across like a bureaucrat. I trust you do not not find my critique excessively pungent. Let me know what you think of my comments.

Take care.
Gary.


Thanks for the comment Gary and I am glad that you liked the book in general. As far as how this experience might have balanced out against other countries, I don't know the answer. All I know is what happened and how it went about and how rather totally integrated the Polish system was at that time in terms of being corrupt and obtuse. It is more than likely though that during the time when this happened and even when I wrote the book that I misunderstood how common this sort of systemic abuse was. You only get to look back from a distance and as of the moment, and this is with about 900 entries in the Polish Police and Administrative Corruption page, of course it is easy to say that this is simply who this country is. But during that time, I was in perpetual shock as to how little rights I had. And this also includes the US embassy people.

Now, it is also easy to say that there were secret prisons in Poland during this time and that US Belarus relations were and are such that someone like me who had a desire to hang out in Belarus for a while might send up flags. But the real point is not to say that we are enlightened because we understand such things, but more, should we agree that we wish to have such possibilities as a part of the fabric of our lives? I hope you can understand my point: It is not the passive understanding that there is corruption; it is the active decision not to support its existence.

So in the end this is what I tried to do in this book. As for style, I suppose I just tried to show the pictures as best as I could. As for wryness, well, I guess that was also a given all things considered. I mean, how would you feel? And I guess this is also what the final cut of the new book is going to look like. You get a tapestry of events and interactions, moments and emotions. You spend seven years doing something desperate and I guess you don't need to push things so hard to get some drama. I am a much different person though than I was. I am harder and much, much more direct. I still don't give in when it comes to political pressure or paying blackmailers, something this country is also very, very good at, but I don't really feel the idealism so much any more and am much more focused on trying to make something so that my daughter can have more and better chances than I did.

Anyway though, thanks for writing. I do appreciate your taking the time to check the book out and I hope that the reading was time at least interestingly spent for you.

Cheers from Belarus,
Adam.

AmBushed by Conspirituality

A special shout out to Chilly S for sending this gem along...

Two essays from the inside…

I am teaching English here. And though I have really no connection to the Belarusian opposition, I do like to ask my more advanced students more difficult and telling questions. Specifically, I have a new group of students from Polesskie University's school of business and as a test before joining our group/business think tank, I asked several Ethics-type questions relating to business and financing. After we began, I added another open question regarding the idea of being a reliable partner; that phrase showing up at least 99 times over the last several years on the pages of The BEINGHAD Times.

One of my better students, and to be sure, one from outside the university group, wrote the following two rather passionate short essays. They have been mildly corrected for grammar but the thoughts and the order of information are those of the writer- and what is more, they are rather passionate about these ideas.

I think there is a stereotype that Belarusians are only passive conformists, but here I think we can see that there is passion and there is awareness as to what is going on in this little country. And so because of the strength of the emotions, I offered to publish what was said here.

I guess I should also say that the student offered another anecdote about the suicide of one company officer. Before hanging himself in his office, the manager took the trouble writing on the walls of his office that the reason for is departure was that his boss had sold his job to an acquaintance for $500 and that his life was now ruined.

So here are two short essays from Belarus answering the questions:

Does it matter if there is nepotism in a company? And, what is meant by the phrase "reliable partner" in Belarus?

Nepotism: A fish rots from its head.

This is a very actual (real) question for our town. We know that the town of Pinsk is a small town and finding a job is always a big problem. Thus everybody tries to find a job via all methods. We are all people and of course, we think about our relatives first. For us, nepotism is such a usual (normal) thing like corruption is.

For example, Pinsk (companies) are solid nepotism. Where there is a normal salary, people run there to it. I want to say that if nepotism is at work, then a normal man won't work there.

My last chief was a straight example of nepotism. He was a son of the general director. Нe had an economic education but it didn't hamper his teaching me electric laws. I tried to take exception with him, but if you aren't a chief, then you are stupid. Now, I work at another place.

Yes, a simple man lives hard with this nepotism. You can't imagine how repugnant it is!

I (also) want to talk about the contract system in Belarus. Some time ago it was inserted as a stimulation of labor. I think you can guess what happened. Our directors began to use it for intimidation over the workers (really, I think that many people live in fear at work). It created a situation where each "director" began to feel like a king and people would come to them with sausage, cognac and dollars. Of course, this is normal for directors and chiefs, but probably (hopefully), they will die out like Mammoths.

I so want that it would (only) be necessary to count achievements at work and not dollars and bonds.

I'd (also) want to say several words about trade unions. What can a trade union be if the chief of that trade union is the best friend of the director? A Trade union must be an independent organization.

In the end, I say that the problem of nepotism is a global problem.
It seems to me that it is in all countries because people like this live everywhere.

Reliable partners

I think that we all know that Belarus, in the faces of our chiefs of state, was never a reliable partner to the West or to Russia. Until January 1, 2007, our head of state told us that Belarus had only one friend and it was Russia. But after (that day), I think that many people understood the real worth of that friendship. We understood that perhaps, the Belarusian (economic) miracle was not from the mind of our Batski but rather (instead) from inexpensive oil and gas. That picture was almost like the picture of this year's gas crisis in Ukraine. During this time, Belarus also remained a “reliable partner” to the East and to the West, forgetting about its 2007 position. After those developments, the Belarusian government began to become a reliable partner for other countries. So we found friends in Venezuela who “believed” in our reliability and honest friendship and allowed us to get oil in their country. But recently we went further and began to be reliable partners for (to) the “alien” West. Really, it only cost the discharge of several “political bastards” from our prisons. Probably, several of the bastards (such as Kozulin) had been at one time “reliable” partners for our head of state too. But in the end, they became unreliable partners. Why is this so?

We go to everybody with our newly opened souls to find new reliable partners but so far, we have not found them.

Of course, each country studies its own interests. We aren’t an exclusion (exception). But why doesn't anybody believe in the friendship we are selling? Maybe it is because Belarus never kneels!

I don't think that Belarus has anything to sell. There is no oil, no gas, and worst, no people with any potential. And this is the most fearful (frightening) thing. And our thinking was that via changing our reliable partners we might survive somehow. I don't like this situation at all.

To CIS or not to CIS...

From: Alex R
Subject: Belarus...
To: beinghad_mail@yahoo.com
Date: Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 7:36 AM

Hey,

I would say I am relatively new to reading your blog and find it very useful in finding information and news on Belarus. I am currently studying for a Politics degree at University in the UK and am particularly interested in Belarus as my family were originally from Lida in the east of Belarus. I am currently pursuing work that will be help me in my dissertation for next year and seeing as you’re a writer who is living in Belarus I thought I would ask you a question that would be really helpful to me. As you know, news that surrounds Belarus is usually distorted to enhance Belarus (coming from the state), tarnish the country (from the US) or be critical of the situation that really exists in Belarus (Charter 97). I feel finding valid and in certain circumstances, truthful information surrounding Belarus a difficult task.

With regards to the question I hope you can help me with, I am interested as to what someone like yourself says who lives in Belarus and has lived in other Eastern European states. The issue is the CIS. Whether Belarus still views it as important to their regional and international security? Or is the CIS irrelevant seeing as Belarus and other CIS members are subservient to Russia and its much needed energy?

It would be great if you could get back to me

Regards, Alex.
P.S. I visited Minsk when the England football team played Belarus at the end of last year. I had a great time and thought the City was an amazing place, somewhere where I would love to visit again and possibly live if I knew what was really happening in the country!

Re: Belarus...
Thursday, February 19, 2009 3:02 AM
From:
"Adam Goodman"

Well Alex, I would probably say that pretty much everything is about money. Though Belarus claims to have traded with 183 nations last year, obviously the vast majority of their trade is local. And this makes sense because the sorts of good and services which Belarus does have is only really normal for those countries from the former Soviet Union. I can see your point about the CIS and CSTO and EuAsEc becoming of lesser importance as European markets begin to open, but I think your perspective comes from an "always open world market" economic situation and this is simply not a privilege that Belarus has enjoyed nor even expects to enjoy. It also hasn't had the capital to reinvest in factory and infrastructure improvements. So, we are speaking of a different world.

Now, aside from the above mentioned grouping and the trade union movement with several other CIS states, Belarus has also created Union State with Russia as a protectionist entity, both economic and otherwise. You are right that everything centers on Russia just like it did during the time of the USSR. Russia is going to use Belarus for its air defense program and it also has missiles in Kazakhstan, Afghanistan; it has a fleet on the black sea in Crimea and of course, it has a strong presence in Chechnya and in the breakaway states in Georgia. But as you say, they are of course only protecting Russian interests. But this is how it has always been! The culture is not going to disappear in our lifetime; yes, it is about Moscow and this is no secret.

But they always ask people whether or not they want the Soviet Union to return in some form or another and there is always a reasonably large percent that wants it. There is nostalgia. But the idea is dwindling and there really is not that great of a movement to actually reinvent the USSR and I feel the reason is that, simply said, there is no more socialist ideology backing such a union and everybody knows it. In order for the USSR to exist, and I am speaking here of people agreeing to be the same and work for minimalist wages in a controlled economy for lifetimes, there needs to be a moral, spiritual and ideological reason to do it. Without communism, you just have suppression for the purpose of having suppression and that's fascism and it can't last. So with the ideology having been starved out of people and as they become more and more selfish out of need and experience, and as the country becomes more and more integrated, of course such a grouping would become less and less important.

So to answer the question about whether or not the CIS is important to Belarus, well, I think that the answer is yes. As you said, America still demands that Belarus be seen negatively and in fact, I just had my web hosting cancelled last week, my host sighting the Patriot Act as their rational for giving me the boot. So, there are still market problems. Perhaps this situation is somewhat less drastic in Europe and is becoming less and less the more the Europeans come here looking for business opportunities. And remember that Gasprom makes everybody pay so Belarus, either by design or providence, has had to become more accommodating and open. But entities like the CIS are and most probably will remain vital for Belarus because economically, it would be impossible for Belarus to exist without having those "original" markets to work with. If the association is seen negatively by the west, the reasoning there would only be the desire for greater control and availability by the Europeans, something that Russia and its neighbors are not likely to give up in this lifetime- and yes, they have missiles at the ready to prove the point.


Hope this opinion was helpful for you.
Cheers and best of luck with your education.
Adam

An invitation to come for a visit...

Human trafficking in Poland...

From: Polskie radio
Presented by Magdalena Jensen.
This week, I would like to draw your attention to a far more serious issue than hipster party scenes and bison grass vodka. Polish media has spent the past week or so bringing to light the issue of human trafficking in Poland.

On the 12th of January, the story of a poor Ugandan woman, lured from her country with hope of finding a better life in Europe, was made public. She has, in recent days, become the press' poster child for sex slaves ? a position I am sure must be difficult for her, yet, I am, on some level grateful that she has exposed herself and sacrificed her privacy to bring to the public?s attention such an important issue about which little details are known.

Now, Poland is 96 percent homogenous, so any foreigner on the street stands out. As such, there are many rumors about the vast numbers of Roma beggars that frequent Warsaw streets, trams and busses. It is rumored, and more than likely true to varying degrees, that the majority of the women, boys and girls are slaves. They are said to be 'owned' by larger rings of people who kidnap or buy them from impoverished families, then drugged and brought West where it is possible to earn more money on the street begging, selling oneself, or playing the accordion. It is also said that these people are kept drunk or drugged in order to inhibit them from running away. Really, while these sorts of stories seem too horribly sad to be possible, they are not far from the truth, as the story of the Ugandan woman shows.

Actually, Poland is perfectly positioned to be a country where trafficking of humans is not only easy but also desirable. The country is now an EU member, making it a veritable gateway to the West, but also it is the Eastern-most border of the EU, making it basically a welcoming mat for all sorts of things that can come from less open, less democratic countries like the Ukraine or Belarus or many other countries. Poland is often considered to be what is known as a 'transit country'. This means that Poland is really used as a portal into Western Europe people are brought through the country, likely given some sort of documents here and then transported farther west to cities like Berlin or London, which are extremely accessible from Poland, not to mention offer much larger financial possibilities in terms of the sex industry, illegal labour, or other sorts of forms of modern day human slavery.

The most recent figures available from the Attourney General, that helps prosecute cases of human trafficking, show that between 1997 and 2007 there have been 2,885 reported cases of human trafficking in Poland. That number, one must remember, takes into account only those cases where the victim of trafficking has been able to get to a police station and report his or her story. This sort of situation is, however rare and it is almost impossible to measure just how many people are trafficked in or through Poland accurately, though organizations like La Strada International and the International Migration Organization, both of whom work tirelessly to raise awareness about and combat human trafficking, claim that the real numbers are much higher.

The twenty-three-year old Ugandan woman was one of the luckier victims of trafficking. Her story, not yet fully known or publicized, is a sad one, and I am sure that she is only one of many unrecognized victims. The woman testifies that she was offered work in Europe, by a white man at home in Uganda, but was not told any details of what sort of work she would have. As well, she was told that she doesn?t need to do anything ? she will be provided with funds for the journey as well as a passport and visas. Her journey found the woman in Warsaw. She was left alone for a few minutes by her captors in a vehicle in the centre of the city. The young woman was able to escape the car and melt into the crowds at the city?s Central Train Station where she spent the night. Because she speaks English, she was able to get to a medical clinic, where she was helped to contact the police. So far, the Border Guards have not been able to identify or find her captors, likely because they work using false documents.

Despite the fact that the official statistics for victims of human trafficking seems quite low in Poland, the country passed a law in 2003 that grants asylum for a temporary stay of one year to victims in order for a legal case to be opened and for them to be able to testify against their traffickers. As well, La Strada International, the European Network Against Trafficking in Human Beings, helps provide victims with shelter, care, food, and other basic necessities. They also work hard to keep victims safe against threats of violence from their perpetrators.

Unfortunately, the La Strada facilities in Warsaw are experiencing budget problems. So, while the unfortunate case of this Ugandan woman has made headlines for a week or so, I only hope that it serves to draw sustained attention and definite action to help stop such a horrible phenomenon that is so hard to even fathom in this day and age.

New Years Movie...

Hello again!

I know I have not been posting here much. Lots of reasons for this. But I thought to blog something personal here just for fun and because I wanted to and because it kind of makes Belarus look good as well. Well I mean, I know that Belarus is starting to appear like a normal place to a lot of people and it is becoming standard to think of it as just another (semi) European country. I mean, Belarus is doing business, right? But in any case, I still think there is some value in reminding folks that people do live here and have lives and families and such. Like me.
So rose colored glasses an all, here is a little nostalgia and home movies and such from Pinsk from this last Christmas, New Years and my Anya's fourth birthday.
Cheers…



New Years Movie from Adam Goodman on Vimeo.



30 minutes
About 50 megs