always a victim
My co-workers watch the news every day while eating lunch in our planning office. By the time I get there, the news is finished and Montel Williams is usually shouting about something. I almost always turn off the television and enjoy my nutritious meal in silence. However, the other day I left it on and paid the price in lost brain cells.
Montel’s guest was talking about her traumatic experiences with a video voyeur. Whatever. One woman’s creep is another woman’s dreamboat. Seems this particular Peeping Tom set up a camera to film Montel’s teary-eyed guest getting out of the shower (in a well-lit bathroom with open-for-the-world-to-see shutters) every day for six years. Please. I’ve had healthier relationships that didn’t last as long. The “victim” cried through two commercial breaks and compared herself to a rape victim. Three times.
I know. B*tch has probably never been raped. Perp does a whole lot more than just watch your boobies.
The other day, a Pasco County woman choked on a piece of steak. Her boyfriend called 911 and was horribly mistreated. Several dispatchers, who should be fired if they hadn’t resigned, either wouldn’t or couldn’t explain the Heimlich maneuver until finally someone walked the distraught and hysterical man through the process. Boyfriend tried and failed and the woman died.
Lesson: If you are naked and yawning and stretching in front of an open window, don’t be surprised if someone notices. And takes pictures.
Lesson: If you are heavy, it’s difficult to work the Heimlich maneuver on you. So enjoy those dead animals *cautiously*.
In both cases, others acted in horrendous and/or criminal manners. In both cases, the victims played a part in their own demise.
Just thought someone should point that out.
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April 13th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Sounds like someone woke up on the not so nice side of the bed when she wrote this. I usually agree with all of your post, this one..NO.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:12 am
uhhh, so i guess that means rape victims are “asking for it”? looks like you checked common sense at the door this morning. are we sure this isn’t rachel*?
April 13th, 2007 at 9:14 am
They should be charged with MURDER.
And anyone who has listened to that 911 call should agree.
Lots of people seem to think so.
Why do we have these people take oaths; pay them up to 70000 a year. A 27 year old is making 45K when he’s arrested for meth-trafficking. hmmmmm and then when they let someone DIE …. they just get to quit. They found him sleeping (on the job AGAIN) after the call. F him. Could have been anyone here’s family. This is hardly the FIRST story of these maniacs. And TPD with their spate of killing the nonviolent mentally ill. That should have been murder, too.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:17 am
I’m not sure what role the victim played in her own demise … if the jobs were performed correctly. I see larger people saved all the time. Other methods are available but the fireman asses have to actually BE there. Maybe they should get out of the rescue business cause I think they are not so swell at it.
April 13th, 2007 at 10:02 am
hhhoooweeeee……someones in ‘blame the victim’ mode…that is SO not pc today. now yr gonna get it….ahaahahah
April 13th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Can’t we feel for some victims and also try to learn from them? Isn’t that better than just crying over the loss and looking to courtrooms for the answer? I don’t think anyone is blaming these women, just hoping to prevent future tragedies.
April 13th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Frankly, I don’t understand the point of this post.
Are we just talking about how sometimes bad things happen and most of the time other people don’t give a shit?
Because that is definitely true.
A lot of really fantastic things happen a lot, too, but if that’s not what we’re on here, well, OK, then.
And, um, dcdave, you have to see the irony in blasting Kate for perceived meanness and then taking a cheap, unprovoked shot at me, right?
Ain’t you high and mighty. Dumb-ass hypocrite.
April 13th, 2007 at 10:55 am
I think anyone who ends up on afternoon TV is likely just making crap up, or at a minimum really turning it all up to make it seem more dramatic.
Maybe I don’t know how anyone has sympathy for anyone on those shows - they all scream staged to me.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Lesson: if you are heavy, you are prone to health problems, some of which can be deadly. But she didn’t die from an obesity related disease. She choked on a piece of food and the “rescue” was incompetent. If you don’t know the heimlich you won’t be able to perform it on a skinny person either. The lesson is that everyone should learn basic rescue techniques. The lesson is that Pasco County emergency services needs to be investigated - both the dispatchers and the rescue personnel who took forever to arrive on the scene.
I was taught that you can’t perform the heimlich on very young infants. Kate’s logic would have the choking infants at fault for being so small. And even if performed correctly on anyone - big, little, fat, skinny - it’s not guaranteed to always work.
The other lesson is that those talk shows are kinda’ dumb and if you don’t like them, don’t watch them. There are plenty of real issues to get outraged about. A bunch of self-centered weirdos who expose their idiocy on daytime TV is not one of them.
April 13th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Kate at first glance this does sound like you think fat people choking on food deserve to die because they’re fat. “Enjoy those dead animals” isn’t too helpful, but then neither is venting.
I’m with Dave about this post sounding a bit Rachelesque. Has Kate got a new blog hero? How sweet!
April 13th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
That is a phenomenally sad story about the women chocking and dispatch supervisor David Cook’s unprofessional and unethical approach towards his responsibilities.
I wonder how many times this happens in Florida per year. It would be a good idea to randomly audit 911 centers. I tried to Google Florida Statutes to see if that is a requirement and I couldn’t find it — this really warrants a closer study.
April 13th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
I really wish some of you would take a breath. When tragedies or crimes or accidents occur, I know it’s fun to point the finger at everyone else. And I mentioned the others at fault in these stories. But let’s take a moment and learn something from the victims themselves. Whether it’s to put down a cell phone while driving or chew carefully or learn CPR or close the g*ddamned blinds.
Recognize we can and should do more to prevent some of these problems from occurring.
April 13th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Said that way it does sound better. I agree we sue to many people and we should take responsibility for our own actions and be aware of our surrondings. But the two cases you mention are very different.
On the Talk Shows, any daytime talk show should be ignored as David said they all seem to be staged and if not 100% the drama is added, watch behind the scenes of one.
April 13th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Fuck you both. Seriously. This has nothing to do with me.
April 13th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
I think Pink and Lee Nelson got it closest to correct.
It was fallacious reasoning. You can chew as carefully as you want. It’s the swallowing that’s the problem. There are involuntary things that can happen.
Peace. Rachel, it’s friday the 13th. Think good thoughts, just in case, yknow?
April 13th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
I don’t watch daytime TV talk shows like Montel because it’s a waste of time for me.
But the 911 operators are paid to do a certain job and that job is to save lives through emergency communication between a victim and the police or fire department/paramedics. Whether the victim is overweight or didn’t chew her food properly is beside the point. They should have gotten help for her immediately.
April 13th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
…don’t remember reading that she ws “heavy” anywhere either, Sprouts.
April 13th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Really grown up language there, Rachel. Go get a radio show with that vocabulary!
April 13th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Well look, the whole famn damily is here, ever’body bickerin, jes like old times.
(I love this blog.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
I thought CW moved up North…dammit.
April 14th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Kate - Good thing you didn’t have an incompetant surgeon botch your recent boob job, or we’d be reading a post about how you were partially to blame for choosing to have vanity surgery.
Your post is demeaning to rape victims and overweight people, not to mention anyone who’s ever choked or lost a loved one that way.
April 15th, 2007 at 8:27 am
If something tragic happens to me, cry a little and learn something that will prevent it from happening to anyone else.
Oh, and name a beer after me.
Then I’ll live forever.
April 15th, 2007 at 9:52 am
We all know where beer ends up. Just thought I’d point that out
April 15th, 2007 at 11:18 am
911 operators take oaths? Shows how much I know.
Wow this board got very negative while I was away for a bit. Rachel doesn’t care for people poking fun at her anymore, Kate says we should kill and eat our fat people, and Sandy has the funniest (and most lighthearted) response of all, Sprouts.
April 15th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Kate’s original point is valid, tho. If you step out of the shower and stretch naked in front of an open window, it’s your own fault if someone takes pictures of you through the window. It’s not “blaming the victim”, because in this case it really is the “victim”’s fault. If you’re worried about your privacy, close your blinds. If you want the sunlight to come in, put window film on the outside.
April 16th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Dave, CW - your unprovoked attacks on Rachel are ridiculous, childish, and despicable.
April 16th, 2007 at 10:53 am
enough, it’s hardly an attack. At some point you have to be willing to either take some precautions to preserve your privacy or you have to be willing to let people snap their pictures.