I thought this was a decent companion to the Charles Ramsey thing.
Man, am I glad not to see any of my Other Place friends making fun of Charles Ramsey. The world would be a better place if more people were willing to do what he did.
I get confused. I know many people here are from Cleveland, but does anybody still live there?
Rfts and I live right outside Cleveland; Oudemia and Helpy-Chalk live further out in the metro area.
That's what I thought, but I didn't trust me memory.
None of us are from Cleveland, though! Rootless cosmopolitans, all.
1: Are people mostly making fun of him? Everything I've seen about him has been straightforwardly praising him. The guy did a genuinely good thing, and seems thoughtful and humble; I love that he told the 911 dispatcher (and I'm probably slightly misquoting) "The girl's been kidnapped, put yourself in her shoes" when asked some inane question about what kind of help to send.
The guy did a genuinely good thing, and seems thoughtful and humble
Yes! He really seems like an extraordinarily good guy.
The police seem a bit ... incurious. Or is it just the recession-induced cuts?
I haven't seen fun poked at him, but there's this air of gleeful enjoyment of his shtick... like Boingboing's "The interview he gave to local news after the rescue is a thing of beauty. Beauty and lulz."
6: Molly is from Akron, which is why she is so wholesome.
NPR has been running with the "no one in the neighborhood knew" angle on the story, when in fact there were at least three calls from the neighborhood of reports of women being led around naked in the backyard on leashes.
It looks like the cops handled this as badly as the disappearances of women in the Anthony Sowell case. I think they are more interested in sending out 100 cars on a high speed chase, firing 137 shots and killing two unarmed people, than they are in actually solving crimes.
Or did 15 years ago. Maybe somebody fixed it.
13: The cops are probably lying, but they say no such calls came. I know that when something happened to me on the street in Rogers Park (not a big deal, I was fine), all my neighbors said they called the cops and others told people about how they had physically rescued me and shit. (No and no.) So while I'm not at all inclined to believe the cops about, well, anything, I don't necessarily believe each and every one of the ex post facto neighbor saviors.
Wow, I thought RFTS and SO had moved to California three years ago.
14: The hear that the stuff inside the rubber center of the world is poisonous.
17: The first thing you know, RFTS's a millionaire. They said, 'California is the place you out to be,' so they loaded up the truck and the moved to Beverly. Hills that is.
15: De-industrialization had mostly already fixed it as of fifteen years ago. Probably even more "fixed" now.
This story was on my mind today when I had to carry my mostly limp 21 year old daughter to the car.
It truly is amazing how isolated one's life can be in the middle of a neighborhood.
will, do you go out of your way to get to know your neighbors for that reason? I definitely did since I knew we'd be conspicuous.
12: Somewhere I think I understood that Molly went to the same high school that I did. Which goes some way to explaining my fucking wholesomeness.
Wow, I thought RFTS and SO had moved to California three years ago.
We did. Then I got a tenure-track job and we moved back.
23: EXACTLY. Stormcrow is the ur-Wholesomeness.
A variation on the recently proposed Von Waferian Bargain.
Bleg: Can someone point me to the recent thread where advice was given about neighborhoods to live in Oakland and surrounding? For reasons. Premature reasons, but one feels a need to proactively research.
The cops are probably lying, but they say no such calls came. I know that when something happened to me on the street in Rogers Park (not a big deal, I was fine), all my neighbors said they called the cops and others told people about how they had physically rescued me and shit. (No and no.) So while I'm not at all inclined to believe the cops about, well, anything, I don't necessarily believe each and every one of the ex post facto neighbor saviors.
Exactly. People are huge liars. The other possibility is that whoever ran the history on the calls about the house only ran that address and are missing the calls. It's pretty common to have calls about a house initially show the callers address because people don't have their neighbor's addresses memorized. So the call will pop up on your screen with a certain address but the text will say something like "two houses north of, loud party with tubas" or whatever.(totally not made up, I work an area with a lot of Mexicans)
My most recent call to the cops was about a large party with tubas.
I was not aware there was a whole internet debate about the appropriateness of finding the rescuer funny, but my partner and I were watching TV last night and that Anderson Cooper interview with Ramsay came on, and we totally cracked up. He's a sharp guy but he really is funny.
I there is a list, I also would complain about a loud party with tubas.
"You got to have cojones, bro...cojones, that's what it's all about on this planet". Great guy.
Other than being able to dot the 'i', I don't see why anybody would play a tuba.
Other than being able to dot the 'i', I don't see why anybody would play a tuba.
I played the tube from 4th grade up through my senior year. My jr. high teacher went to Michigan and he'd march the band over to various teacher's classrooms to play the Michigan fight song on the appropriate games. We had a math teacher who went to Ohio and he'd have me and the other tuba do that bow the Ohio tuba guys do after the song when we went to her class. It was fun.
It's important to remember that Ohio isn't all horrific kidnapping and murder stories. There's also college football and Skyline chili.
31/32: Halford is truly history's greatest monster.
Probably not the right place but-- if you hate people so much, then become a hermit. I honestly can't imagine how someone can be so broken to do this.
Skyline chili is disgusting, ketchup with extra sugar and cinnamon.
I played the tube from 4th grade up through my senior year.
That's starting young.
I was thinking 43 to All the Mineshaft.
Yeah, I make my own chili. I grudgingly trust other people to grow the anchos and raise the cows. I haven't actually spoken to another human being recently.
I was thinking 43 to All the Mineshaft.
Not a bad mouseover, but then, I also liked yesterday's "I haven't time to quash blogcrushes, I have 1100 + 400 fucking pages of Randall Collins to read."
I would call the cops on someone playing the tuba. It's an emergency situation. Get that person a proper sousaphone, stat!
It seems true in equal measure that Charles Ramsay gives a hilariously awesome interview as it does that the reception of said interview "raised interesting and important questions about our willingness to turn people of color into memes rather than heroes."
Yeah, my first thought about the interview was that I bet he'll wish he'd gotten to the barber more recently. Real salt-of-the-earth though, it can't be denied.
The only loud parties that ever disturb me feature a lot of oompah music. It's a bit disheartening that a lot of the guys younger than me seem to be into it, so it's probably not going away any time soon. Thankfully, we are just out of earshot of the official Cinco de Mayo celebrations, which feature like 32 bands, so that's something.
Did people watch the Anderson Cooper interview? Mostly the same story except at the end Ramsay says if he'd known the three guys were sexually abusing the women he'd have "been serving triple life."
He was also asked about collecting on a reward and he said, shit, give it to the women who've been tortured for 10 years- I've already got a paycheck (at which point he pulls his most recent paycheck out of his pocket.)
A modern Cincinnatus
Clevelandus?
There's something a bit unsavory to me about the air of "isn't he a character?!" He seems like a funny guy and a mensch but people seem to be clamoring for overnight celebrity.
We had Cincinnati-style chili where I grew up so I have a nostalgic feeling about it but yeah, the stuff is kind of vile.
It's appalling how rarely we see people talking on television other than people whose job is to talk on television. Usually news shows are even hosted by people who got a four-year college degree in the discipline of talking on television.
When the voice of someone who seems like the common man is heard, people don't know what to do with it. The laugh is as much from awkwardness as anything else. It's like the HOLY CRAP A WOMAN WHO HAS NOT SPENT MANY YEARS AS A BEAUTY PAGEANT CONTESTANT IS ON MY TV SCREEN phenomenon.
63 -- have you even watched a television set in the past 20 or so years?
I mean people who are unscripted and not debasing themselves.
Many people don't even own a television.
OK, I'll back up. Specifically in terms of being interviewed, when a normal person is interviewed, and saying something other than cliches, it ALWAYS seems awkward. I feel like this is because the interviews are always hurried and if they talk normally it just will not be used. So the only people who can successfully be interviewed and be taken seriously are basically professional spokespeople.
Semi-topical in re 28/29: Jordan steps down as police chief. (If this is the job you're hoping for, Chopper, sorry to out you...)
63,64:Last Psychiatrist on the short and long cons in Mamet, the Dove ad, and television
After reading the TLP and 63 in succession, I would say something about why does tv want you to think there are no "people like me" on tv while simultaneously making every effort to give you comfortable images of "people like me." I mean Hoss and Little Joe and that girl weren't martians or supercowpokes (or Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman) they were aw shucks folks just a lil bit better and you can be too if you buy Dove Soap.
63.1 Usually news shows are even hosted by people who got a four-year college degree in the discipline of talking on television.
What does that mean?
66: I live in a zero antenna household! There are 5 million of us across this land. We grow stronger every day.
Continuing bleg: Isn't there supposed to be a great site that lets you look at a map and see the rental properties in the area? I thought it was all the rage a few years ago, but the crack may have addled my brain.
Yes, it's padmapper.com. For a while they removed all of the listings from Craigslist, but I think they may have brought some of them back.
63, 67: On plain old nightly network news coverage of various regional catastrophes or disturbances, you get a lot of interviews of regular neighborhood people who look pretty downtrodden. Their testimony doesn't sound hilarious to anyone because they're talking about their house being destroyed or whatever.
Add me to the list of people who didn't know Charles Ramsey was being slotted in the 'hilarious' category.
Maybe the difference is that Ramsey is the hero rather than the victim here, so people (what people? really I didn't know this meme existed) feel free to make obnoxious editorial comments.
28/73: Hit me up if you need help! As you can see from the other thread, I have opinions.
Completely OT: say you wanted to turn a series of emails from someone, say your Dad, into a nice-looking book. Say also that you've looked at Memeoirs.com and it doesn't seem to work because the emails are not on a supported webmail site. How would you go about doing so?
77: Craigslist or elance or one of those "I'm Larry & this is my brother Darryl & this is my other brother Darryl and we'll do anything for a dollar" websites.
Back on topic, The Smoking Gun has linked to Ramsey's criminal record -- he did time on domestic abuse charges. It is both true that The Smoking Gun is assholes and that it this adds a dimension to Ramsey saying he thought he was breaking up a domestic violence situation.
If people haven't seen the Anderson Cooper interview with Charles Ramsey, which is not a studio interview, but done in someone's yard somewhere, it's here.
Pretty interesting. Like 7 minutes long.
Depends how many emails there are, how much you want to spend, how many copies you need, and how much you care about bindings etc. Presumably you need some way of formatting the emails to look "nice", then some way to print them off, and then a way to bind it.
(None of those steps are super difficult, and I guess the hardest one is the formatting -- there should be a local jobbing printer / bindery that will do the last two.)
81: I don't see the relevance. Why on earth is Ramsey being put through the third degree here?
I mean, the way I'd do it, if I was doing it myself, would be to design a layout for the emails + front matter of the book, shove the emails into that, then buy some "nice" paper and print (probably just using an office printer) the material onto that paper. The binding's the tricky bit, I think --- I've got access to a glue binder, but that'll only do soft cover. If I wanted hardcover, then I think I'd have to get someone to do that properly.
Dunno if this is particularly helpful.
Document production task, right? Here's one commercial link, I have no firsthand experience:
http://blogs.adobe.com/acrolaw/2011/11/batch-printing-an-email-portfolio/
I'm not really sure how to design a layout or to shove the emails into that. I guess I could cut and paste into a word document and then play around with that, but that seems super laborious and unlikel to produce a nice looking document. There are around 300 emails.
If your dad pissed off the RIAA or the FBI or something, they will collect and bind the email for you.
I can't even bring myself to make the How a Caveman Would Do It joke, because I think it's a cool idea. Goddamn you, Halford.
Really I was hoping that there was some nice easy Internet way to do this. Doesn't this seem like something there should be a nice easy Internet way to do?
23: I couldn't find the conversation where we determined we went to the same high school, but I did find the thread where you mentioned you grew up near Edgerton Rd., which would mean not only same high school, but same elementary school. Rob thought he remembered that you were younger than I. I thought you were older. So you'll have to settle that one. I graduated in 1989.
Can you upload the e-mails in question to one of the supported webmails?
There is one nice internet way to do it, which is to find some starving graphic design student and give them some cash, I suspect.
This gets some of the way there, right?.
91 -- He's older than me. Younger than God.
92-- I don't think I can get the emails into a supported system -- it works with Gmail but just forwarding your emails to Gmail doesn't work (I tried). The web says you have to do something called create an IMAP of your other mail and then import all of that into Gmail, which I don't think I can do because of security systems on my work account, which is where the emails are.
94.2 -- that contains super confusing words like "LaTex"and "Perl" which in Halfordese mean "there be monsters."
Hmm I suspect getting the emails out of the work account is the crux, because every solution (other than just forwarding to gmail & thence to underpaid straving GD student for manual processing) probably relies on that.
Hmm. Not super helpful really, sorry.
A lot of web designers are designers who also know computery stuff. Maybe one of them could help with the IMAPing.
Deeply ironically, this is exactly the kind of thing the FSF bangs on about.
91: Yeah, per 95 I'm a fair bit older than you ('72). But evidently I present much younger to some people. I don't know that we actually discussed same HS but rather that I gleaned it from Rob maybe mentioning that you went to the same high school as someone of either the astronautical or musical persuasion. Or else it was when people posted Google satellite shots of their school--something like that. Edgerton was more of a general vicinity thing than within a few blocks. I was further northwest and went to the elementary school now named for the astronaut.
I did work several summers at the pool at the country club right near there. And my folks are now at a nearby retirement community (right next door to WV Quine's childhood home).
My totally unhelpful inclination is to say "use LaTeX". I'll teach you how if you let me bill lawyer-like hourly rates.
What format are the emails in right now? Outlook?
It won't do much for fancy layouts, but if you have Acrobat pro - which lots of offices seem to - you can almost certainly print directly to pdf. There's other ways to do that, but in my experience, Acrobat has the easiest to use integration. But I haven't printed from email, just from Word and from browsers.
There's other possibilities, depending on what Outlook will let you export. I might take a look tomorrow because I'm just that curious. There might be a way to eventually end up with epub. I don't know anything about the print production side, though.
The annoying thing is that as far as I know Microsoft doesn't support an open email format, so it's harder to build tools to do this.
96.2: Oh come on! Just untar the download on your nix machine and read the manpages!
if you have Acrobat pro - which lots of offices seem to - you can almost certainly print directly to pdf
If you have a Mac, you don't even need Acrobat.
but if you have Acrobat pro - which lots of offices seem to - you can almost certainly print directly to pdf.
And if you don't you can download the free version of Cutepdf or one of the many other similar utilities out there, and then print directly to pdf.
I can't remember what formats Outlook will export to. It's generally shitty in all possible ways. But if the server it is talking to is a standard IMAP server or similar, there are ways to get the emails out. There also tools that will let you read the data in Outlook .pst files.
http://www.codetwo.com/freeware/outlook-export/
might work?
If I was doing something like this at work, I'd first look for some open source tool that'd let me do it, and if not, I'd use the python IMAP libraries to just hoover out the contents of the server. Then I'd use LaTeX [and possibly some sort of crude/lazy Python text munging] to generate a nice looking PDF from the data. Maybe an hour or two of work.
The only parties that ever disturb me feature a lot of oompah music
The oompah music, the chanting, the amplified speeches, the tank tracks... I know the kind of Party Natilo's talking about here.
On Topic: Apparently two of the Castro brothers aren't being charged with anything related to the kidnapping. Also, it seems oudemia was right when she doubted the naked-leash story. It sounds like the victims don't confirm it.
No takebacks Moby, I'm already outraged.
101: My google skills have failed. I do not think anyone's anonymity would be compromised if you just go ahead and tell me the location of Quine's childhood home. Apparently Quine was born about seven years before my grandfather, who grew up to be ... big surprise ... a machinist for Goodyear.
116: Quine lived on Orchard Rd. right off of Market alongside Rockynol where my folks now reside. I recalled that from his autobiography; this site mentions he had lived earlier in his life on Hawthorne St.
And non-shockingly we share the Wingfoot Clan--my father was a chemical engineer there.
96.2: Oh come on! Just untar the download on your nix machine and read the manpages!
You know why they call them "manpages", Halford? Because they're the pages for real men, manly men.
And there's nothing more manly than untarring -- you have to rip the tar off with your bare hands.
Yeah, that Outlook Export program at 111 looks like it should perform the crucial first step of getting all the emails into a text file, that a starving GD student could then make pretty.
You know why they call them "manpages", Halford? Because they're the pages for real men, manly men.
Also for caricatures of feminists.
I miss the days of 2005 when I didn't get that joke at all.
I forgot to check what I can do with outlook today. Turns out this job requires work.
Chopper, "ennui body want a peanut?" is great.
Wow, the days of 2005 were different.
Maybe it's because I'm on windows, but I downloaded and untarred that email printing thing and from the file list it looks like you have to compile something just to read the manpages. The readme seems to confirm this.
115:
Thorn:
I do.
Wilt thou love, honour, cherish and... sorry, turned over two pages at once.
BTW, Halford, if you're too lazy to find someone who's actually qualified to do your email-to-book project, I'll do it. Because I'm not actually familiar with any of the tools involved, it'd take me much longer than the 1-2 hours it'd take ttaM, but then, I'd only charge, I dunno, $20/hr capped at $150?
Honestly you should probably find someone more qualified, who would probably also be cheaper because faster, but again, if you're too lazy, I'm offering (since I should be more familiar with automated text-processing stuff anyway).