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Thursday, December 28, 2006
The "New Police Professionalism": Serious Christians Need Not Apply
Enemy of the Almighty State: Ramon Perez, formerly an exemplary police officer in Austin, is seen here with his wife Michelle and their home-schooled children (from left) Victoria, Philip, Rachael, and Sarah.
Ramon Perez was a rookie police officer in Austin, Texas when he responded to a domestic violence report in January 2005. When he arrived at the address, he was greeted by a distraught woman who claimed that her elderly husband had pushed her down the stairs, leaving her with injured arms.
As he interviewed the alleged victim, the alleged assailant, an elderly man apparently in frail health, emerged from the home carrying car keys and a cup of coffee. Perez, who had called for backup, told the man to stop. As he did the backup officer, Robert Paranich "lunged" at the elderly man, nearly knocking him off his feet.
"I considered that an escalation of force," Perez later recalled.
With the suspect struggling to regain his balance, Paranich yelled at Perez to use his Taser to subdue the elderly man. To his considerable credit, Perez refused to do so, chiefly because the man wasn't resisting arrest, but also because the rookie officer was concerned that the man was so frail the electroshock device could send him into cardiac arrest.
Those considerations, incidentally, are spelled out in the Austin Police Department's Taser policy, which Perez followed exactly. In the event, Perez and Paranich were able to effect the arrest using "soft-hand" tactics. When it's possible to arrest a suspect without resort to violence, Perez later said, doing so is "the constitutionally correct thing."
A few days after this incident, Perez received what he and his attorney Derek Howard describe as a punitive transfer to the night shift. Two months later, Perez was questioned at length about the January arrest, as well as a second incident in which he acted with unauthorized fastidiousness about constitutional correctness.
He was told to report to APD psychologist Carol Logan to undergo what was described as a session of "word games" to develop better communication skills with his superiors. Perez was not told that the interview would be a "fit-for-duty review" held to facilitate the pre-ordained decision to fire him.
According to the Austin Chronicle, Logan confirmed that Perez had been told the meeting would focus on "word games." However, her four page report mentions nothing about that exercise; instead, it focuses "entirely on Perez's moral and religious beliefs, which Logan concludes are so strong they are an `impairment' to his ability to be a police officer."
Perez is a self-described non-denominational fundamentalist Christian, an ordained minister who home-schools his children. This, according to Logan, produces an "impairment" of his ability to absorb new facts, to communicate with his superiors, and to deal with "feedback."
"Perez has a well-developed set of personal beliefs," wrote Logan. "These seem to be based primarily on his religious beliefs and it is obvious that he has spent a lot of time reflecting upon and developing these views."
While Logan, displaying the reflexive condescension of a career servant of the Regime, describes Perez's convictions as "admirable," she criticizes him for displaying "defensiveness" when his convictions are challenged. The firmness of Perez's moral beliefs is problematic, she concludes, because they "provide him with a rationale for explaining how his views differ with others."
Boil down Logan's assessment in a saucepan, and here's the residue: Perez was unsuitable to serve as a police officer because his values transcend the authority of the State, and his moral convictions have immunized him against collectivist thinking.
"Those meddling Christians always interfere with official police state business!" While Nazi second-in-command Martin Bormann didn't use those exact words in his 1942 memo calling for Germany's Christian churches to be "absolutely and finally broken," that's more or less the gist of what he wrote.
It should be noted that Perez was also troublesome because, unlike most newly minted law enforcement officers, he had two decades of adult life in the rear-view mirror before beginning his police career. He was a 41-year-old ex-engineer when he graduated from the academy, and his fellow cadets honored him with the Ernie Hinckle Humanitarian Award for compassion, integrity, and leadership on the strength of the character he had displayed.
A month after the psychologist – who actually functions as what the Soviets called a Zampolit, or "political officer" -- rendered her assessment, Perez was given an ultimatum: He could resign from the APD and keep his peace officer's license, or be fired and lose that license, and thus be left unemployable by any other department. Perez chose the first course, while fighting with the Austin City government for a year to see the report that had led to his firing.
The triggering incident was his refusal to use a Taser on an unresisting elderly suspect; this episode revealed that Perez -- who would appear to be an exemplary officer, a throwback to an era when police were peace officers, rather than heavily armed enforcers of the State's decrees – was not morally ductile. He was fired for disobeying an order from a superior that was unconstitutional and illegal by the department's own standards.
The official explanation is that Perez was fired for being a "substandard cop." Perez's attorney, Derek Howard, offers a more credible assessment: "He didn't fit in because of his religious belief system."
"It was concluded that my [morality] justified it [the decision to disobey], when in fact it was my commitment to policy and our training at the academy and the U.S. Constitution, and not necessarily my moral, spiritual foundation, that led me to that decision," explained Perez at a press conference earlier this month. "Being tough is a good thing. Being tough, as a cop, can save your life or someone else's. But when that toughness crosses over into civil liberties, that's where a line needs to be drawn... and for some officers, that's a gray area."
Like Molech and other omnivorous pagan idols sustained by lethal violence, the Regime under which we live is a very jealous god: It requires unqualified, instantaneous obedience, particularly from those in the business of enforcing its decrees.
Perez, like any Christian worthy of that designation, will render to Caesar only that to which Caesar is due – which in our system means only the power necessary to protect the lives and property of the innocent. Or, as he put it: "I do believe, if you are a police officer, you have an ordination by God to protect and preserve life." All of this resonates with the actual meaning of the much-misapplied verses in Romans chapter 13 that are often wrested by those preaching unconditional submission to State power.
So now Perez is out of a job, and Austin's branch of the Leviathan Force will fill his slot with someone willing to adapt to the Regime's priorities. In simple terms, this means it will find someone willing to shoot an unresisting elderly suspect, at point-blank range, with a Taser.
This is not the only time I've heard of a police department using psychological testing to weed out police recruits whose Christian convictions make them unsuitable to serve the Regime.
A few months ago a former professional associate of mine described how his son, who applied for a position with a Sheriff's Department in Wisconsin, was rejected after he was made to play similar "word games" with a psychologist. Despite scoring well on every evaluation, this young man was deemed unworthy to work as a deputy sheriff because of his inflexible moral views and impatience with arbitrary bureaucratic policies.
One such incident could be an anomaly, and a second a mere coincidence. Three or more, however, constitute a trend. I'm confident that a third episode of this variety could be found with relatively little effort.
46 comments:
Great write-up Mr. Grigg, but the typos were a bit distracting in this one. Are you still suffering from your flu?
I enjoy your chronicles of the increasingly absurd society we live in. I hope more people take note and can share in the outrage.
- December 28, 2006 at 11:48 PM
- William N. Grigg said...
taylor -- thanks for the kind words, the timely correction (I've gone back and repaired at least those typos I can recognize in my present depleted condition), and your concern for my health. I've overcome the Flu, although our one-year-old seems to have contracted it.
Right now I'm suffering from a combination of travel lag -- we just finished a Christmas trip to visit family in Las Vegas -- and the distractions produced by five small children still wired from excessive consumption of Christmas treats and excessive generosity by their maternal grandparents.
- December 29, 2006 at 12:45 AM
- rick said...
the sad truth is...i seriously doubt that this "policy" is only taking place in police departments, but also other bureaucratic, and gun-toting agencies.
so like i always say, "get it now before it's illegal". after all, laws are passed every day to protect police officers. now there is some good in that, but there is bad in that when protecting police officers takes away our rights or freedoms. the indiscriminate use of terry searches/frisks, and having to disclose that one is armed (and in some cases render the weapon to a police officer) are cases in point. i guess we can't be trusted.
and one last thing.
will, have you figured out how to drop posts yet? sink sink socks is at it again.
- December 29, 2006 at 7:51 AM
- Warren said...
It seems the seizure of weapons from flood victims in LA were just the beginning. It seems to be getting worse and worse as time passes and yet there is an apathy that says "if we don't do anything wrong"... Oddly enough more and more things that are now 'wrong' didn't used to be anything of the sort. It is saddening.
- December 29, 2006 at 3:17 PM
I hope you'll forgive reticence about my professional experience, but I can assure you at the federal level the training doctrine materials subtly make the State god over all. It's only going to get worse out there, and many older officers lament the change. May God have mercy on us.
- December 29, 2006 at 4:25 PM
- dixiedog said...
Hello brother Will,
Back a bit sooner than I expected, but I had to trip around a bit to see some of my folk since I didn't have anybody over my place this year. I hope your Christmas get-togethers were a swell affair as well ;).
This is a sad story to say the least. I have to concur with broken on this as I'm no stranger to government...ugh. I've been in the military ('84-'90), worked for AAFES, worked as a private contractor on a military base and NNS, a private shipyard (now Northrop Grumman), which is a major defense contractor for the Navy.
And I can tell ya, these "psycho" tests have been in use for many years, unfortunately, and not only in government proper but in the private sector as well. Although, I think it's been only in more recent times that these "word games" are being aggressively and proactively used as a lean-to and ammo for firing folk. And, as I recall, some of the questions that I've encountered in the past did seem specifically designed to filter out anomalies or folk who didn't fit a pre-ordained mindset that the employer was looking for. That would usually entail being an unquestionably compliant doormat and obedient servant of the boss and perform the job in question regardless of whether right, wrong, fraudulent, or wasteful to the government (the people actually), or the company. As I mentioned, this scheme is also used but to a lesser extent, of course, in the private sector, but accountability of deeds is much more significant and makes disreputable and/or evil conduct less prevalent in that space. At least in the realm of small business; corporations are a different matter entirely.
Will, I think we're reaching the stage now, as Mr. Perez's episode clearly demonstrates, whereby folk who possess a genuine Christian worldview will either have to be ready to lose jobs, lose freedom, lose material, and inevitably at some point even lose life itself in America, not the Sudan, Cuba, Soviet Union, or a China. Otherwise, you're a fake. Others suffer for their belief systems, those that are genuine believers in, and practitioners of, that particular belief system, that is. So it must be with Christians. Folk for decades and decades always seemed to brush off cultural and political trends in this country. "Oh, don't worry about that, son, that's happening on the 'Left coast' what do you expect from a San Francisco...from politicians in Washington...and so on..."
Well, now these former cultural "anomalies" are in everyone's face and extant in every locale to some degree. Ignoring it, brushing it aside, doesn't and won't cut it.
This all kind of reminds me of this church during a Sunday service, where the folk therein are all attired in their Sunday best, listening to the morning sermon from the pastor.
Suddenly, the doors burst open in the rear of the sanctuary and a couple of hooded gunmen, brandishing Carbon 15s and AK-47s, rush inside. One of them, the presumed leader, utters a loud ultimatum: "Renounce your faith in Jesus Christ by exiting through the rear of the church at a quick pace, otherwise you will be summarily executed."
95% of the church quickly crowds up at the rear doors and run out the back of the church, including the pastor, and just 5% remain.
The leader of the gang of gunman closes the back doors, walks to the podium, and then makes a statement to the remaining members: "Now that we have filtered out the genuine believers from the genuine deceivers, let's worship together!"
Yep, to borrow your metaphor, Will, when the heat is cranked up, the chaff is boiled away out of the saucepan, leaving the residue.
How solid is the American Christian's faith? Because, it will very likely be severely tested sooner or later.
- December 29, 2006 at 8:52 PM
- Bantam said...
Psh, both of those groups of people are wusses, dixiedog. I'd have shot the gunman.
Then again, it's rumoured that, here in a couple Southern States, you're required by law to bring a gun to church. Either way, I'm set.
- December 30, 2006 at 1:38 AM
- Bantam said...
Psh, both of those groups of people are wusses, dixiedog. I'd have shot the gunman.
Then again, it's rumoured that, here in a couple Southern States, you're required by law to bring a gun to church. Either way, I'm set.
- December 30, 2006 at 1:38 AM
I liked your article and just wanted you to know that as a fellow Christian I have observed similar trends which, in my opinion, seem to be all part of the fulfillment of Bible prophecy about people's love for one another growing thin as we near the end of the age.
I know a couple people who became police in the past 10 years or so. I watched their attitudes go from bad to worse... now they have a cold "us versus them" mentality, where the public are suspects at best. The utter contempt they have for most ordinary people, which they now call "civilians", shows through often when they talk. One of them occasionally brags about beating up on people. As if that's really something to be proud of, especially when there are 4 or 5 against one.
I used to wonder how these guys ever got through the psych tests, but now I realize the psych tests only look for whether they'll follow orders. It's creepy, even the guys who are not actual psychopaths have a vaguely rude demeanor about them in times when there's no need for it. The personable, all-around-likeable small-town type policeman of yesteryear is becoming more the exception than the rule.
It's not how I remember the police being when I was a child. Past 20 years it's gotten bad. A friend of mine had the police put a gun to his temple because they say he tried to outrun them, all this in a small town where the police knew him and his family by name, and he'd never had any criminal record.
In other countries, unchecked police power has never led anywhere good. Brazil... China... Iraq... Cuba... the list goes on and on.
Americans should say No to the militarization of the police at every turn. It's hard to do when television programs, advertising, and other media have been subtly teaching everyone to be in love with unchecked authority.
We can discern that this kind of authority, one which persecutes Christians and others for their religious beliefs... one which is obviously and deliberately dehumanizing... which handcuffs 5-year old girls, kills unarmed people, beats already-subdued suspects half to death, etc, etc... is no longer an authority that's of the Lord.
Yes, things are getting pretty absurd.
God bless and keep the faith.
- December 30, 2006 at 4:10 AM
thank you for writing this
may God bless the Perez family!
- December 30, 2006 at 10:55 AM
Powerful story.
The ONLY problem I have with it is it's foundation is a lawsuit prepared by his attorney. Suits are almost always loaded with hyperbole and carefully selected quotes and partial statements compiled by clever attorneys.
I've read suits on incidents I had first hand knowledge of or were named in and was shocked (early in my career)that plaintiff's attorney wasn't criminally charged, fined, or disbarred for what was alleged. No one will question it what is alleged. The jury will NOT compare the original suit to testimony offered. A complimentary reach into the deep pockets before trial is what drives many of them to be filed.
However, if this ends up on the docket, and if it turns out to be true, then someone needs to pay dearly for what was done to this man.
I was prompted to write my first paragraph by my disappointment with so many to digest what an attorney alleges. Some readers of this may have experienced the unfairness in the system. For those of you who haven't, good for you.
It's not much fun having your name attached to a course of events that in no way resembles what really happened as witnessed with your own senses. And even though no evidence exists to support the manufactured scenario, the wisest business decision is for the defendant (cop, insurance company, employer, et al) to write a check so they go away.
I wish him luck if his case is the exception. Better yet, there should be a very special category of punitive damages awarded to the plaintiff in this case.
- December 31, 2006 at 2:49 AM
- rick said...
i think this man's case can also serve as a Christian lesson. now, i do not know the spiritual side of this story, so i'll get to that in a few.
sometimes in life the Lord will tell us to do something. sometimes He will tell us not to do something. In the realm of employment, we need to go to Him and ask if this is where He wants us to be. take king david for instance.
2 Sam 2: 1 - 2
1. And it came to pass after this, that David enquired of the LORD, saying, Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah? and the LORD said unto him, Go up. And David said, Whither shall I go up? And he said, Unto Hebron.
2. So David went up thither,...
so what we have here is david knowing exactly where the Lord wanted him, and once there he was sure to have His anointing. so let's say we have a Christian fellow and he is in one of the following situations:
1) he's where the Lord wants him, but doesn't want to leave just yet even though the Lord has told him it's time to go.
2) he's not where God wants him to be, does not want to leave, but the Lord loves him enough to get him out of there.
3) he's trying to go into a place where the Lord does not want him to go.
4) he's where the Lord wants him, and the devil wants to remove him.
in situation #1, what will the Lord do? well, first He might tell him to leave......again. but remember that He loves you so much that He chastises His children!! so what happens to our Christian fellow at work? well, hell breaks loose. nothing works out. he's being discriminated against. oh no!! this is not fair!!! then...he's fired. now, the Lord can speak to our unemployed brother and better get him to where he needs to be.
In situation #2 you'll get the same thing. despite the warnings, and without asking the Lord "where should i go?" our friend is in dire straits. why? becasue Satan knows he's not in God's will so what do you think Satan will do? not a dang thing!!! he'll make it oh so comfortable for our brother and he'll even 'bless' him with raises and promotions and all the goodies that he owns (and our brother will think it's God doing all of this!). meanwhile, God wants our brother in His timing and where He needs him to be. so what does He do? He gets personally involved b/c Satan knows our brother is powerless out of God's timing and will. So God directly or indirectly facilitates the removal of our friend.
in situation #3 our brother will encounter one of two things: 1) the possible opposition of the Lord doing what He can to keep our brother from gaining this employment (i say possible cause sometimes the Lord will let us run until the rope runs out); and 2) the possible opposition of Satan (i say possible because our brother's presence, as a Christian, and even in the wrong place, might disturb Satan's operations; otherwise Satan will welcome him with open arms).
in situation #4, Satan can only disourage our brother to quit the job. if our brother knows that he is in the will of God, Satan will not succeed.
God is capable of putting anyone anywhere, and even place his people right under the nose of evil and wicked rulers who in turn will place God's people in charge.
Joseph. Daniel. Shadrack. Mishack. Abednigo. Esther. Mordecai. God placed every last one of them in empires whose rulers were not of the same faith and worshipped other gods. i hope that mr perez's situation works out, but we need to be cognizant of the spiritual background of his situation before we pass judgement. i sincerely hope he's in God's will in working for the police department. but if not, then he will lose the case, and God will place him where he needs to be, and mr perez and family will be more effective in their new assignment...in God's will.
the wealth of the wicked is laid up for the just. that should be us. maybe...just maybe, we find ourselves suffereing on the job, or getting fired from a job, because the Lord is telling us to go out and start our own businesses? the only way to know is to ask......Him.
- December 31, 2006 at 10:01 AM
bantam: Psh, both of those groups of people are wusses, dixiedog. I'd have shot the gunman.
You swung and missed the ball entirely. The point of that illustration was to show how persecution (illustrated in this particular example with armed thugs breaking into a church) quickly reveals the faithless among the faithful. You could substitute government agents for armed thugs since those terms are becoming increasingly synonymous in America.
IF you even had your sidearm with you in the church to start with and IF you could draw it fast enough, fire and kill ALL of the gunmen without missing a beat, sure you would save the day. The likely result is otherwise, however. You'd get mowed down as well as every other man, woman, and child, all because of your "hero" ego and knee-jerk reaction. As the illustration clearly showed, with no armed bantam playing "hero," nobody gets mowed down, neither the fakes nor the genuine.
Again, you missed the point by a mile.
- December 31, 2006 at 4:18 PM
rick, I agree to a point. You seem to be saying that anytime things "go south" for the believer that it must be him/her not following the Lord's will. Where I agree, to a point, is that indeed that could be the case, but OTOH, it also is very likely, as Christ Himself warned many times would be the case, that the believer is simply being persecuted. You seem to be stuck in the OT. Lots of scenarios outlined in the OT were particular to the Jews of that era. For example, we wouldn't march around a city seven times, blowing trumpets, then shout, and have it's walls crumble. We wouldn't slaughter every human being in that city as well, i.e. Joshua at Jericho (Joshua 6:1-21).
Take a gander at a few verses:
Matthew 5:10 (NIV) - Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 13:21 (NIV) - But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.
2 Corinthians 12:10 (NIV) - That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
John 15:20 (NIV) - Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.
I think it's quite clear that we should be ready to suffer persecution in some manner because it's a definite probability, not merely a possibility, if we're following in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ.
- December 31, 2006 at 5:04 PM
Only our Lord Jesus Christ can guide us in the life and death decisions we make on a day to day basis when we Police the community The secret to Policing is not toabsorb all the terrorizing events that are experienced by Officers who are long time Patrol Veterans in an environment of constant violence and distrust. When we lose sight of who we are and why we serve then its time to hang up the badge,the vest and the gun. Remember how would you like to be treated if you were arrested.
- December 31, 2006 at 9:06 PM
- rick said...
points well taken. i realized that's how it sounded after i posted it, but situation #4 covers the point you were making. yes. sometimes it's just plain ol persecution, but all we've got to do is stand if we are where we are supposed to be. :-)
- December 31, 2006 at 11:02 PM
- Kevin Carson said...
To a large extent, the department's personnel policies are an extension of the same culture promoted by the state's school system. The schools' main purpose is processing "human resources" for employers; and in the service McJobs and white collar cubicle warrens that currently predominate, what employers need is people socialized to be "team players." That means the "other-directed" personality type who will absorb the values and goals of the group (well, really of the boss), rather than evaluating the bosses' policies in terms of a previously internalized, strongly held set of values of his own.
That's why "professionalism" is a god-term in the current job culture. And the term "professionalism" itself has undergone an 180 degree shift in its meaning in recent decades. It originally entailed the possibility of defending the autonomous values of the profession against the commands of bosses. Now "professionalism" IS doing what the bosses want.
The jackboots have been suspicious for some time of anyone who claims an independent capacity to evaluate government policies in terms of the Constitution. Back before 9-11, the Reno era FBI had a sort of "you might be a terrorist if..." list for identifying terroristically inclined groups. And one of the identifying features was an inordinate interest in the Constitution and upholding its integrity.
They're all in favor of public worship for the Constitution, so long as it's only worshipped as a legitimating symbol for the regime. Just as they're all in favor of a belief in "freedom" so long as it's understood that armed servants of the state are by definition "defending our freedoms." It's when the Constitution and freedom become independent bases for evaluating the state that they have a problem with it.
- January 2, 2007 at 11:27 AM
- Deb said...
Responding to Fred...I can assure you that the lawsuit, as written, is sound, and free from hyperbole. The lawyer is well renown in these parts on similar cases and I would hardly be involved if I weren't confident in his and especially Ramon's ability to take the City on on their weak, weak defense.
I'm the president of the local chapter ACLU board (you can see my shoulder there above Ramon in the pic) and while I certainly hope that Ramon gets what he needs out of it, I obviously have a stake in seeing that the larger picture of ills with our police department are brought to the forefront and continue to work with Ramon to that end. He too hopes that his case will affect the structure of APD and pave new paths for incoming and present officers as well as citizens.
Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.
- January 4, 2007 at 9:20 AM
Thank you Mr. Grigg... I am where the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has placed me. This is his battle and not mine. I have forgiven all and I do what I am called to with a pure heart.
Ramon Perez
- January 4, 2007 at 11:12 PM
Like I said, deb: "I wish him luck if his case is the exception. Better yet, there should be a very special category of punitive damages awarded to the plaintiff in this case."
No quarter.
- January 5, 2007 at 4:35 PM
- rick said...
Godspeed! make that change! :-) stand...
- January 5, 2007 at 8:28 PM
A self-righteous, morally superior Christian? Is there any other kind?
- January 8, 2007 at 12:33 PM
Pasted this from Austin Chronicle Comments
Support APD!!! by guest | hide/show
Who is this idiot that wrote this article? Have you ever been a police officer and do you know what they really go through? The rule on the streets is "are you a danger to yourself or others?" If two officers are working together and one of them won't do what is necessary to protect himself than he is leaving the second one open to injury and possibly death.
Making ignorant accusations about the actions of the people who sacrifice their privacy, rights, family life, and health to protect us should be illegal. If we had more good citizens and less free loading losers, these articles wouldn't be written. More people need to support our police and stop trying to criticize them for a job that most people aren't brave enough to do.
To Guest of 1-12-07 by guest | hide/show
Based on what you say former APD Officer Joel Fulmmer should have continued beating the already hand cuffed suspect. But he did what is senior officers told him to for their safety, and beat on the suspect some more even though he was faced down head in the dirt and hand cuffed while being tazed. He lost his job doing the wrong thing. Yet you probably would support him to. What about the mentally disabled man sleeping at the bus stop when on video he never fought with the officer. I guess he did nothing wrong because after all he could have hurt the officer. And the mere perception of that is to break his nose anyways? How much is a drop of blood worth to you when it comes from a deceased American GI out fighting for freedom in foreign lands. Is it worth beating some one inspite of his or her sacrifice. Or do you expect your freedom as an officer to violate civil liberties of passive suspects justified in the shed blood of these brave soldiers. I suggest you turn in your badge and enlist in the military and go face an IED. See if your sorry feelings would not change. If you are still a cop you need therapy! Do not dishonor the constitution and the sacrifice of others.
- January 14, 2007 at 12:34 PM
- Len said...
I don't think you should apply for a job in the bureaucracy if you have little tolerance for "petty bureaucratic policy."
Still, this kind of nonsense sounds perfectly believable.
- December 3, 2007 at 4:24 PM
Smells like christian propaganda to me. I bet there's a lot more to this story than this spin merchant is letting on.
- December 3, 2007 at 5:23 PM
I find it interesting that all the positive attributes associated with Mr. Perez are linked by the author to his Christian beliefs. It's as though Mr. Perez couldn't have acted responsibly or appropriately if it were not for his religion. It's a shame that a good police officer should lose his job for doing the right thing, but doing the right thing is not predicated on being Christian.
Considering how much effort was spent associating society, and the Austin police force, with Nazi Germany, I find it appropriate to point out that many Christians are equally "Nazi-like" in their approach to homosexuality. In fact, in contrast to the universal and total intolerance the church shows toward gays, the police department in question may have had other problems with Mr. Perez not mentioned in the cases here.
Mr. Perez may have acted honorably in these cases, but being a devout Christian indicates to me that he's less likely to be honorable to all of our citizens. There is no room for hatred, bigotry, and oppression in our police or our society, and christian churches preach their share of that. Clean up your own house first.
- December 3, 2007 at 5:26 PM
You quite aptly say folk who possess a genuine Christian worldview will either have to be ready to lose jobs, lose freedom, lose material, and inevitably at some point even lose life itself in America, not the Sudan, Cuba, Soviet Union, or a China. Otherwise, you're a fake.
This describes exactly the situation in which conscientious objectors have found themselves when resisting the government's imperative that they commit murder on the government's behalf -- a position for which they have been widely vilified as "cowards" or "traitors".
- December 3, 2007 at 9:07 PM
I don't think that an attitude of respect for life is exclusive to Christians, or even to religious people as such. Any human being can defend values of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".
I think the question here is one of empathy. Mr. Perez saw a fellow human being and treated him as he would have liked to be treated in the same situation, ie, with respect and minimal force.
One of the main objectives of military and paramilitary training is to destroy the natural human empathy of the recruit, his inborn respect and reluctance to hurt others; to make him ready to follow orders, even if these cause unnecessary suffering to others.
When large segments of a society undergo this kind of training (reinforced by a system of macho values communicated constantly via the mass media), and became aggressive and paranoid, then you get a society which is prepared to wage war, to kill, to torture without questioning its motives. Which is what is happening to America.
In that sense, Mr Perez could be considered a failure - his training did not work. Really, the world needs more failures like him.
- December 4, 2007 at 4:51 AM
- William N. Grigg said...
One of the main objectives of military and paramilitary training is to destroy the natural human empathy of the recruit, his inborn respect and reluctance to hurt others; to make him ready to follow orders, even if these cause unnecessary suffering to others....In that sense, Mr Perez could be considered a failure - his training did not work. Really, the world needs more failures like him.
Amen to that!
I grant that practicing Christians have no exclusive franchise on nobility and empathy. In the case of Ramon Perez, his convictions were the immediate source of his principles, and the identified source of his "problems" with following unethical orders.
One reason I underscored Officer Perez's Christian commitment was to highlight the difference between his conduct and that of so many other professed Christians who have no difficulty doing the kind of things Perez refused to do.
Our nation is lousy with Christians who eagerly support various kinds of institutionalized murder and cruelty -- from illegal war in Iraq (and elsewhere) to officially sanctioned torture. It says much about our predicament that the genuinely Christian behavior of Officer Perez would be such a conspicuous exception among those of us who profess to follow Jesus of Nazareth.
- December 4, 2007 at 7:08 AM
- JStressman said...
I'd have to agree with Hypocrite spotter.
The article gets so caught up in hysterics and dramatics about Nazis and Christianity that it painfully detracts from what might be valid concerns in the article.
As Hypocrite spotter stated, moral and ethical behavior is by no means predicated on Christianity. I have a strong feeling that there is more to this case than meets the eye, but we really can't know because it's obvious that this article does nothing to accurately portray the issue, focusing instead on portraying the "victim" as a martyred Christian saint and the police force and society as evil Nazi communist atheists.
It should also be noted that Hitler himself promoted Christianity and Christian values in many of his speeches and writings, especially in Mein Kampf etc.
It is easy to pick and choose what you want to believe when you ignore all the facts... such as that a devout Christian belief would have you never borrowing money, never asking loans to be repaid, giving the shirt off your back... much less condoning or even participating in the hatred and murder of homosexuals and people of other faiths, such as "witches", wiccans, pagans etc.
The bible is replete with its own horrors, bigotry, and genocides.
You would do well to focus on the facts here and not get so carried away with juvenile drama.
As for dixiedog, I can only hope that someday you are caught in such a position where you are offered to say you renounce your faith or to get a bullet in the head and you choose the latter. The world will surely be a better place without you in it.
Evolution gladly favors those of us with working brains and functioning senses of self-preservation who know that it's a hell of a lot smarter to speak a few words and live another day to bear children and share our message etc, than to refuse to say we don't believe in some imaginary sky god and be killed on the spot for it.
It's like watching someone refuse to get a blood transfusion because of their religious convictions and dying slowly and horribly from it... or worse, the evil sons of bitches who refuse to allow their children medical treatment because of their "faith" and end up killing their innocent children who cannot defend themselves from the mythological homicidal idiocy of their parents etc.
Sure this officer sounds like a great guy and I fully agree with his actions in the case portrayed, as it is portrayed here... but when he seems to share the same beliefs as the rest of you, it does have to make me wonder indeed if he is truly suited as a whole to serve as an officer of the law. I'd withhold judgment on that in the absence of a good deal more information from unbiased sources.
- December 4, 2007 at 8:57 AM
- William N. Grigg said...
I'd withhold judgment on that in the absence of a good deal more information from unbiased sources.
Surely as a paragon of rationality you're capable of following hyperlinks, aren't you? I would hardly expect any reader to agree with all of my conclusions -- or any of them, for that matter -- but I would expect that people would at least follow the links before concluding that what I've written is entirely without merit.
Hitler and Stalin (a one-time seminarian) both exploited the religious convictions of their subjects while apparently sharing none of them.
The link to the brief essay about Martin Boorman offers a passing reference to something documented in great detail in the transcripts of the Nuremberg Tribunal: The intention of the National Socialist regime was to crush Germany's Christian churches, once the war was won and the Thousand-Year Reich was consolidated.
For a couple of really good treatments of the anti-Christian origins and practices of the Nazi state, I'd suggest Nazi Culture by George Mosse, and Leftism Revisited by Erik Ritter von Kuehneldt-Leddihn.
As for dixiedog, I can only hope that someday you are caught in such a position where you are offered to say you renounce your faith or to get a bullet in the head and you choose the latter. The world will surely be a better place without you in it.
Spoken/written like a proud heir of the modern atheist tradition, which was responsible for the murder of (per the findings of RJ Rummel in his study Death By Government) something on the order of 100 million + human beings. Many millions of them were Christians given the choice you fantasize about imposing on my friend.
For all of the flatulent, self-exalting rhetoric about the quality of your oh-so-evolved brain, the comment quoted above indicates that you spend far too much time dwelling in the reptilian portion of the same.
- December 4, 2007 at 9:14 AM
- JStressman said...
I'm aware of some of Hitler's views in private, as well as those of some of his men etc. But it pays to note the use of religion to make people blindly follow authority figures etc.
Also, I don't wish death on almost anyone, but when someone is stupid enough to choose a figment of their imagination over their immediate physical well being, when there is no proof of God, but surely a proof of your current life, friends, family etc... that is an irrational choice and one which I feel deftly illustrates the evolutionary mechanism of survival of the fittest. Those who would rather die for figments of their imagination are killed off, thus leaving those who prefer to live another day based on what they actually know exists to ensure their genetic lineage and hopefully children who will share the same tendency to trust reality and value their own lives more than the notion of an imaginary sky god.
If you believe so much in God and the afterlife, why do you bother getting treatment if you're sick? Why not just die and hurry to what you claim to believe is such an infinitely greater and glorious eternity with your God?
Because a part of you trusts the physical assurance of the NOW. That's your heritage telling you to value your life and not give it up over myths about a man in the sky no more real than the stories of Zeus or Apollo or any of the other countless Gods which man has believed in and subsequently left behind on the road to enlightenment.
Oh, and should I point out the hypocrisy of Christians trying to act like Atheism equates to Genocide? Should we have a look at the number of deaths in the name of God which resulted from the Crusades? The Inquisitions? From "missionaries" in the New World and elsewhere who converted or slaughtered the people as heathens who were often treated as not even human unless they converted to Christianity?
Christianity has been a root cause for the slaughter of "others". Anyone who didn't believe. Who had a different faith, or different culture etc. Atheism has simply been a characteristic of a few men who killed over the pursuit of power or nationalism etc. Hitler didn't wage a war on Christianity, he waged a war on the world to create a new German empire modeled after the Roman Empire. It was a nationalistic move to wipe out anyone he saw as undesirable, not just the Jews, but gays, political dissidents, gypsies, and many others.
A hatred of gays is a quality Christians share with the Nazi party. The bible clearly states in several cases to kill them, and even goes so far as to advocate raping innocent girls rather than allow a male guest to be sodomized etc.
So while I'm sure you are delighted to jump on my comment directed towards dixiedog, you fail to take into account the entirety of what I wrote... like the part just after that where parents kill their children rather than get them medical treatment because they believe that the "power of prayer" will heal them, just as the bible states it will.
I have to say that I have little pity for people who stubbornly refuse to accept reality and end up giving up their own lives for figments of their imaginations, in spite a wealth of hard evidence proving otherwise.
How is it evil for me to say that the world would be a better place without a person in it who would rather a bunch of people be slaughtered like sheep than speak a few words and live another day? You believe it's ok to cost someone their life because you THINK there is some magical father figure in the sky who will reward you for getting yourself killed... when I KNOW that I'm alive RIGHT NOW and that every aspect of science for the past century at the very least has pointed, with a preponderance of evidence toward the verdict that God does not, and cannot, exist and thusly I should value my PROVABLE life in the here and now over the highly unlikely possibility that some millenias old fairytale about a man in the clouds will reward me with eternity in a blissful castle in the clouds with all my friends and loved ones for foolishly getting myself killed etc.
You can stick with your hypocritical death cult... I'll gladly stick with those of us who actually VALUE humanity and life.
- December 4, 2007 at 10:09 PM
- Unknown said...
Justin's energetic rants here take the discussion too far afield with a shotgun scattershot indictment of religiosity in general. Responding to his points would not be pertinent to the article.
Mr Grigg's article centers around the state oppressing those who base their moral compass around their religion. It's not easy to be non-partisan in evaluating the extent to which this is a problem in modern America.
Those of us who love liberty, and want to preserve and enhance it, should be in clear opposition to efforts by the state to use the weak science of psychology to categorize us as fit or unfit persons.
Mr. Grigg's thesis - that states have a tendency to demand a form of worship of the state - is a crucial one for us to understand. By viewing the issue as a conflict between liberty and authoritarianism, we see that it matters little whether the enforcers of 'right thinking' represent a secular or theocratic regime.
Thanks for the great blog Mr. Grigg - hope to hear you interviewed by Scott Horton some time.
- December 8, 2007 at 5:33 PM
- JStressman said...
cowbot: I agree with your statements. As I initially stated, my problem was with how distracting the religious hype was from the meat of the article. The ensuing comments only further distracted from that.
Admittedly I have a hair trigger when it comes to religion, but I think my initial stance was justified given the obvious bias of the author and commentors that dramatized the role of religion in the issue.
Thank you for so eloquently stating where our collective priorities should have been. :)
- December 8, 2007 at 8:25 PM
Mr. Grigg:
This law suite is scheduled to go to Federal Western Court on September 08, 2008. The discovery phase of this process has been completed and all I can say is everything is looking good. Many experts have reviewed the case and are challenging the unjust termination.
- May 16, 2008 at 12:25 AM
Mr. Grigg,
The trial that was scheduled for Monday, September 2008 did not occur because the City of Austin filed a pre-trial motion appeal to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. This was filed with in hours of the trial. This is largly considered to be a move of desparation and delay tactic. Trial has been delayed by at least 6 months. It is unlikely the COA will prevail at this level either.
- October 13, 2008 at 11:37 PM
Arguements are scheduled with the 5th Circuit Court Appeals in New Orleans La, this September 1, 2009. What is being argued is the right of the defendants to obtian qualified immunity in an attempt to overturn the lower courts decsion that would of green lighted the trial. COA is expected to once again fail.
- August 22, 2009 at 10:44 PM
5th Court of appeals "affirmed" the district courts position not to allow qualified immunity for the defendants. See the link below to review the judges decision.
- September 8, 2009 at 10:12 PM
This article is full of half truths. The real truth is that Mr. Perez, a commissioned police officer may be a wonderful christian man but made more than one comment saying he would NEVER under ANY circumstances, whether it be another officer or citizen be in danger, shoot someone. I am sorry, but that is part of his job and if he can't or won't do that, then he does not need to be a police officer.
- September 23, 2009 at 7:50 PM
Last Anonymous, That is simply not true, he stated in an Article with Austin American Statesman "That if you are a police officer then you have an ordination by God to protect and preserve life". This means that it would be "sin" not to use his weapon under the correct circumstances. Please show some documentation to your point that he wouln not use his weapon if he had to.
- September 24, 2009 at 3:39 PM
- Ricardo Davis said...
Will, as usual your article was right on target.
Any update on the case? What about Mr. Perez...is he still in law enforcement?
- November 16, 2009 at 10:47 AM
- William N. Grigg said...
(I mistakenly deleted the following comment, which was received earlier this morning)
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The "New Police Professionalism": Serious Christia...":
You will all be relieved to hear that after 5 days of testimony this week, involving 2 seperate chain of commands, 5 inches of documentation, 2 videos, and Ramon Perez testifying and unfortunatly purgering himself, the jury found Mr Perez was not truthful in his claims and the defendants were found not liable. Ironically, he has already been suspended without pay on two ocassions from the Pflugerville PD for officer safety issues.
- December 19, 2009 at 6:25 AM
Mr. Grigg, The person reporting in the negative for Officer Perez, may be intentionally distorting the case. Officer Perez was only suspended one time at his current position with the Pfluggerville Police Dept. and it was for not removing the shoes and shoelaces from a suspect before placing him in a holding cell. To put this suspension in a perspective, not to distantly, Austin Police Dept. Officer Quintana was suspended for 15 days for breaking into his girlfriends house, yet would go on to shoot a man in the back and later be given an 'Officer of the Year Award.' I was at the trial and one of his main officers Sgt. Zumwalt testified and it was shown on a video screen, she wrote, 'Seems competent, just needs to work on the little things.' She also added 'He genuinely appears to want to help people both spiritually and physically.' The city defense lawyer mounted personal attacks on Officer Perez at every chance and when the jury deliberated, it asked for his performance records at Pfluggerville but was denied because the evidence had not been placed into evidence. Had his supervisor from there, testified favorably for him, I feel the jury would have been drawn to the conclusion that the other defendants had used religious reasons to resolve their personal conflicts with Officer Perez. I feel that his lawyer may have been incompetent, to not have that supervisor testify. Michael Brooks
- January 3, 2010 at 11:59 AM
"He (Perez) has well-developed personal beliefs..." which, according to supervisors, leave him unfit for duty.
Funny though, were his personal beliefs, let us say, of the homosexual variety, and say, he were a cross dresser during his time away from duty, and let us say he engaged in 'recreational' sex with multiple partners and was proud to wear his dress blues and lead the annual 'Gay/Lesbian/Transgender/ETC Parade'; would the brass have determined him unfit for duty because of his well developed personal beliefs? I think not.
- February 11, 2010 at 7:54 PM
There is now a book out with the technical facts of this case, as well as the court documents, on Amazon.com and down-loadable to Kindle Readers and PC's called 'Are There Christian Cops in Austin Texas'.
Included is information on Police History around that time and the surrounding culture.
- October 16, 2010 at 3:11 PM
- GoldenScrooge said...
This has become obvious. Thanks for the post.
- May 3, 2017 at 8:12 PM


text:
The Bruery 10 Lords A Leaping
Wassail is known for warmth and spices. The tenth verse of our Twelve Beers of Christmas saga goes leaps and bounds beyond a traditional winter warmer, drawing inspiration from the dark, spiced ales from Belgium and our love for experimental brewing in SoCal. 10 Lords-A-Leaping is a dark imperial wit ale featuring 10 different spices – coriander, orange peel, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, mace, anise, dried apples and cloves, which complement the spiced notes imparted from the yeast and prance upon the rich, dark fruited character of the specialty malts.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Obsessed With Nutrition? That's An Eating Disorder
By Janet Maslin
The New York Times, January 3, 2008
Not all scientific study of Mars is about extraterrestrial exploration. Some of it is about chocolate. Scientists at Mars Corporation have found evidence that the flavanols in cocoa have beneficial effects on the heart, thus allowing Mars to market products like its health-minded Rich Chocolate Indulgence Beverage.
In the same spirit, nutritionism has lately helped to justify vitamin-enriched Diet Coke, bread bolstered with the Omega-3 fatty acids more readily found in fish oil, and many other new improvements on what Michael Pollan calls "the tangible material formerly known as food."
Goaded by "the silence of the yams," Mr. Pollan wants to help old-fashioned edibles fight back. So he has written "In Defense of Food," a tough, witty, cogent rebuttal to the proposition that food can be reduced to its nutritional components without the loss of something essential. "We know how to break down a kernel of corn or grain of wheat into its chemical parts, but we have no idea how to put it back together again," he writes.
In this lively, invaluable book–which grew out of an essay Mr. Pollan wrote for The New York Times Magazine, for which he is a contributing writer–he assails some of the most fundamental tenets of nutritionism: that food is simply the sum of its parts, that the effects of individual nutrients can be scientifically measured, that the primary purpose of eating is to maintain health, and that eating requires expert advice. Experts, he says, often do a better job of muddying these issues than of shedding light on them. And it serves their own purposes to create confusion. In his opinion the industry-financed branch of nutritional science is "remarkably reliable in its ability to find a health benefit in whatever food it has been commissioned to study."
Some of this reasoning turned up in Mr. Pollan's best-selling "Omnivore's Dilemma." But "In Defense of Food" is a simpler, blunter and more pragmatic book, one that really lives up to the "manifesto" in its subtitle. Although he is not in the business of dispensing self-help rules, he incorporates a few McNuggets of plain-spoken advice: Don't eat things that your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize. Avoid anything that trumpets the word "healthy." Be as vitamin-conscious as the person who takes supplements, but don't actually take them. And in the soon to be exhaustively quoted words on the book's cover: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." An inspiring head of lettuce is the poster image for this mantra.
Do we really need such elementary advice? Well, two-thirds of the way through his argument Mr. Pollan points out something irrefutable. "You would not have bought this book and read this far into it if your food culture was intact and healthy," he says. Nor would you eat substances like Go-Gurt, eat them on the run or eat them at mealtimes that are so out of sync with friends and relatives that the real family dinner is an endangered ritual. Other writers on food, from Barbara Kingsolver to Marion Nestle, have expressed the same alarm, but "In Defense of Food" is an especially succinct and helpful summary.
Among the historical details that underscore a sense of food's downhill slide: the way a Senate Select Committee led by George McGovern was pressured in 1977 to reword a dietary recommendation. Its warning to "reduce consumption of meat" turned into "choose meats, poultry and fish that will reduce saturated fat intake."
When Mr. McGovern lost his seat three years later, Mr. Pollan says, the beef lobby "succeeded in rusticating the three-term senator, sending an unmistakable warning to anyone who would challenge the American diet, and in particular the big chunk of animal protein squatting in the middle of its plate."
Mr. Pollan shows how the story of nutritionism is "a history of macronutrients at war." If the conventional scientific wisdom has moved from demon (saturated fat) to demon (carbohydrates), creating irreconcilably different theories about the health benefits of various foods, it has also created an up-and-coming eating disorder: orthorexia.
"We are," he underscores, "people with an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating." This book is biliously entertaining about orthorexia's crazy extremes. A recent "qualified" F.D.A.-approved health claim for corn oil makes sense, Mr. Pollan says, "as long as it replaces a comparable amount of, say, poison in your diet and doesn't increase the total number of calories you eat in a day."
Since a Western diet conducive to diabetes has led us not to improved eating habits but to a growing diabetes industry, complete with its own magazine (Diabetic Living), Mr. Pollan finds little wisdom from the medical establishment about food and its ramifications. "We'll know this has changed when doctors have kicked the fast-food franchises out of the hospitals," he says.
Until then he recommends that we pay more attention to the reductive effects of food science, recognize the fallibility of research studies (because to replicate the healthy effects of, say, the Mediterranean diet completely, you need to live like a villager on Crete) and dial back the clock. Mr. Pollan advocates a return to the local and the basic, even at the risk of elitism. He recommends that Americans spend more on food: not only more money but also more time. Eat less, and maybe you make up the financial difference. Trade fast food for cooking, and maybe you restore some civility to the traditional idea of the meal.
"No, a desk is not a table," he points out. Though he shouldn't have to tell us that, readers of "In Defense of Food" will be glad he did.


text:
Competition season is fast approaching. A few days ago I posted the music for the Falcone International Competition. But there is also an international competition from the International Tuba-Euphonium Association (ITEA). Deadlines and registration details can be found at the link here: http://www.iteaonline.org/conference...e=Competitions
Below is the music required, with links to as many as I could find online.
There is an audition coming up in March for principal tuba in the Ft. Collins, CO, Symphony Orchestra. This is a very part-time position, but if you are living in this area or planning on moving there, it's a good orchestra.
More details can be found in the Tuba Auditions Topic of our Tuba-Euphonium Forum.
The Toledo Symphony Orchestra is about to audition for a tuba vacancy. Resumes are due by October 1, 2006, and the audition date is November 10. More info can be found here:
George Mason University offers some great competitive and non-competitive playing opportunities at their Potomoc Festivals International Euphonium and Tuba Competition. Details are in our forum in the Tuba - Auditions category:
Visit the Forum...
Principal Tuba
Solo: Vaughn Williams: Tuba Concerto - First Movement
Orchestral excerpts:
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique - last movement, 84 - end
Berlioz: Hungarian March from the Damnation of Faust
Mahler: Symphony #1 - third movement, rehearsal number 1 - 4
Prokofiev: Symphony #5 - first movement, rehearsal number 3 - 6
Wagner: The Ride of the Valkyries
Wagner: Overture to Die Meistersinger
Please see this topic in our forum


text:
Symbiosis Centre for Management Human Resource Development (SCMHRD)
Hover for parametre-trend of all colleges
*Rankings above are out of 247 colleges
*Institutes like IIM-B, IIM-L, which did not submit their objective data on time or refused to participate, have not been ranked
*Ranking is based on Objective data, Experiential and Perceptual survey.
*Only those colleges which fulfilled the below criteria were considered eligible for participation in ranking:
- Minimum 3 batches passed out
- Offering two years full time Post Graduate Program in Management
*All scores have been rounded off to one decimal place, this may result in rounding off errors while adding the parameter-wise score
*Those colleges not ranked during Perceptual Survey have got 0.0 marks in Perceptual Score.
- Learning ExperienceRank: 2
- Living ExperienceRank: 1
- Selection Process & EstablishmentRank: 2
- Future OrientationRank: 2
- Placement PerformanceRank: 1
* Rankings above are out of 247 colleges
Analysis & visuals by GRAMENER


text:
ALBANY — New York's health commissioner says he won't wait for completion of any of the pending gas drilling studies and plans a recommendation "in weeks" on whether the state should approve hydraulic fracturing.
Health Commissioner Nirav Shah says Monday he won't wait for the final results, which could be years away.
Instead, he says state officials will talk to at least some of the researchers about their findings.
Shah says he met with researchers from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Geisinger Health in Pennsylvania within the last two weeks.
Geisinger plans preliminary results within a year. It's studying the health records of individuals living near Pennsylvania gas wells from before and after hydrofracking started. It's a report two people close to Gov. Andrew Cuomo see as key to his decision.


text:
Abt's employees work 24 hours a day to keep day-to-day operations running at the high standards set by generations of the Abt family. Most day employees arrive between 3-9am, although employees come and go all day and night long.
Thursday began like most, with one major exception: at 8:30am Ross Haskell, the director of marketing at Bold Software, and a production crew came in to spend the day taping a video for the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition (IRCE) 2010.
The IRCE is a conference where internet retailers convene to learn from each other over a four-day period each June. This year both Jon Abt and Ross Haskell will be speaking for a conference session to discuss software that has become a lifeline of our customer's internet retail experience. Bold Software created BoldChat, a technology responsible for giving our customers the ability to speak with a customer service or sales specialists live on-line regarding anything from product specs to tracking info to sales quotes.
BoldChat is a managed communication tool, which provides customers live human contact over the internet, in the form of a chat, which is similar to texing or emailing with the instant gratification of an immediate expert response from Abt's highly-trained staff.
In a world full of automation, customers appreciate the person-to-person contact attainable because of BoldChat sessions. Abt has grown into the largest single-store retailer in the country, thanks to uncompromised values like customer service, as seen in the store's motto, "The answer is always yes to any reasonable request." BoldChat gives Abt another outlet to serve customers in every aspect of the sales process.
During the long day of filming, Jon Abt along with customers, and staff did interviews about their experience using BoldChat. The consensus was BoldChat has become a tool that Abt can't live without. Customers appreciate the versatility of being able to speak with a sales or customer service specialist while multi-tasking. It is so flexible that consumers in every demographic can use BoldChat.
Customers are parents, students, at work, or just have so much going on that they don't have time to be on the phone. The overwhelming customer response to the question, "what do you like most about BoldChat?" was the ability to pose a question and walk away from the computer, knowing upon their return, an expert response would be waiting for them.
Customer service personnel can answer questions and include links to products, shipper's websites, or even spec sheets on a manufacturer website. The best feature of Bold-Chatting, according to our staff, is their ability to provide unparalleled customer service and assist multiple customers at the same time.
Jon, Abt's co-president, is hands-on with the internet sales division of Abt. He is always willing to jump in and assist sales or customer service staff with answering phones and questions on BoldChat. The internet division of Abt sales has been around for 13 years. Since 1999, BoldChat has been an essential component of our service. Jon believes that BoldChat is an enhancement that has made it even easier than ever before to get answers to questions, as simple or complex as they may be.
Abt's staff, who utilize BoldChat daily, believe that the ways to assist customers seem endless. Just about any questions a customer could ask on the phone, staff can easily answer over on a BoldChat.
Constantly changing to meet our customer's ever-evolving needs is a top priority and thanks to BoldChat, we are able to help customers in yet another effective and personal way. At Abt, customer needs come first, and thanks to BoldChat we can offer even better customer service than ever before!
-Kelly B.


text:
ActiveFit allows you to track your HorizonbFit facility usage and incentive payment history right from the convenience of your smartphone!
If you have any questions about the HorizonbFit℠ program or ActiveFit®, contact Advanta Health Solutions Member Services by email or call toll free at 1-201-351-7850, extension 1, Monday through Friday, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Eastern Time.
Yes. There is no obligation to keep ActiveFit on your smartphone. However, keep in mind that once deleted, the app will no longer track your visits, and some program data may be lost. You can also view your program history at any time in the HorizonbFit member portal at HorizonbFit.com.
ActiveFit is a smartphone app that allows you to access your HorizonbFit member portal. ActiveFit tracks your attendance at any participating fitness facility you visit. You can also access visit and payment information, self-report facility visits for times you don't have your smartphone with you at a facility, update your personal information, view motivational messaging to keep your workouts on track and use the built-in step counter, SmartWalk®, for tracking how much you walk.
Open your ActiveFit app, select Maps from the drop-down menu and search the network of participating facilities by ZIP code. Thousands of fitness facilities participate in HorizonbFit.
No. It does not cost anything to download ActiveFit.
If you are no longer enrolled in HorizonbFit, you will still be able to view your program history and take advantage of the step counter and other offerings via ActiveFit.
Yes. For ActiveFit to effectively track visits, you will need to have Bluetooth and GPS location services enabled on your phone. To enable these, follow the steps in your phone's Settings menu.
Yes. You will need to bring your smartphone into the facility for your visit to be recorded. You will also need to have ActiveFit open on your smartphone prior to entering your facility. Please ensure that your GPS location services and Bluetooth are enabled to ensure your visit is recorded.
ActiveFit uses geofencing technology to create a "hotspot" surrounding your facility. Aside from your normal check-in procedure, ActiveFit will trigger a visit when you enter the geofence. For best results, open ActiveFit and ensure your GPS (location services) is enabled before you enter. Allow a few moments for your visit to be recorded.
You can self-report your visit through ActiveFit after your visit. Open ActiveFit, select the Menu button and then select Self-Reporting. Tap the date you would like to self-report, enter the time and time spent. Click Submit for Review. Advanta Health Solutions, which administers the program, reserves the right to verify self-reported visits, whether by checking with the facility or by requiring a printout of your attendance from the facility.
Generally, your visit will be recorded within 15 minutes after you enter your facility, but this time frame can vary. If your visit does not register, you can self-report your visit through ActiveFit by opening ActiveFit, selecting the Menu button and selecting Self-Reporting. Tap the date you would like to self-report, enter the time and time spent. Click Submit for Review.
If you self-report a visit, that visit will have a pending status until it is verified by the facility in its monthly usage report. In some cases, Advanta may ask you to submit a usage summary directly from your facility to verify a self-reported visit.
Simply self-report the date you attended via ActiveFit, and send an email to email@example.com so we can update our records.
To update your personal information through ActiveFit, open the app, select Menu, select Profile. Update your personal information and select Save.
To access your payment history, open ActiveFit, select Menu and then Payments.
Once you begin using ActiveFit and select a participating facility, any visits to other participating facilities will also be recorded and count toward your monthly rewards goal.
ActiveFit™ and SmartWalk™ are registered trademarks of Advanta Health Solutions.
Android™ is a trademark of Google, Inc.
iPhone® is a registered trademark of Apple, Inc.
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text: On Tue, 26 Aug 2008, Perry E. Metzger wrote: > > "Robert G. Brown" <rgb at phy.duke.edu> writes: >> I think that matrix allocation per se is contiguous because of how and >> where it occurs at the compiler level. Immediate matrices allocated >> like a[10][10] are just translated into displacements relative to the >> stack pointer, are they not? > > It depends. You're not guaranteed per se that they'll be allocated on > the stack, though in practice they are. Unless they are really large, I imagine. I'm not sure what the stack limits are (I don't code to ever stress them) but I'm sure there are some. >> Global/external matrices at the a[10][10] >> are prespecified in the data segment of the program, > > Depending on the particular OS. Certainly that's the usual model. What OS's do it some other way? I'm just curious. Is this a kernel feature or a compiler feature? >> The only place where it might not be true is when one dynamically >> allocates memory for a **matrix. There, if you loop through malloc >> calls, there is no guarantee that they return contiguous blocks > > An vector of pointers to vectors is not a matrix. :) > > It acts a bit like one, but that's guaranteed NOT to be contiguous > allocation because malloc will at the very least add the (invisible to > the programmer) malloc headers etc. No, a vector of pointers to addresses in a vector. To make a 3x3 matrix **m indexed from -1 to 1 that has actual data in vector *v: a) v = (whatever *) malloc(9*sizeof(whatever); b) m = (whatever **) malloc(3*sizeof(*whatever)) + 1; c) for(i=0;i<3;i++) m[i-1] = &v[i*3 + 1]; (or thereabouts). m[-1][-1] now dereferences to v[0]. m[0][-1] points to v[3]. m[1][-1] points to v[6]. m[-1][0] derefs to v[1]. Etc. If I did the seat of the pants displacement correctly. The point is that a) v is a contiguous block of memory. If one puts both v and m and index limits in a struct, one can make an entire "matrix" object a single contiguous block of memory that actually knows its own limits and permits limits checking with semi-portable routines. One can now call e.g. an ODE solver that requires a vector argument v but write the derivs routine using m and completely natural addressing. And if one wishes, obviously one can do more complicated things to compute the displacements of the addresses packed into m to do e.g. triangular arrays. Is this a pain to set up? One is basically doing by hand what the compiler does for you for rectilinear, 0-indexed arrays, so yes. However, it is often WORTH the pain to save space, to be able to produce usable code, to be able to create an array in C that can be passed to a fortran array, although I think macros are likely more useful for that. In fact, macros are another way to do some of the same things, but not identical things. Oh, and free(v), free(m) is all it takes to free the space. In contrast to a more usual NR malloc loop, which has to loop frees of each vector block (with, as you note, its header:-) and then free the ** pointer. I use/have used both, but generally prefer the vector repacking approach as it is more obviously efficient. And yeah, there's little point to this if all you're doing is allocating a "boring" rectilinear array that starts at 0, or even 1. I still often do it for 1 because I can't stand creating shadow im1 = i-1 variables in loops from 1 to N that contain lots of complicated algebraic stuff. As I said, angular momentum table displacements can get pretty ugly, especially when one gets to 3 pairs of indices. rgb [My largest piece of fortran, lifetime, was writing a program to check a physicist's algebraic reduction of a multichannel nuclear scattering cross-section from its "bare" form -- summing over umpty different channel angular momenta -- into a "cooked" form that used all the algebraic reductions of angular momentum tensors into more compact irreducible forms, which was a sum over a much smaller set of input and output channel spins of a product of a few 9j symbols, a CG coefficient, and some phases. Box-full-of-cards, so to speak. The "hard way" sums were over many, many clebsch-gordan (3j) and 6j coefficients, all of which I had to evaluate with my own code, this being pre-library days at least if you were poor. The later stuff with Gaunt numbers was from structure factors in crystal band structure computations, where Gaunt numbers (triple integrals of Ylm's) are themselves products/sums of 3j symbols, so I reused some of the code, and eventually ported it -- twice -- into C. Actually, it was a pretty big fortran program too once upon a time -- lots of bessel functions and integration and coupled ODE solution.] > > > > -- Robert G. Brown Phone(cell): 1-919-280-8443 Duke University Physics Dept, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Web: http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb Book of Lilith Website: http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Lilith/Lilith.php Lulu Bookstore: http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=877977


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Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Some Changes In Our Leadership
We're in a very exciting time at Motorola Mobility. Our recent devices are delivering unprecedented value to consumers and have had a great reception in the market, with Moto G officially the best selling smartphone in our history. Moto E is meeting with similar enthusiasm, selling out in India on its first day and gaining notice as a true game changer in the industry. We shipped 8.6 million devices in the second quarter, up 130% from last year's Q2 and more than 30% from last quarter. People are buzzing about the upcoming Moto 360 watch, and we have many more amazing products in development. We're excited about our new home in Chicago's Merchandise Mart, and looking forward to the close of the Lenovo acquisition, and all the possibilities that it will create for us.
Each has built strong distribution partnerships and grown our share in incredibly competitive markets around the world.
It would be easy for us to take a breath and pat ourselves on the back, but I believe this is the perfect opportunity to make some changes to our leadership that will help us to continue building on this success.
Charlie Tritschler is now Senior Vice President of Product Management, overseeing all of our product development, product marketing and ecommerce efforts. Since joining our team a little over a year ago Charlie has been one of the leading forces behind Moto G and Moto E.
As our global presence expands again, we will rely more on our regional leaders who deeply understand their local markets. As a result, regional sales heads will now sit on our senior leadership team. They include:
- Jeff Miller, Corporate Vice President, North America and Global GTM Operations
- Sergio Buniac, CVP, Latin America
- Magnus Ahlqvist, CVP, EMEA and APAC
Each has built strong distribution partnerships and grown our share in incredibly competitive markets around the world.
Our products depend on powerful and integrated marketing and branding to cut through the clutter and capture people's imaginations. Adrienne Hayes, SVP, Marketing and Communications, will lead a newly combined marketing and communications organization that will be responsible for our brand image, advertising and reputation globally. In her year with Motorola Adrienne has successfully launched Moto X, Moto G and Moto E globally, and revitalized our company's voice and social media presence.
These changes ensure that our leadership team accurately reflects our priorities and organization structure, and put us in the best possible position to continue growing our success. Congratulations to all the leaders in new roles, and my thanks to everyone who helped bring us this far.
Rick Osterloh
You can find more information on our executive team here.
You can find more information on our executive team here.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
The Download: Getting the Most Out of Bluetooth Connections #MotoTip
Motorola Connect (the Chrome extension that allows you to send and receive messages and calls from your desktop ) and Motorola Migrate (the app that lets you easily transfer your phone's information from an iPhone or Android to a Motorola device).
But I'm using a ton of Motorola features on a daily basis because Moto X is my day-to-day smartphone. Here's my #MotoTip as part of this week's Download, which is all about getting the most out of trusted bluetooth devices. I use it all the time while I commute. It makes it easier to go about my day without the hassle of unlocking my phone all the time, while keeping my phone secure when I'm not connected to a trusted device.
Exactly how do you set up a trusted device?
When you first set up a new bluetooth connection, you'll be prompted to make it a "trusted bluetooth device." But if you missed it the first time around, it's really easy to set up.
Under Settings, go to "Security" and tap on "Trusted Devices." Simply opt into the feature, confirm your password, and then select the devices you trust to keep your phone unlocked. Now you will no longer need to enter a password to unlock your phone when connected to the device. Once you disconnect from it or when your phone is too far from the device to connect, the phone will again require the password settings you've set up to unlock, so that your personal information stays secure.
I really rely on this feature, and I think you'll like it, too.
Posted by Eve Bills, Product Management
But I'm using a ton of Motorola features on a daily basis because Moto X is my day-to-day smartphone. Here's my #MotoTip as part of this week's Download, which is all about getting the most out of trusted bluetooth devices. I use it all the time while I commute. It makes it easier to go about my day without the hassle of unlocking my phone all the time, while keeping my phone secure when I'm not connected to a trusted device.
Exactly how do you set up a trusted device?
When you first set up a new bluetooth connection, you'll be prompted to make it a "trusted bluetooth device." But if you missed it the first time around, it's really easy to set up.
Under Settings, go to "Security" and tap on "Trusted Devices." Simply opt into the feature, confirm your password, and then select the devices you trust to keep your phone unlocked. Now you will no longer need to enter a password to unlock your phone when connected to the device. Once you disconnect from it or when your phone is too far from the device to connect, the phone will again require the password settings you've set up to unlock, so that your personal information stays secure.
I really rely on this feature, and I think you'll like it, too.
Posted by Eve Bills, Product Management
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Now You Can Unlock Your Moto X with a Digital Tattoo
A phone should be as unique as you are—not only in the design of your device, but how you use it. Last year at the All Things D "D11" conference, Regina Dugan talked about new digital tattoo technology that would make it easier to unlock your phone. Now the moment is here: We're excited to see this new technology brought to life for Moto X by Google's Advanced Technology and Projects group and VivaLnk Inc.
Made of super thin, flexible materials, based on VivaLnk's eSkinTM technology, each digital tattoo is designed to unlock your phone with just a touch of your Moto X to the tattoo, no passwords required. The nickel-sized tattoo is adhesive, lasts for five days, and is made to stay on through showering, swimming, and vigorous activities like jogging. And it's beautiful—with a shimmering, intricate design.
It's another step in making it easier to unlock your phone on the go and keep your personal information safe. An average user takes 2.3 seconds to unlock their phone and does this about 39 times a day—a process that some people find so inconvenient that they do not lock their phones at all. Using NFC technology, digital tattoos make it faster to safely unlock your phone anywhere without having to enter a password.
You can buy the digital tattoos in packs of 10 on VivaLnk.com.
Friday, July 11, 2014
Redefining the low-cost smartphone with Moto E
Until recently, those in search of their first smartphone faced only a couple of options, and none of them were particularly thrilling. They could either opt to carry on using a flip phone or feature phone, devoid of critical features such as a web browser, access to a thriving app store, and turn-by-turn navigation. Or, they could turn to an antiquated and feature-stripped "smartphone," many of which tested the very definition of the term. The third option — out of reach for many — was to cobble together well over $500 for a top-tier, premium smartphone.
Thankfully, we no longer live in a world where you're forced to either stretch your budget or continue to live without one of the world's most transformative technologies.
Earlier this year, Moto E was revealed to a global audience. It was a project many years in the making, and according to an interview I conducted with VP of Product Marketing Steve Sinclair, it was a phone that was built very deliberately. At $129 with no subsidization (nor strings attached), Moto E is amongst the most affordable smartphones on the planet. But the true allure of the E goes beyond the price — it's the unprecedented performance at its price that makes it special.
In speaking with a number of engineers, designers, and executives within Motorola's walls, I learned that the price tag was meaningful on a number of levels. After leaving Apple to join Motorola, Sinclair told me that he "wanted to build high quality products that more people could afford." Echoing my own sentiments, he continued: "Bringing high quality smartphones to the masses is something that we as an industry should've been focusing on."
I've witnessed entire swaths of society transformed by gaining access to broadband Internet for the first time, and in a similar vein, the price point of the Moto E stands to enable the next billion to get connected on a device that punches above its weight.
Sinclair stated that Moto's decision to build the E was based heavily around research. "We knew the market was going in this direction," said Sinclair, "as people were migrating from feature phones." In studying what customers at all levels were interested in, Moto's team found that display quality were high atop the list. The challenge, of course, was to include these features on a phone that wasn't just affordable, but enjoyable to use.
Perhaps the most critical differentiator for the Moto E is the power that it possesses. For years, sub-$200 phones were built with old internals and substandard materials. In a nutshell, they paled in comparison to high-end flagships, and left a sour taste in the mouths of many buyers. Too many corners were cut to achieve a rock bottom price, and the user experience suffered mightily. Motorola's team wanted to make sure such a scenario wouldn't unfold with the E.
As Sinclair explained to me, each Motorola handset — the E included — has to endure a grueling process before it's deemed market-ready. A total of 45 key performance indicators are evaluated, with engineers doing everything they can to shave milliseconds from app launch times to the time it takes to answer a phone call. Even with the Moto E, the team insisted on finding a way to include an all-day battery — a cell that could survive Moto's internal mixed-usage test for 24 straight hours.
The Moto E was built to serve a growing market that was hungry to find an affordable phone that they'd be proud to own, and the Moto X that came before it most certainly helped to set the stage. Per Sinclair, "To compete in the premium phone space, you have to meet incredibly high quality, reliability and durability standards, so we just applied that knowledge to Moto G and E." He also noted that Motorola's approach to Android — an approach that strives to deliver a nearly stock experience with no bloatware and plenty of optimization — enabled it to "squeeze out more performance per dollar than anyone else."
When asked about driving forces behind Moto E, I urged Sinclair to opine on how a mass market-ready phone could impact societies around the world. Personally, I'm intrigued by the notion of millions upon millions of people suddenly being able to afford a smartphone that launches them into the digital economy, and Sinclair seemed to share in that excitement.
To quote Sinclair: "We really think that mobile access to the Internet and everything that the Internet brings — education, job opportunities, social connections, entertainment – should be available to everyone. Our hope is that we're delivering that kind of freedom and access to people. They could find work, or they could sell something they've built, or stay in touch with their daughter who left home for the first time – that's a powerful thing, and not everyone can afford the highest end device to pull that off."
For many people, this is the only connected device they'll ever have, so why shouldn't it be good one?"
We're @motorola on Twitter -- tell us what you think!
Thursday, July 10, 2014
The Download: Join Motorola Assist Product Manager in an AMA July 17. Plus, Android 4.4.4 News.
Mark is our product manager focused on making your phone useful to you wherever you are. Specifically, he leads product management for Quick Capture and Motorola Assist, the app that knows when you shouldn't be bothered and that can read messages aloud when you're driving or at home. In a meeting? The app can silence your phone. Driving to work? It can tell you who's calling or read your texts out loud. Want to take a quick photo? Pull out your camera and twist it to pull up the camera app in a flash.
Mark has been in product management for 15 years and is eager to take your questions! Ask him anything about Assist, share your suggestions, delve into his experience, or even chat about his love of coding, building apps, and the beach.
Join us next Thursday, 7/17, at 2pm-2:30pm CT. Check out the Google+ event page and take part in the conversation by commenting.
In other software news, here's the latest Download:
Connect Gets a New Look and a New Ring Feature - Our latest update to Motorola Connect brings a sleeker more beautiful interface (and new icon!) to the app that allows you to see text messages and calls coming into your Connect-enabled phone on your computer's Chrome browser. As always, you can read and respond to texts using your computer's keyboard and know who's calling before you decide to reach for your phone. But now you can call your phone right from your desktop—for all those times you lose your phone in the couch cushions. We've also moved the app to your app drawer to make Connect easier to find.
Android™ 4.4.4, KitKat® Begins Rolling Out - We've begun rolling out Android™ 4.4.4, KitKat® to our phones! This latest update includes all of the goodies of 4.4.3—such a new dialer, the ability to pause during video recording, and enhanced camera image quality—and includes enhanced security for OpenSSL. We just started rolling out in Brazil and India for Moto G; in Brazil, France, Canada, and Asia Pacific for Moto E; in the U.S. for DROID Ultra. We are always working to deploy the latest software as fast as possible and expect the update to come to many more phones soon. Check out the software updates page to see if your phone has been upgraded yet.
Posted by Steve Sinclair, Product Marketing
Wednesday, July 09, 2014
Moto 360: Why a Watch?
From sundials to wrist watches, time was meant to be told round. And that's what inspired us when it came to creating Moto 360, a classic timepiece powered by Android Wear coming later this summer.
Hear more about the inspiration behind Moto 360 from Lior Ron, product lead for the watch.
Sign up to stay up to date on the latest Moto 360 news.
Posted by Motorola
Wednesday, July 02, 2014
#MotoFriends: Spotlight on Alex Pasquarella
Warm rays, long days, and no school—what better reasons to celebrate summer for those of us in our hottest seasons. That was the thinking of Moto fan Alex Pasquarella who was inspired to share some Motorola-themed wallpaper designs to help people personalize their phones.
Alex kicks off a new series: #MotoFriends, in which we spotlight you, our users, and the cool stuff you do.
Alex is a designer who creates awesome phone wallpapers for his website. He's made a number of Moto-inspired styles to deck out your phone (download his Moto Pack, Series 1, Series 2, and Series 3). Now he presents some beautiful Motorola summer wallpapers to dress your Moto phone for warm weather.
Name: Alex Pasquarella
Age: 20
Occupation: Systems Manager and Graphic Designer
Where I Live: Rochester, NY
Favorite Motorola Product (and color scheme): Moto X with white front and back
In his own words: "I was first inspired by the Moto X's boot animation, which sort of places the Motorola logo as the earth. I also figured 'Celebrate your summer with Motorola' would be a good tagline to have in mind while conceptualizing the design. With that in mind, the idea of Motorola's products and innovation surrounding you throughout daily outdoor activities prompted me to allude it to the sun, since it is an overbearing symbol of summer that encompasses everything we do."
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