• 2 Posts
  • 9 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: March 13th, 2023

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  • My only interaction with UW in Spokane has been through their volunteer portal. https://www.volunteerspokane.org/ This UW portal offers a one-stop dashboard for people who want to volunteer (anywhere in the region, not with UW specifically) to hook up with nonprofits/charities that need volunteers. A lot of local orgs use this portal for outreach and volunteer communications.

    I’ve no idea if the local orgs are now going to get cut off from that service or if the national UW will keep it running and maintained. If the local orgs lose access it’s going to cause a lot of pain I think - not many of them are going to have the IT skills available to replicate it or to migrate to a different volunteer platform and even if they did it will cost them money.



  • Update: https://www.turnto23.com/news/in-your-neighborhood/bakersfield/witness-attorney-speak-out-following-hearing-on-hot-car-death-case

    The approach the defense attorney seems to be taking is interesting. Seems to be leaning heavily on a “she’s just a kid, doesn’t have an adult brain yet” assertion.

    Ian Bleu, who was inside the spa with his dog and a friend at the time of the incident, said Hernandez mentioned having children but never disclosed they were in the vehicle outside. Bleu described a calm atmosphere inside the business until an employee discovered one of the children in distress.

    “The kid, it was like, sweating — red, purple — like, it was real bad,” Bleu said. “And then Maya walked in with the other kid and he was just, like, limp.”

    Bleu told police and emergency responders that he had walked his dog near Maya’s vehicle and saw no signs that the air conditioning was running or that the windows were down, contradicting statements Hernandez reportedly made to authorities.

    He also said she appeared emotionally detached as emergency crews attempted to revive the children. “She didn’t even look like she cared,” Bleu said. “We were about to cry, and the cops thought we were the parents.”

    Hernandez’s defense attorney Teryl D. Wakeman urged the public not to rush to judgment, emphasizing that her client is only 20 and that the legal process is still in its early stages.

    “She’s barely 20. And a charge is not a fact — it’s a charge,” the attorney said. “You would want someone to look into all the aspects of the case — medical, mental health, background — before deciding.”

    Wakeman also suggested the case reflects a broader issue with how young adults are treated in the justice system, arguing that brain development continues into a person’s mid-20s.




  • Leaving your baby children alone in a running car … you parents out there … clue me in, but isn’t this the pinnacle of irresponsibility, even on a cool day? I thought “you don’t leave kids alone in a running car” was a widely-known and accepted principle, probably since cars were invented. Fold into that the fact that the kids would be in a hazardous environment (protected only by the integrity of the A/C system) as well as in an unprotected environment (car break ins maybe, kidnapping, crashes (even in a parking lot), battery fires …), why would anyone think it would be preferable to leave one’s kids in such a situation, when

    Earlier in the day, Hernandez had texted the nurse performing her treatment to ask whether she could bring her children, to which the nurse responded, “Sure if you don’t mind them waiting in the waiting room,” according to the police report.

    No, no, much more convenient to leave them in SoCal sun in a parking lot in your car, for hours. And all this just to get your duck lips. FFS.


  • I leave a couple of feet between the front of my Miata or Wrangler and the next car ahead. I’ve been driving since the late 70s and this is the first I’ve heard of the “botton of the tires” rule of thumb. It wasn’t taught back in the day (is it, widely, now?) and it doesn’t make much sense to me since it’s a function of the size and the shape and height of one’s vehicle, which can vary greatly, whereas I know where my front bumper is and I can (usually) clearly see where the rear of the car in front of me is, and hence create the appropriate gap. Sure, I might leave more space if I’m on a steep hill and think the person in front might have a manual (another Miata for example) but that’s rare.

    Up until very recently people seemed to always keep just a couple of feet between cars at stops like I did. This business of “a car length or two” seems like a very new thing - the past 5 years mostly - and that led me to think it’s some kind of stupid new internet cancer. Probably some “influencer” telling his/her audience that you should put your dominance on display at stoplights by pissing people off and preventing them from getting through intersections. Or putting your dominance and alpha-hood on display by blocking them from getting into the turn lane at all. Anything to get attention, anything to show that you’re not (truly) a nobody, even when you are, because you have power!

    I’ve only been rear-ended once in 45 years of driving. Being a d*ck on the road in order to (allegedly) absolutely f-ing MAXIMIZE your own self-perceived “safety” (from highly unlikely events) at the expense of everyone else is a totally modern-American sort of thing to do I guess. But I’m not doing it.