Not that I'm opinionated *BUT* :: Alabama's DHR..

If other states are looking to Alabama's Department of Human Resources (DHR) for how they run their own family and children's services divisions, advocates and self-advocates need to be seriously concerned..

Having been involved on the fringes of one particular and very recent case of theirs, I witnessed them take a child away when the case ultimately boiled down to that the child did not like the parents' choice in britches.. The child exhibited physical violence towards family members, and, for such, received (state paid for..???) trips to highend department stores for punishment..

With respect to family counseling, lessons in clothes folding were offered or at least mentioned at some point, but not once, not once, NOT ONCE was there indepth follow-through with respect to mental health counseling..

The even deeper history to the case..? Physical violence witnessed by the child as a youngster that was never addressed.. Would take a glimpse at the case history to see if they would even allow it to be admitted for consideration towards the child's current history of behavior..

Also of interest to these fingertips was the one office's bias regarding the freedom of religious choice provided by our country.. The child's papers physical reflect..? Unwitnessed by these fingertips, but verbally stated as a written recorded statement of:

"claims to be Christian"

The statement of "claims to be Christian" was reported to have been placed on file after a member or members of the family were repeatedly asked about their religious convictions.. For what it's worth in rumorable materials, these fingertips have been personally privy to that this is not the only case of religious bias shown by Alabama DHR, either..

WHOOPS..... Forgot to include the link that started this rant:

• Other States Look To Alabama's DHR As Role Model
  Monday, Oct 15, 2007 - 09:31 AM
  Birmingham, Alabama
  By Associated Press via NBC13 (Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Anniston)

Now.. Why should this be of any immediate interest to a blog expressing personal opinions concerning disability self-advocacy rights..?

Because these fingertips are also privy to what remains at best a rumor that a grandmother was put through an absolute ringer over custody of her grandchildren because of her weight.. Reportedly, hear me again, reportedly, as in Rumor has it, the grandmother went through invasive operational procedures for weight removal only to continue to have custody rights to her grandchildren still be denied afterwards.. Granted, I know nothing, nothing of the specifics of this case, but it is not an isolated reported instance of this type.. Surely, surely, surely there is a creative press-type reporter out there who can dig deep down into the nitty gritty of the same..

Yup, jim dandy to know other states will be leaning on Alabama's DHR for the how-tos of getting involved in guiding our family units.. Can't wait to see it reflected in the overall health of our local communities as a whole as Time goes on..

Cyber hugs..

In dreams, she dances :: Georgia's hospitals to get Federal investigation..

In reality, she's too pooped to barely walk down the hall, BUT that won't stop her from sharing the following..........

A breaking news announcement shared that Governor Sonny Perdue has been notified that the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights division is headed for Georgia to investigate our state's seven state-run mental health hospitals..

The rest of the story may be found at:

Justice Dept. to investigate Georgia's mental hospitals..
By Alan Judd, Andy Miller..
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution..
Published on: 2007-04-19

You're going to have to grab it quick because the AJC's articles go into archive very regularly.. Be forewarned that it takes a subscription to view many of their articles.. Perhaps this one they'll just let slide..

To Andy Miller and Alan Judd..

Haven't been able to say it enough since you all started the A Hidden Shame series of articles: You all ROCK..

Anyone else smell a Bouncing Baby Pulitzer in the air for these two..?

Told them back when those articles first started appearing, what is occurring in our state's hospitals is, no, goes beyond inexcusable.. It's unconscionable that, with all the cr#p that came out about our Highland Rivers' system here across the top of the state, Andy and Alan's series of articles is eerily like stepping back five years ago.. The stories are the same, the results are the same, the circumstances more similar than different..

Last time I, for one, sat in person and watch as the man in charge jested, joked as he announced at a press conference that they had been cleared of.. wrong-doing, of all accountability, I guess.. The system that directly cost people their Lives and others nearly theirs got away with it a few short years ago, managed to cover their tracks somehow.. Not this time, folks.. There will be justice for those who have no alternative but to turn to a system they in their Hearts believe is providing responsible Emergency Rooms for their Minds..

PS.. Hee-UGE THANK YOU slash CYBER HUG for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution editors for seeing the value of this story being "breaking news" worthy.. (Grin, that happened to be a gripe that I had stalling half-finished in the wings on my 'puter.. Welp, set that one to the side and keep moving steady forward from there..)

PPS.. Ok, so who's got the chutzpah, the ca(l)jones to go open information act on the Governor's Office and pull the handwritten note I left him Disability Day..

Talking about the note where I told him from the Heart that they have got to stop what is going on across the state in our community mental health care system as a whole, that they're churning out more desperate people every day they piddle along.. If you live in a community, you ARE touched by our state's community mental health care system because there is a ripple effect when those desperate people's Lives inevitably touch yours down the road.. Virginia Tech (VA Tech) very sadly has already realized the same..

NO MORE DESPERATE, DESTROYED LIVES.. PERMANENTLY ACCOUNTABLE COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH CARE NOW.................... (please)..

Cross-posted at: Georgia Disability Advocates' Calendar..

So a funny thing happens on the way to the BBB Online website..

Still trying to resolve the issue where my former web hosting provider, iPowerWeb (BBB Online reliability report), refuses to quit abusing my various hard-earned virtual identities and instead continues to use my web positioning to sublimally redirect traffic to itself under the identity, VDeck..

Have now given iPowerWeb more than a week to comply with my, what had been to this date, anyway, "request" that they cease and desist abusing my very public self-identifying disability self-advocacy virtual identity for their own financial gain.. I play with a personal server such as it is (Windows 98, Cygwin, Apache, Perl, PHP).. I know how many flicks of a switch it takes to shut down a virtual domain..

Sooo, as promised privately to iPowerWeb, AND, again, after allowing ample time for human intervention, just took a trip over to Phoenix's BBB (Better Business Bureau website) as the first of several intended steps should this continue any further..

Four QUICK questions later and where do I find myself, at the Department of Justice's ADA website of all places.. Guess it was the "yes" answer to the "Did I feel this was violating my civil rights..?" question that unexpectedly flipped that particular switch on..

Oy, goodness.. Wanna come with..?

PS.. Beyond that they have the same person doing their billing and they exhibit the same physical address location, anyone have any idea of iPowerWeb's relationship to Startlogic, Inc (reliability report)..? Startlogic was the only thing I could initially get to come up is how it even came to mind to ask..

Tried using the search engine to see if there were any others listed at that same location and bearing same-named employees and/or contractos through BBB's site, but it kept coming back empty, completely empty even though other ways yielded the initial two companies.. Gotta love technology..

Notable is that it is easier to read into that these are not completely the same or immediately related as Startlogic's showing no unresolved issues while iPowerWeb, well, not so much.. Oh, and not to mention that Startlogic and its no unresolveds showing record ARE a BBB member, while, well, you guessed it.. Surprise, not.. :\

PPS.. Gotta give iPowerWeb that, as of last contact, they were trying to resolve this.. They keep saying, "Now that we've shafted you and your websites' visitors by shutting down your domain and thus subdomains, give us money, and we'll power it right on back up.."

I don't think so, and I've politely told them so.. No, ma'am, no way, not ever..

They had 100% go-ahead, they had payment in hand as the email that started all of this states explicitly.. The subject line says something along the lines of, "Your payment has been approved", and the body says something like, "We look forward to the next two years with you".. SOMETHING like that..

Still a little bit more to how this came about (next time), but, yup, it was THEIR Choice, not mine, to shut down my suicide survival tip website after explicitly stating payment had been received in full..

My traffic might have been a miniscule guppy in the big fish sea of sites, but those some 13,000 page turns meant something to someone out there.. I know they meant the World to me as they indicated Value and constantly encouraged digging deeper for more leads, more answers to mental health and disability advocacy out there on the World Wide Web.. That's why it feels so incredibly quite convenient they won't let it go so my identity belongs to me and me alone, not serving as a blatant potential direct lead into their bank account..

Huge cyber hugs to those who did come by to visit.. Whoever you all were, you always made my day.. Gave horrendous Life-garnered experiences some sense of explanation for their existence at the end of Day.. :)