"The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest." ~~ E.B. White
Every once in a while I find myself believing the Alexa so many of us know uses pot, cannabis, weed, marijuana, whatever the term of the day might be. As to how she ingests it, I have not a clue. However, my suspicion is not without merit; it’s based on fact.
And, since you asked, or would like to ask, what that fact might be, I’ll show you.
The other day, early morning after sunrise, I asked, “Alexa, what’s the temperature outside?”
Alexa said, “It’s 57 degrees outside; today’s high will be 39 degrees.”
You can’t make it up.
Here we are in world with technology so advanced we can travel through space, read books, listen to music, watch almost anything on what I still call, the internet. Yet somehow, Alexa, known all over the country, can’t consistently keep her facts straight when it comes to outdoor temperatures.
Most times Alexa is spot-on with the temperature. But, once in a while she says something nutty like, “It’s 57 degrees outside; today’s high will be 39 degrees.”
When she talks like that, I’m pretty sure there is one less edible on planet earth.
I filed a Civil Rights Complaint against WinnResidential and others with Massachusetts State Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell.The AG filed a lawsuit on October 4, 2023 against WinnResidential/Olmsted Green in Dorchester, Massachusetts alleging, wait for it, that Winn violated the rights of tenants with disabilities.
The allegations against Winn are horrifying; one tenant with a medical condition asked Winn to wear masks when around her when COVID struck, and they didn’t.
I can understand Winn not wanting me in the office because the last time I went to the office, I asked Property Manager Kayla Bennett what law or regulation allows Winn to suspend handicap parking permit accommodations and she responded with, “I won’t answer your question,” and then, when I asked again, said she would not answer the question and asked me to leave the office.
If defamation is the action of slandering a good reputation, the only defamation Winn may be suffering is self-inflicted.
An attorney for a Boston-based landlord says the landlord can take away handicap-parking privileges from elderly tenants with disabilities and not put them in danger, simultaneously.
I’ll tell you how I found out about this miracle. I received a letter from Winn’s attorney, Katherine Higgins-Shea of Lyon & Fitzpatrick. She was rejecting my reasonable accommodation, on Winn’s behalf, in which I asked them to stop endangering lives in real time because it traumatizes me, secondary to my disability.
My disability is the combined challenge of managing a brain injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I was held up and shot in the head at point blank ranger in 1984. The bullet remains lodged in my brain. Knowing lives are endangered around me in real-time puts me is traumatizing.
Imagine my relief when I learned that, as far-fetched as this does sound, lives were not being endangered at all when Winn takes aways handicap parking rights.
According to Higgins-Shea, WinnResidential, headed by Gilbert Winn and crew, Winn “strongly disagrees that it is placing anyone on the property in physical danger through its rules, policies or practices,” one of those practices is making elderly tenants with disabilities move their cars unsafe distances and unsafe conditions.
Winn is owner and landlord of two over-55 apartment buildings, in Ludlow, Massachusetts. Tenants up into their 90s, with disabilities, are told to move their cars (in snowy, wintry conditions) or they might get towed at their expense, because Winn wants to clear snow.
Never mind that doctors have documented that one or more of the following conditions applies to the tenant:
Can’t walk 200 feet without stopping to rest.
Can’t walk without the assistance of another person, prosthetic aid, or other assistive device.
Tenant is restricted by lung disease.
Tenant uses portable oxygen.
Tenant has a Class III cardiac condition.
Tenant has a Class IV cardiac condition.
Tenant has Class III or Class IV functional arthritis.
Tenant has Stage III or Stage IV anatomic arthritis.
Tenant has been declared legally blind.
Tenant has lost one or more limbs.
Now, that’s a miracle! Don’t believe me? Don’t blame you. Ask their attorney, Katherine Higgins-Shea: KHigginsshea@lyonfitzpatrick.com
Winncompanies Property Manager Kayla Bennett in Ludlow, Massachusetts and her surrounding management team do not deny Winn’s parking-lot policies endanger the lives of tenants and violates the rights of seniors with disabilities with legally issued handicap parking placard or plate. Bennett oversees 170 apartments for seniors.
Asked Friday by this tenant what gave Winn the legal right to take away legal handicap parking privileges, Bennett said, “I will not answer your question.”
When asked why Winn endangers the lives of tenants by forcing them to move their cars in snowy icy weather, Bennett gave the same answer. “I will not answer your question.”
Bennett then asked me to leave the office.
Bennett is not the only member of Winn management not to answer the question regarding the violation of seniors rights and the rights of people with disabilities. Others include, Leanne Chalifoux, Caitlin A. Laplante, Erik Pietz, none, including Bennett have answered emails asking them the same questions.
As detailed by the NIH’s National Institute for Aging. To get a disability plate or placard, one or more of the following apply to you.
You: • Cannot walk 200 feet without stopping to rest. • Cannot walk without the assistance of another person, prosthetic aid, or other assistive device. • Are restricted by lung disease. • Use portable oxygen. • Have a Class III cardiac condition. • Have a Class IV cardiac condition. according to the standards set by the • Have Class III or Class IV functional arthritis. according to the standards set by the American College of Rheumatology • Have Stage III or Stage IV anatomic arthritis. according to the standards set by the American College of Rheumatology • Have been declared legally blind. • Have lost one or more limbs.
If choosing kindness over aggression is believed by some to be weak, then what makes it so hard for so many to be kind? After all, if kindness is weakness, shouldn’t it be easy?
I believe reality teaches us that acts of kindness, responding with nonviolence rather than violence, talking rather than shouting, takes strength. Pure, unadorned, strength.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has been one of my heroes since I was a little boy. Our family’s pastor, Reverend Wilbur O. Daniel, marched with Dr. King. I don’t know anyone who thinks Dr. King was weak.
The question is, what makes it hard for so many of us to choose kindness over aggression? The answer, I believe, is vulnerability. When we’re aggressive whether mildly or not-mildly expressed, no one can be emotionally close to in a healthy way.
Aggression builds a moat around us that makes it all but impossible for anyone to get close to us. Aggression can be an armor that prevents intimacy.
Lastly, there is this. If you look around you at the world we are all in right now, the words from various leaders of all walks of life, wouldn’t it be healing for us all to see kindness and communication and problem solving rather than cruelty, verbal battle, and problem making?
Peter S. Kahrmann - Est. 1953 