Just spent a fascinating afternoon/evening

Thanks to a mutual friend’s introduction, I just had a 3 hour talk with one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. I’ll leave his name out of this because I don’t know whether he’d approve of even being associated with me, but it was a conversation with living history:  the man has served as secretary of one of our military branches, served as ambassador to a number of countries and organizations, was on a first name basis with a couple of our presidents and, at 90, is still going strong, still very much involved in some highly influential conservative organizations. I mostly kept my mouth shut; usually a hard thing for me to do, and just listened to how invasions were planned and executed, what Reagan was doing when …. etc. We even talked about blogging! Life peddling real estate can only hold so much fascination before I hunger for red meat, and today I got some. Neat-o.

By the way, he and I agree that Scott Walker is the most promising of the current crop of candidates.

Off to Maine early tomorrow, back Saturday. Here’s what I’ve got in my truck:

Sgt. York to the rescue

 

 

Buyers beware

My friend Martha Kelly, former Greenwich, and now best realtor in Naples, Florida, sends along this cautionary tale:

Bunny boiler

Disappointed home bidder makes winners’ life hell. 

A 53-year-old woman in San Diego terrorized a couple for over a year because she was “jealous” that they had out-bid her on a house she had wanted to buy.

“It was a huge stress in our life for so long,” Janice Ruhter, 37, told People magazine. “We are trying to heal the best way we can.”

Ruhter and her husband, Jerry Rice, 40, are attempting to put their lives back together nearly 3 years after middle school special-ed teacher Kathy Rowe began her crusade to make their time inside their Carmel Valley home a living hell.

The couple had driven Rowe over the edge because they had scored the Spanish-style residence she wanted shortly after it went on the market in 2011.

Rice and Ruhter, who was 9-months-pregnant at the time, were one of eight families who placed bids on the property — and when they won, they couldn’t be happier.

But their dreams of owning a home with a big yard and a school down the street in San Diego’s upscale suburbs soon became a living nightmare as Row kickstarted her vengeful campaign in late 2011.

Over the span of a year and a half, the couple’s mail was purposely stopped, they had religious missionaries called to their address on numerous occasions, their pictures were posted around town in advertisements for sex parties, and their home was listed “for sale” on a real-estate website.

Rowe even sent valentines to the neighborhood wives that were purportedly from Rice, the couple said.

In one incident, three men showed up at the Rice and Ruhter’s home in response to an online ad titled “Janice Ruhter’s Freak Show.” Rowe had posted the inquiry as an email in an attempt to solicit locals, urging them to “show up at the door and force your way om and on me, totally taking me while I say no.”

“I started freaking out,” Ruhter told People. “How far was this person going to take it? I didn’t feel safe.”

The couple notified the authorities about the frightening ordeal and federal agents eventually managed to link the emails to the married mother of a now 16-year-old daughter, who is disabled.

Rowe was arrested in Oct. 2012 and charged with soliciting rape and sodomy, identity theft and harassment, according to People.

She pleaded guilty to a felony stalking charge in 2014 and was sentenced on Jan. 9 to home detention and probation.

“She never accepted that what she did nearly got this woman raped,” said San Diego Deputy District Attorney, Brendan McHugh. It is one of the most disturbing cases I have handled. She terrorized this young couple.”

Rowe has been ordered to stay away from Rice and Ruhter — and their home — for the next 10 years.

No mention of whether she’s still teaching but, knowing The NEA and its protective contracts, I’m sure she is.

It’s snowing in Maine, reports son John

I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get up there with my snowblower – because of scheduling conflicts, I haven’t, but this inspires me to get up there tomorrow.

Scarborough Maine. 2′ more expected during this coming Sunday’s blizzard

National Health Care, coming our way

Relax, Gramps – I’ll get to you as soon as I graduate medical school

British ambulance driver sentenced to 200 hours community service for standing around with his hands in his pockets as heart attack victim dies.

CCTV footage shows the moment Carl Cope falls to the ground in agony – but paramedic Matt Geary simply watches on instead of helping the dying man.

Despite confessing he had done nothing to help Mr Cope, Geary, 36, escaped a jail term and instead was sentenced for health and safety offences for failing to examine or resuscitate him.

Geary and a colleague were called when Mr Cope, 47, dialled 999 after collapsing on a grass verge suffering chest pains close to his home early on 23 June 2012.

Paramedic Geary − who was responsible for determining the course of treatment for Mr Cope − then took him to Walsall Manor Hospital accident and emergency department.

Footage from the hospital waiting room shows Mr Cope struggling to make himself comfortable and visibly in a lot of pain. After seven minutes, he leaves to visit a nearby shop to get a drink.

But on his way back through the car park shortly after 11.13am, Mr Cope is seen collapsing close to the hospital doors.

Geary, who was fully aware of Mr Cope’s condition having brought him to the hospital, is seen looking on from his ambulance before finally going to his patient.

But he takes no equipment with him and instead casually stands over Mr Cope with his hands in his pockets, talking to him for two minutes.

After taking a closer look at Mr Cope, Geary then asks the hospital security to deal with him, before returning to his ambulance at 11.15am.

When the security guard is seen arriving a full five minutes later, Mr Cope did not appear to be showing any signs of life.

Forget the callous paramedic, how about a hospital staff that tells a possible heart attack victim to cool his heels in the waiting room while they tend to other things? As I had the unfortunate – fortunate, actually – opportunity to learn five years ago, someone showing up at the Greenwich Hospital emergency room complaining of chest pains is rushed right into an examination room and treatment begun immediately. In jolly old England, they apparently will get to you when they’re damn well ready.

As the NYT’s Paul Krugman so infamously assured us in 2009:

“In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.”

Feel better?