ojai news at The Ojai Post :: blog, newspaper, events in Ojai, California

-- "when residents receive a REVERSE 911®
message, it is important to listen carefully
and follow all instructions provided in the alert." --

No!!

In the event of an emergency, it is important that everyone use her or his natural common sense.

Government agencies have been leading people off a cliff since the beginning of recorded history.

9/11 was an inside job, and you haven't heard anything about that from the Ventura County Sheriff's Department. 9/11 is a continuing emergency that the Sheriff's Department has said nothing about and done nothing about.

Our nation's highest officials murdered 3,000 U.S. citizens on 9/11, and the Sheriff's Department wants to make sure we know when to boil water? Are you kidding me?

They want our cell phone numbers?

Huh?

Jock Doubleday
Director
Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc.
A California 501(c)3 Nonprofit Corporation
http://www.SpontaneousCreation.org

In the event of an emergency, it is important to have actionable intelligence so that you can make smart decisions about yourself, your family, your property, pets and business.

Where do you get your info to make smart decisions? Are you actually in the path of a forest fire or not? How fast is it moving? Are you in the 100 year flood plain or the 500 year flood plain and where is the water level? If you are on the flood area below Lake Casitas, how do you know when the dam is about to fail? If there is a pandemic and new cases are picked up locally, how do you hear about it and know to stay inside?

The agencies are working hard to put systems in place that will save lives. They aren't perfect and everyone is learning as we go. But Reverse 911 was quite effective during the San Diego Fires.

I personally see a socially responsible business opportunity to provide sustained communications from agencies and residents alike. To suggest that you should be in a vacuum and only use "natural common sense" really isn't very sensible at all. And it is totally at odds with my experience with the Day Fire and Zaca Fire, where Ojai Post traffic ballooned by 12x with people looking for information.

Regarding your connection between Reverse 911 and 9/11, there is none. What, the VCSD is supposed to be making statements on 9/11? To quote you, "huh"?

Please don't discourage people from taking steps to make themselves more prepared and to contribute to a more resilient community.

The Office of Emergency Services doesn't "want our cell phones" - that is totally out of context. The Reverse 911 system is set up to notify all landlines in the area. If you don't use a landline (like me), then its your option to participate in this notification process.

I signed up! We had a wild fire come within three blocks of our home in La Costa years ago. I wish this system had been in place then.

Oh for $%&#'s sake, Jock!

And BTW, if the government is as evil and intent on malfeasance towards its citizen as you continue to claim, they've got so much on you and others perpetuating all of this BS, that the rest of us can rest assured WE won't be the ones they'd be coming after, whether they've got our (OMG!) cell phone numbers or not!

Why don't you do what you do best, and let Tyler continue (un-HIJACKED) with his thoughtful, consistent and appreciated (!!!) community action services.

and FWIW, Jock, you may want to refrain from making political statements and signing your 501(c)(3) affiliation. Political advocacy is very clearly restricted for 501(c)(3)'s and may result in revocation of non-profit status. Just sayin'. http://www.earlcarl.org/publications/political%20advocacy.pdf

Brriiingggg!!

"THIS IS AN EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION OF THE REVERSE 911 SYSTEM. THERE ARE TERRORISTS IN YOUR AREA. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT YOU TRAVEL TO YOUR NEAREST MALL AND START SHOPPING. REPORT ANYONE SUSPICIOUS TO YOUR NEAREST SHERIFF OR BY CALLING 911. SUSPICIOUS PEOPLE CAN BE IDENTIFIED BY THEIR ACCENTS, SKIN COLOR, AND CLOTHING."

Oh, s**t, honey, we better get down to the mall!

Clever use of Reverse 911:

Bbbrrriiinnnnggg!!

Wife picks up: "Hello?"

Husband's best friend in deep disguised voice: "Ma'am, this is the Reverse 911 system. There is an emergency in your area. Your husband has been ordered to report to the Hut immediately. You are requested to stay at home and monitor the children until further notice. Thank you for your cooperation." Click.

Wife: "Honey, you need to get down to the Hut, right away!"

Husband: "I'm on it, babe."

To Too Clever -

Sorry, but I beg to differ about the choice of your moniker.

If memory serves, this type of service became a topic of discussion after the Virginia Tech shootings. Had this been in place (or used properly if in fact it was in place) it would have likely saved the lives of the other students who unwittingly showed up for class after the first round of shootings.

No LTOR, you've got it wrong. Reverse 911 would not have helped. People would have flocked to the scene of disaster as they always do if the knew it was happening. More would have been killed.

The answer is a two-week, mandatory pre-college handgun training program, coupled with mandatory loaded handguns carried by all students, professors and staff at all times.

Or, in the alternative, security checkpoints at all college entrances, with full body and bag searches.

Or, in the alternative, we continue to do our best in accordance with our best intentions and ideals, stick true to what we know is right, try to build the world we want to live in, and accept that there are going to be aberrations and terrible things. If we generally do right by the world, there should be less tragedy than otherwise.

Personally, I'll take my chances that disaster will strike and I'll be out some critical information that the Sheriff had ready for me.

"REVERSE 911 PANIC ALERT. THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY HAS RAISED THE TERROR ALERT LEVEL TO FUCHSIA. EVERYONE IS ADVISED TO STAY INDOORS AND DUCT TAPE YOUR WINDOWS AND DOORS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE."

No thanks.

The risk that I am about to walk into a 7-11 where an armed robbery with a bullet-spraying maniac is in progress - but for my reverse 911 call - is worth it to me to have one less panic trigger in my life. Frankly, I don't pick up the phone most of the time as it is, so I think the likelihood of timely, relevant alert is low.

Meanwhile, the more we plug in to the fear complex, the more fear we will experience, and the more fear will interfere.

Ever see "The Secret"?

In "The Secret", they posit that if you think about how you really really want money and a McMansion, money and a McMansion will come. I think they are full of crap, but: Focus on fear and worry, plug into fear and worry, and organize your life so that you are always prepared for an encounter with what causes you fear and worry - and I have no doubt you will experience much fear and worry in life.

In reality, it is not the random events - fires, terrorists, floods, whatever - that are most likely to kill us early. Its the cumulative acts of our day to day existence that will do it. My theory is that if we spent the time we now spend preparing for disaster focusing on how we live everyday and how we could live better, we'd have less disaster, terror, crime and other seemingly random horrible events to worry about.