To say I was appalled at such abject rancor and venom would be terrifically understated. Enraged would better define how I feel. But not so blinded that I feel this “bmayhem” isn’t certainly entitled to an opinion. Of course he or she is. Despite it going so harshly against the way I roll both morally and philosophically, I understand not everyone is like me and I respect anyone’s right to freely express themselves. It may always be the better choice to just shut up in my world, but in another’s not so much. At the same time I can hope it’s not too much to request that they would at least think about whether they’d be able to say something so soulless sitting near someone like me who might take offense.

Because if you’re as fundamentally crass in public as “bmayhem” is isolated in the glow of a computer monitor; if you abnormally lack common decency enough to spout off something in public so vile then you’d be unfortunately obligated to either kick my ass or have it arrested and prosecuted for assault because I’d be unable to prevent myself from shoving yours out of your chair or from flinging the nearest drink at your face to douse the noxiously tactless and obtusely flammable gases emanating from it.

Now If that’s not the pot calling the kettle black, please show me an example. You are a total hypocrite Will. You are judging me in the same light that I did with Wanda. I only knew about her by the story, and I STILL stand by my words, and you only know me by my posts here in this thread. The only difference is, YOU THREATENED ME with physical violence. You are a class act son. Oh and I like the fact that you say that its perfectly cool for me to have my own opinion, but I should never say it. Oh, but you sure as hell can voice your opinion. One word. Hypocrite.

As I stated earlier, if Wanda had just taken her own life, yes that by itself would have been sad.. but the fact that she did not care about the people living around her by setting the house that she and her sister lost because they could not re pay the loan THEY took, is childish and selfish. (If I can’t have it, no one can) Maybe I came off a bit harsh, but I’m not going to sugar coat this. I have to assume that we are all adults here.

Yes we may be heading towards a depression, yes people are going to lose their homes (home ownership is a privilege, NOT a right), cars and jobs… but that’s no reason to take your own life. You still have family and friends that care for you and can help you out.

Oh and to the people that stated what about Eli Broad and the other selfish greedy assholes that, more or less, conned a lot of people into shitty loans? They have their own level of hell waiting for them. And hows this for shitty… WE (the tax payers) bailed out folks like Eli Broad and NOT the people where it matters most, people like Wanda. Food for thought.

Or if not, go ahead and argue against John Donne’s famous passage:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every
man is a piece of the continent, a part of the
main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory
were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or
of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes
me, because I am involved in mankind, and
therefore never send to know for whom the bells
tolls; it tolls for thee.”

stellastellastella, I too have dealt with depression most of my adult life. It doesn’t excuse bad decisions. It certainly doesn’t give them a walk away free from lifes problems card either. Depressed or not you are still responsible for your decisions, any decent counselor will tell you that in therapy. Everyone has to hit their own low before they dig themselves out. Family and friends can help only in that they can point the person to resources to help them. It is up to the individual to decide whether they want help or not.

I feel for the family and friends left behind now dealing with the what-if-I-had questions that will haunt them. We don’t know what resources they referred her to or offered up to help, but all they can do is offer and refer, it is still her decision and they will need to understand that. She would only listen to and act on what she was ready to accept. She never found her bottom needed to fight her way out she took the easy way out and hurt a lot of others around her. It is those around her that suffer now.

To wit You said “She could have been a stronger woman and gotten out of the house…”

I don’t make such assumptions or about Wanda Dunn. I don’t pretend to know her or see her in the type of straightjacketed way you favor. She could be everything you say or she could have been so paralyzed by fear and failure that she couldn’t function rationally. I wish she could have stiffened her backbone and “gotten out of the house” and solved her problems, but you righteously demand that of her with no margin for error.

And for the “get an apartment” solution people, how exactly do you make that happen if you are in the hole?

You need first, last and a deposit to move into an apartment. You also need credit to move into an apartment. How do you think Wanda’s credit was, probably not so good if she was facing an eviction. If you don’t have any kids (or minor), which this woman I don’t think did you qualify for nothing if you lose it all or beginning to lose it all.

She was also not retirement age, so again, she gets nothing.

No amount of pep talk from a mental health line is going to shield you from the cold hard truth that if you are in LA and used to be middle class and have no minor children there is absolutely no services available until you crash into the gutter.

If you are a single person and you lose your job you have to be homeless before they will give you anything. If you were firmly middle class at one point, how do you think the prospect of living in a shelter might make someone feel? Half of the people in LA get nervous about the prospect of public transportation, a shelter, well that probably is a bit too much for the average middle class person in LA.

Many people in LA go from eviction to the streets. There are no safety nets. Public housing, the waiting lists are years long. And this and many other reasons is why middle income people kill themselves.

I would do what I would have to do, but everyone is not me. Everyone is not you. Not everyone can hold it together once their American dream has been murdered. And we can’t just go, “Well too bad you should deal with it.” Because there are going to be in the next coming months lots of people who can’t deal with it. And if you think Wanda was selfish, how about a fictional Jane that decides there are no jobs, she’s about to get evicted and decides to start robbing people. Not everyone rolls up into a little ball and if we don’t deal with this in a community oriented way other people’s problems are going to become everyone’s problem.

Everyone who doesn’t lose everything is going to have to move to gated communities to escape the crime. Remember the 80s and the 90s, well the economy just from my lay person observation looks to be alot worse than it was then, so I am going to assume some heinous crime coming around the corner. All of this pedestrian oriented, cycling, public transit, walking around thing that will be over, because people will rob you.

See NY 1975.

Wanda’s selfish. Wanda’s a selfish asshole?

Why is responsibility always a word thrown around for some poor schmuck who owes a few thousand dollars probably owing to some medical bills or some other necessity like eating, but rich assholes making me pay, because they wanted to make as much money as possible, that’s a complicated issue that is going to help me. Certain members of the American public are not only heartless, but unbelievably stupid.

Browne Molyneux