The Fonda Blog

Mike Fonda: A life fighting sexual violence

January 28, 2015 by The Hudsonian Student Newspaper – Andrea Currie, News Editor

“This is a perfect retirement job for a guy like me,” said Mike Fonda, a retired Detective Sergeant from the Cohoes Police Department, who works as a Prevention Educator for the Sexual Assault and Crime Victims Assistance Program (SACVAP) at Samaritan Hospital in Troy.  Fonda’s work takes him all over the Capital Region: he teaches personal safety and self-esteem at K-12 schools; he conducts the Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) program at seven YMCAs; he offers the MVP program to sports teams at local colleges; he conducts the MVP program with inmates at Rensselaer County Jail; and on Wednesday afternoons from 12 – 4 p.m., he offers in-person counseling at the Hudson Valley Health Services office in room 146 of Fitzgibbons Hall.

When Fonda started working at the Cohoes Police Department, he was assigned the traditional role for incoming officers: juvenile officer. “You deal with everything from stolen bikes to the sex crimes,” he said. When a new person joined the department, Fonda asked to keep the job, and when he was promoted to sergeant, he requested to keep working on sex crimes.  He said that he thought he had the right demeanor for the job. “I had other police officers come up to me and say, ‘you know, you’re relaxed, you’re fun, people feel safe with you, … they trust you. So I just stayed with it.’”

In 2007, Fonda was hired by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services to track down the records of sex offenders who moved in from out of state. There is no central repository for these files, so he had to speak with other police officers, agencies across the country, and, often, call sex offenders and interview them about their convictions.  Fonda said that offenders often lied to him during these interviews. “I let them blame the victim. But in that victim-blaming is the truth,” he said, “I’ve learned to give people enough rope to hang themselves.”

Fonda briefly worked with SACVAP before joining the state and had stayed in contact with them. In early 2011, they told him they had a prevention educator position open. He jumped at the chance.  “Sometimes money isn’t—you know. It’s okay, but I feel like I need to be doing something,” Fonda said. His state job was a good job and paid well. “But you’re basically in an office working with a fax machine, a telephone, and your computer.”  He said the prevention educator position was a perfect fit for him, since he has a master’s degree in Community Psychology, has taken many counseling courses, and with his law enforcement background, can talk about the subject from experience.  “I know there’s a lot of people out there wondering, did I do something wrong? Who’ll believe me? … Well, I would, ’cause I know. I’ve seen that, the cases with the state police and the Cub Scout leaders and the Kiwanis clubs,” said Fonda.

He said that his favorite part of his job is going out into schools and providing information. He said that he focuses on victim-blaming and why people shouldn’t blame themselves for being assaulted. “I’m hoping to see some lights go on with people saying, Okay, so it wasn’t just me,” said Fonda.  Fonda said that the MVP program gives him an opportunity to address men. “These issues, they seem like they’re women’s issues, because you might say, women get raped,” he said, “But it’s men who rape women. And it’s not every guy who rapes a woman.” He says that the MVP program challenges men to speak out and condemn sexual assault. He speaks about men who’ve been sexually assaulted as well and reassures them that they did nothing wrong.

Fonda said that over the time he’s been doing this work, he has observed a change in public attitudes towards sexual assault and rape. “To me, it feels like it’s finally getting the attention it deserves,” he said, “It feels like we’re on a bubble, that all this stuff is about to burst and people are going to know about it, they’re going to understand it, and they’re not going to look at it the same way as … saying, I’m broken, or, it’s the victim’s fault, or … how can you accuse these celebrities of doing that?”  Fonda said that sexual assault is never about sex: “It’s about the power. It’s about having that power to do what they want.”

Fonda said that he is proud of SACVAP. “It’s just phenomenal work. It’s not sexy, it’s not glamorous, people don’t want to talk about it, but every day, we’re there, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said, referring to the agency’s sexual assault hotline.  SACVAP offers in-person services at Samaritan Hospital at 2215 Burdett Ave. in Troy, including short-term counseling; therapy free of charge; and legal advocates for survivors.

The agency also has opportunities for volunteers. Winter 2015 Volunteer Training starts Feb. 3. Volunteers must be at least 18 years old and be willing to sign up for at least three hotline shifts monthly, commit to at least six months with the agency, attend monthly in-service meetings, and complete at least 10 hours of community education.

Interested parties should contact Jamie Seastrand by phone at 518-271-3140 or via email at jamie.seastrand@sphp.com.

written by admin \\ tags: Albany Co., Law Enforcement, Municipal

Jihadi Jane

Personal Liberty, Posted on June 17, 2015 by John Myers

Actress Jane Fonda is still raking in money despite the fact she has been ridden hard and put away wet. The 77-year-old is now featured in the Netflix comedy “Grace and Frankie” — the very same Hanoi Jane who was making the lives worse for Americans fighting for their life in the jungles of Vietnam 45 years ago.

Last Saturday, Fonda was not far from my neck of the woods. She spoke in Vancouver, Canada, at a Greenpeace Canada rally, Toast the Coast. It was launched to demonstrate against oil sands development, tanker traffic and future Arctic oil drilling.

Fonda said: “I feel totally committed with every ounce of my being to stopping Big Oil from doing what they’re doing — both drilling in the Arctic and piping tar sand oil across the land into this coast, which is so pristine.”

I cannot figure out Fonda’s economic platform. But it seems to highlight North American energy insecurity, future gas lines and sky-high oil prices that will be dictated by the Middle East oil producers, like Saudi Arabia, which quietly finance the world’s worst jihadists. It is only logical because shutting down Arctic exploration and stopping the transportation of Canadian oil along the West Coast would be dangerous geopolitically for the United States and would throw the county further toward energy instability while creating a massive recession for energy workers.

In her 1995 book “My Life So Far,” Fonda complained about ex-husbands Ted Turner and Roger Vadim. She wrote that Vadim dominated her and made her have threesomes with him and other women. All this suffering, and today she is down to her last $120 million. I doubt Fonda has ever been worth much less than $5 million and has lived only in mansions and driven only gas-guzzlers. I’ll bet she doesn’t have the least understanding what Americans need in a job.

Fonda never had to worry whether her famous actor father was going to make enough money to keep the family going. I am certain that as she marches toward age 80 while continuing her social protests, she has zero understanding of how critical North American oil is to the United States as a nation and to the people who need those jobs.

Green Jane is still the one and same Hanoi Jane who made radio broadcasts to discourage drafted American GI’s, who were already hurting and fighting in a war just to stay alive. Yet she was a willing, attractive and, some may even say, convincing actress in her peacenik patronage of North Vietnam, including having her picture taken manning an anti-aircraft battery whose sole purpose was to shoot down American flyers.

Mr. Conservative stated:

What Jane Fonda did was traitorous. In fact, it’s a shame that she that she got away with committing treason because it made some of her fellow travelers on the Left realize that there is no price to be paid for encouraging people to hate their own country.

Unfortunately for Fonda, there are still a lot of Americans who love their country and they haven’t forgotten or forgiven her for betraying it.

So, periodically, Fonda gives insincere apologies for her despicable actions.

Here’s the latest one that she gave to Oprah Winfrey.

“I made one unforgivable mistake when I was in North Vietnam, and I will go to my grave with this. I don’t know if I was set up or not,” she said. “I was an adult. I take responsibility for my actions. And I was laughing and clapping, and there were pictures taken.”

She was “laughing and clapping” while Americans were dying. She was “laughing and clapping” while Americans were rotting away in POW camps. She was “laughing and clapping” with her new pals who she knew were torturing American soldiers.
Given the fight Fonda now has against North American oil discovery and transportation, she has once again aided and abetted the enemy: Islamic oil producers.

And while President Barack Obama may insist that Saudi Arabia is one of America’s closest allies, he and his fervent liberal and ultra-rich followers should pay attention to the fact that high-ranking members in the Saudi government carried out 9/11 with Saudi agents. But 14 years later, Saudi Arabia still dictates the price of world crude oil.

With oil prices just over half of what they fetched a year ago, domestic oil discovery, production and transportation industries are in a depression. Poor families up and down the west coast are trying desperately to hang on to jobs in an industry that was expected to be a major power source to the United States for the next several decades.

It seems Jihadi Jane neither understands how her actions are viewed by the enemy (major Muslim oil exporters, some of whose core members want to see the destruction of the United States) nor how these anti-jobs protests impact hundreds of thousands of North American families.

That North American oil can be competitively and safely produced doesn’t seem to be a thought that runs through Fonda’s head. Nor does she seem to understand that people’s biggest problems aren’t orgies and drug parties with former husbands but rather just keeping food on the table for the kids and a furnace going.

Fonda will never admit she doesn’t understand the working class — just as another pro-feminist, anti-Vietnam war female contemporary will never make that admission: Hillary Clinton, who is making her second bid for the U.S. presidency.

While Fonda was spending her time on the west coast Friday protesting oil, Clinton was launching her campaign across the country on New York City’s Roosevelt Island. She spoke to the audience about how she knew of tough times because her parents went through the Great Depression. Fonda knows how hard it was just to stay alive during the Dust Bowl because her father gave an outstanding performance in the much acclaimed 1940 movie “The Grapes of Wrath.”

Over the years, my dad told me how at 12 he was driving a wagon team with a team of eight horses across the prairie, sometimes to be caught up in a winter blizzard or deterred by a lame horse. His stories made me shiver. But despite the fact he had done it, I didn’t have the slightest clue as to how such an endeavor would even begin.

Fonda seems to believe that playing a starring role in the movie “The China Syndrome” makes her an expert on energy policy. Another aged hippie, Clinton, told us that same day that she understands tough times for the working class because her parents went through the Depression. I guarantee neither have faced tough times nor were worried where their next meal was coming from.

Clinton may do far more damage to the country if elected president, but both women make promises that they have no intention of keeping. The winner for tease of the month is Fonda for what she told The Vancouver Sun:

If I have to tie myself to some rig or if I have to lie down in front of a truck, I’ll do it. I’ve lived a good life. I’m willing to do that.
I, too, am willing for her to do the right thing rather than flying around the world in Gulfstream private jets, protesting the very crude oil that keeps her aloft. And as far as I am concerned, it wouldn’t do any great harm to America for Fonda to take Clinton down with her.

Yours in good times and bad,

–John Myers

written by admin \\ tags: Achievements, Fonda Family, Hollywood

Bridget Fonda and Danny Elfman Buy Full-On Fixer Next Door

By Mark David @YourMamaTweets
BUYERS: Bridget Fonda and Danny Elfman
LOCATION: Los Angeles, Calif.
PRICE: $3.6 million
SIZE: 4,443 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: Prolific and in-demand film and television composer Danny Elfman and (presumably) retired actress Bridget Fonda have shelled out $3.6 million, according to both real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak and property records, for a meticulously maintained if comically outdated time capsule of a residence in the historic, guard-gated Fremont Place enclave that’s centrally situated between Hancock Park and Koreatown.

Miz Fonda, born into an illustrious and much-lauded family of actors — she’s Oscar winter Henry Fonda’s granddaughter, two-time Oscar winner Jane Fonda’s niece and twice Oscar-nominated Peter Fonda’s daughter — hasn’t appeared on the small or silver screen since 2002 but before that had a long and admirable career that earned her both Golden Globe and Emmy wins. Mister Elfman, the frontman for the 1980s new wave band Oingo Boingo, has composed theme music and scores for a slew of successful television programs and films including “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” “The Simpsons,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Beetlejuice,” “Dick Tracy” and, more recently, “Milk,” “American Hustle,” “Silver Linings Playbook” and “Fifty Shades of Grey.” He currently has about half a dozen projects in some phase of production including the Tim Burton directed “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” and “Alice Through the Looking Glass” starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, both scheduled to be released next year. Anyways….

Digital listing details indicate the Prairie-style residence sits on a flat, 0.37-acre mid-block lot and was originally built in 1916 with a low-profile hip roof and remarkably deep eaves. The two-story abode currently measures 4,443 square feet with four bedrooms and five bathrooms, per online marketing materials, with additional storage space above the detached two-car garage located behind iron gates at the tail end of a long driveway that passes under a porte cochère as it runs along the side of the house.

From a modern-day stand point the interior spaces are — let’s be honest, children — utterly preposterous, and no doubt the entire property will likely be radically altered and updated for future use so the grim decorative details are somewhat moot. Nonetheless, listing photographs show there are heavily and unfortunately textured plaster ceilings and wall treatments, miles of floral wallpaper and floor tiles of an unknown material throughout the main floor living spaces that appear to this property gossip in listing photos a bit too much like linoleum.

At some point, possibly in the 1960s or 1970s, the interiors were revamped and opened up into a spacious, open-plan living/entertaining space that extends from the front of the house clear through to the back and includes an imposing and arguably salvageable stone fireplace. (The stone detailing around the windows the flank the fireplace, of course, would need be removed.) Toward the back of the space there’s a built-in wet bar with mirror backed shelves and an impossibly ugly carved wood canopy. Integrated cabinetry next to the bar houses an upright piano painted the exact same shade of ecru as the walls and multipaned sliding glass doors open to the backyard where there’s a flagstone terrace surrounded swimming pool and a built-in barbecue station.

A low-tiled peninsula divides the main living/entertaining space from an informal dining space that links to a clean but practically archaic center island kitchen. The most bizarre and decoratively egregious feature in the entire house might be located in the step-down formal dining room that overlooks the frond yard and where the white paneled walls are set off by a brick lined niche fitted with three beer kegs. That’s right, children, there are three beer kegs sticking out of the wall in the dining room. Quite frankly, unless this was a frat house we’re not sure what would be better, if those kegs were purely decorative or if they had actual functioning taps.

We confess we have no inside information on what plans the Fonda-Elfmans might have for the property but it seems unlikely they’ll occupy the house as their primary residence even after an extensive and expensive renovation since they have long lived in a larger, neighboring property of just over three-quarters of an acre with a much more grand and probably far more updated 1920s Italian Renaissance villa that Miz Fonda purchased, according to various online resources, in late 2000 for $2.125 million.

written by admin \\ tags: Celebrity, Entertainment, West Coast

Forensic exam shows Texas woman committed suicide in Cherokee County by burning herself

Updated: May 29, 2015, By Jordan Aubey, Reporter

News release by Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office—

The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office and Kansas Bureau of Investigation have been investigating the death of 35 year-old Shannon Fonda since her body was discovered near Scammon on March 23rd, 2015.

After identifying Ms. Fonda, investigators made contact with her family in Texas, and learned it was not uncommon for her to leave home without notice for periods of time.

During the course of the investigation, detectives conducted numerous interviews documenting Ms. Fonda’s departure from Midland, Texas on March 14, 2015.  Based upon those interviews, surveillance video from several establishments Ms. Fonda stopped at along the way and financial records, authorities know that Ms. Fonda was traveling alone and ran out of money leaving her stranded in Cherokee County.

An autopsy on Ms. Fonda was conducted in Kansas City and it was noted that while she had non-life threatening cuts, which were consistent with self-inflicted injuries, her death was caused by severe burns to 90 % of her body.

Crime Scene Investigators collected numerous items at the scene and DNA testing along with other forensic examinations were conducted.  All testing, including DNA analysis on the gas can at the scene, showed Ms. Fonda was the only one who handled the gas can.

As a result of the investigation, Ms. Fonda’s death is being ruled a suicide.

written by admin \\ tags: Deaths, Events, Midwest

Distributor Profile: John Day Company

Thu, 03/19/2015 – 8:00am
Mike Hockett, Associate Editor

If there’s one word that describes what has allowed John Day Company to remain a successful, family-owned company for 106 years, it’s stability.

That comes from the Omaha, NE-based industrial and agricultural supplier’s management, where its top four members have a combined 144 years of experience with the company. CEO John Fonda, great grandson of founder John Day Sr., has been there for 35 years, 20 of those as president. Current president and CFO, Nancy Kurtenbach, has been there 29 years. COO and Inside Sales Manager Duane Chamberlain is 37 years in, while Outside Sales Manager Steve Regan is at 43 years.

That wealth of experience is what drives success at John Day today.

“It’s our level of technical support and our knowledge base,” says Kurtenbach. “We have a lot of long-term employees who have been in the business and the industry. Someone can call one of them and they won’t need a part number. We know our products. We know where to get products. There’s a lot of depth and resources there that really set us apart.”

“We’re 106 years old, and none of us look that age,” Fonda says with a laugh. “I think it’s given us a really strong base in our region. We’ve build a good reputation out here. Our customers know who the John Day Company is and we’re going to stand by the products that we sell.”

The Personal Touch

Being an independent company of around 100 employees, many have to wear multiple hats for JDC to provide its myriad of services besides just product supply. Given the rapid escalation of merger and acquisition activity in the market, the company says its stability is what has attracted new hires. “I think a lot of people – they work for someone who gets bought and they get laid off, and maybe hired back – I think our applicants see John Day Company as a very stable company, and family-oriented,” says Kurtenbach.

Part of the appeal of working at JDC is also its accessibility. With many employees taking on multiple roles, they get to see and touch and have a hand in many operations. That, and they can contact Nancy by just stopping by her office when need be. That’s a luxury most wholesale chains can’t offer. “They know who Nancy is as the president of the company. She’s there every day,” Fonda says. “If you’re working for XYZ and at a branch, you may never meet the president. Our employees have developed personal relationships with all of the management team over time, and it’s a value that they can talk to anybody at any time about pretty much any subject.”

Value-Added

John Day Company can technically be classified as a distributor, but that wouldn’t give justice to what the company is really about. JDC is just as invested, if not arguably more, in its value-added services. It’s those services – nearly two dozen that the company promotes – that make JDC stand out from other independents, as well as their wholesale competitors.

Some of JDC’s most well-known services include power tool repair, hose fabrication, bandsaw welding, chain sling fabrication, and tool regrind, along with a number of safety solution audits, inspections, and product training.

A look inside John Day Co.’s industrial warehouse space.
“We have continued to make ourselves known and unique enough in the marketplace to be different than the catalogue houses,” Fonda says. “When you see the large corporate-managed distributors, they have a huge amount of resources to decide one day they want to get into this, into that – things that 2-3 years later may not be the focus of where they’re going. I think the things we’re doing we believe are going to be long-term in nature for our customers. The things we continue to support were not built on a whim.”

JDC has been offering many of those services for 15 years or more. Step in the tool repair department and you’ll find specialist Jim Katzer at work on something, a service he has led for 10 years. In the re-grind room, JDC can drastically extend the life of something like a carbide steel gear cutting hob by sharpening it 16-20 times. Regan estimates a brand new high-quality hob can cost between $2,500-4,000 – whereas JDC charges only $250-300 per re-sharpen. That makes such a service extremely valuable.

Fonda says JDC initially got into power tool repairing when customers said it was taking 9 months for them to get some tools back that they sent for repairs to other sources. JDC does it within a month.

While he knows his customers appreciate those services, they still tend to be thankless jobs. “They really enjoyed that when it happened, and kind of forget it over time,” he says. “They just sort of expect it in the future. Then we have to meet those standards.”

Kurtenbach says a lot of the positive feedback the value-added services get aren’t so much from the end user, but from the managers of customers who want to see their associates do what they do best and have a resource to have tools repaired, or made. “A lot of manufacturers – the maintenance people like to do these things, but you see their upper management say, ‘no, you’re busy keeping our equipment up and running. Let’s outsource some of these services to John Day,’” she says. “I think the feedback we’re getting sometimes is at a higher level.”

What’s New?

Fonda and Kurtenbach emphasized that JDC always has a project on the table to increase the company’s efficiencies. Two years ago it purchased new software that was needed to move ahead in its e-content. JDC has a full e-commerce website and is in the process of revamping it to improve its content. “Customers who use it are giving us feedback. We realized there are areas for improvement and that’s why we’re tackling it,” says Chamberlain. Less than 5 percent of JDC’s sales came through e-commerce in 2014, but Chamberlain noted that would be a narrow definition of the company’s online orders since it doesn’t account for EDI sales, of which all of JDC’s integrated supply sites use.

Speaking of EDI, John Day is working on improving automation payables, aiming to allow invoices from vendors to come in EDI right through its ERP system. Kurtenbach says that will eventually help eliminate overhead in the accounts payable department, and make transactions more accurate.

On the CRM front, JDC finished implementing Android Tablets at the end of 2014 for its outside salespeople. The tablets can be operated audibly and transcribe spoken dialogue making it easy to update customer information and call reports. The devices and the CRM software speed up and simplify when the salesperson needs to pull up customer quotes, open orders, and product information.

Fighting the Independent Fight

The Omaha region certainly hasn’t been immune to the industrial distribution merger & acquisition landscape. Midwest Industrial Tool was acquired by DGI Supply in April 2011, and Fuchs Machinery was bought by Blackhawk Industrial one month later. Now, John Day is left as one of the few independents left in the area.

“At one point you’re used to competing with other independents that have a select group of suppliers, and some of those suppliers crossed over and some didn’t. So you each had some uniqueness back in the day,” says Fonda. “Somebody had Greenfield (Manufacturing), one would have 3M, one would have Norton. So we were the last of the Mohicans.”

Suddenly having to compete with DGI and Blackhawk made Fonda and JDC re-examine its role in the industrial business. Along with developing a management team, Kurtenbach took over Fonda’s role as president in June 2014. Fonda says his focus today is more on vendor relations and marketing in the area.

Overall, the focus for JDC, now more than ever, has been on how it can leverage its value-added services to set itself apart. “How does John Day Company now go into a marketplace when you have MSC, DGI, Grainger – those who have everything, and then ask how you are going to stand out?” Fonda says. “The new focus for us has to be to add value to the suppliers we determine are going to help make our future tomorrow.”

As one of the region’s last independent distributors, JDC has partnered closely with its top suppliers. Fonda said JDC has been determining what key suppliers it wants to market with, and hopes customers can see the difference between a company like John Day as opposed to a large wholesaler.

“I think, really, the suppliers do see us as a business partner,” Kurtenbach says. “Even on the customer side, they are more open to working with us and our suppliers because of the long-term relationships.”

Kurtenbach notes how at larger companies, there are still a lot of local employees who have always been there, but buyouts have deteriorated the relationships with customers that John Day maintains. A lot of the business relationships JDC currently has go back 50 or 60 years – the same companies John’s dad and grandfather worked with.

So has Fonda and John Day Company been approached to be acquired? Indeed. Fonda said some of the wholesalers who have contacted JDC are ones mentioned above. But given the history of JDC, he has no intention of giving in. Fonda says he relishes the unique opportunities that being an independent offers – like flexibility, having resources in-house and always ready, and not being tied down to having to work with someone in different locations for different projects.

“We’ve always been a family-owned business,” Fonda says. “We have a hundred associates, and my dad used to always say you could take that times four, so there’s 400 people out there we’re feeding. And we have a good legacy in this marketplace of 106 years.”

Fonda also has some words of wisdom for independent distributors who may be in the same boat as JDC.

“You can’t be looking over your shoulder at what everyone else is doing,” he says. “You see the capabilities that the major players have today – they certainly outweigh what you can do. So you have to figure out what you can be good at, what is your core business, and what you are able to have your people focus on. And then you have to run your own race.”

written by admin \\ tags: Achievements, Business, Midwest