9th "Intake" Boston Public Health Commission shelter, 10/10/11

October 14, 2011

These are the first, few minutes of about 6 hours of a recording that I made at night on October 10, 2011 at the Woods Mullen, or “Intake,” Boston Public Health Commission shelter in Boston. Please keep in mind as you listen to it that the recorder was in my pocket for this section of the recording. What you’re hearing was recorded at a distance of some feet from whoever was coughing, and the fabric of my jeans was covering the microphone.

Please keep in mind also that the women’s dorm at that shelter is one room with bunks in it, and that a staffperson for the shelter is at a desk in front of the bunks at all times. It’s not as if the staff don’t hear and know what’s going on.

I think that, regardless of any eavesdropping law that prohibits making audio recordings of people without their knowledge or consent, if you are in a situation in which you are being abused, you should find a way to let people know what that’s like.

How can anyone prosecute me for making this recording and putting it online without admitting that I have a blog and that he or she heard the recording on that blog? How can anyone who admits that he or she has heard recordings on my blog or has read any of my blogs then go on to continue to deny that the overall situation is happening? How can anyone who has found and read or listened to any of my blogs then continue to lie and say that the coughs don’t mean anything, that they’re just a result of “people being sick,” or “people having allergies,” that the Wet Floor signs and other harassment “have nothing to do with me,” and all of the other lies that have been told to me most of the time when I’ve tried to confront the harassment directly, in person?

Copyright L. Kochman, October 14, 2011 @ 10:47 a.m.