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Archive for the ‘COMMENTARY’ Category

A Casual Chat With Matt Bruce: Veteran, Talk Show Host, Tea Party Patriot

06 Jul

http://www.pro-se-blog.com Founder “Rabble Rousin'” Rich Bergeron talks to Matt Bruce in the podcast below about everything from the Casey Anthony verdict Tuesday to politics, the debt crisis, and responding to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. This is a very intriguing show touching every base and bringing out the best Bruce had to offer. Stay tuned to the end where Bruce will tell you where you can find him on the World Wide Web.

Bruce’s background:

*********** National Radio Host

**************** Recipient of the Fire Department’s Highest Award for Bravery, “The Medal of Valor,” awarded for actions above and beyond the call of duty

*********************A Vietnam Veteran and retired Fire-Rescue Captain whom was injured in the line of duty

***********A First Responder to the attacks of September 11th, 2001 at the World Trade Center

************************A former Town Tax Assessor who helped roll back taxes in his Hometown during the 80’s that eventually increased tax rolls through new building and development in the process

CLICK PLAY BELOW TO LISTEN TO THIS PHENOMENAL INTERVIEW (Or Go to: FNU.MYPODCAST.COM):

 
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Posted in Caley Anthony, COMMENTARY, Court Opinions, Criminal and Traffic Cases, criminal offense, Criminal Procedure/Constitutional Rights, Current Affairs, defense, defense attorney, financial reform, First Amendment Law, Free Law, Free speech, investigation, Law Firm News and Views, Litigation in the News

 

The Brits aren’t coming, THEY’RE HERE!

17 Jan

Tonight, PIERS MORGAN, 45, starts his CNN contract on air, replacing the redoubtable Larry King, 77, in the time-slot of Larry King Live. King avoided controversy.  Morgan looks for it.  He comes from his editorship of the London tabloids The Sun, The News of the World, and the Daily Mirror. Interesting choice.  I was only aware of him as a judge on America’s Got Talent.

But last night I saw him as an interviewer on a 2 year old show from England, with his take on Hollywood in January 2009 from the British POV. Much has happened since then due to the economy, but one remark of his rings in my ears.

"Talent success in Hollywood is measured by how much money you make – for others."

That is so true, and is why so many lives fall apart when the talented souls are no longer useful to the real world, and are left with personal identity crises.  I’ve always avoided the middle men, the agents and managers and press agents, since my child actor days and the following 33 years with the late Lynn Redgrave.  Now?  My bad!

Then I watched the Golden Globes.  Host Ricky Gervais is not my favorite comedian, with his scattershot technique.  But the shots he lobbed to any and all sitting there were what we used to call Home Truths, nobody being spared. And my question is, is America going through a phase of self flagellation? If so, then Morgan will last just so long as he’s put up with. But his style will obsolesce the likes of Barbara Walters and Regis Philbin for a while. However, middle America won’t like him at all. Will that translate into money problems for CNN, the advertisers and the like?  CNN is in it for the money, and as long as it comes in, he’s there to stay.  But I think he won’t last too long.

Good luck to him, a healthy change – for now. Look forward to real debate Oxford style, instead of the steady stream of one-sided right wing invective which flows from most well paid radio talk show hosts, who assume we are a nation of idiots, and ignore the fact that there are a lot of schizophrenics out there. But that’s a whole other subject!

 
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Posted in COMMENTARY

 

PRESIDENTS AND WORLD PEACE?

16 Jan

January 16, 2011

One senses that things are looking up today mainly, I think, because of upcoming changes in world leadership all around.

Chinese president Hu Jintao pays us a State Visit on Tuesday, bearing signs of flexibility.  Our own president Barack Obama promised change as part of his election platform, and is just the guy to be welcoming him to the White House.

In North Korea we have peace-making signs from president Kim Jong-il, possibly because he is turning over the reins to his son Kim Jong-un, who no doubt has some ideas of his own. And of course they want a piece of the South’s action.

Then we have president Fidel Castro, mellowing with age, who has already handed the reins over to his younger brother, now president Raul Castro.

Wouldn’t it be surprising if we find that this country stops marginalizing itself with its self-imposed title of Leader of the World, stops falling back on waving its superior weaponry like some schoolyard bully, and sits down as equals and partners with communists and socialists and liberals and conservatives?  Then we can do what we all do best and want most, which is to embrace and improve our families, our children, our grandchildren, our health, and our homes. That, we all have in common. And freedom to travel anywhere and everywhere will be restored after nearly a century of restrictions.

Thank you internet!

 
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Posted in COMMENTARY

 

FINE FINALLY FREED!

14 Jan

UPDATE   Friday, January 14, 2011

Fine and his daughter Victoria need to get their act together.  If his 18 month coercive confinement in solitary is to have any meaning and a good result, we, his supporters, need to be kept informed. The latest information that I had was that he would be in court number 86 down at the Stanley Mosk courthouse at 9:30am, in front of Judge Ann Jones, you can come and Visit us and so we will feel more supported with your presence since at this time is when we need your support the most .  I went.  Nada. Nothing. Coming home, I find after much computer searching that she had recused herself as one of the accused judges, and the case was reassigned to department 85 in front of Judge Robert O’Brien with no date for a hearing, back on December 16th.  How are his admirers to know if they are not on someone’s personal email list?

It’s not good enough for a fan site. It needs a blog kept up-to-date by Richard Fine himself. Enough said!

********************

September 18, 2010

This is BIG news.  He won! It can be done! As a PRO PER too!

From the L.A.Times, Scott Glover, September 18, 2010:

LAWYER ABRUPTLY FREED FROM JAIL
Richard Fine, 70, had spent a year and a half behind bars on contempt charges.  Richard Fine has contended he was being targeted because of his challenges to county-funded benefits that judges receive on top of their state pay.

A 70-year-old lawyer who was sentenced to jail “indefinitely” on contempt-of-court charges was abruptly released Friday evening after spending a year and a half behind bars.  He was released from Los Angeles County Jail in downtown Los Angeles shortly after 9 p.m. but did not wish to speak to a Times reporter, said his daughter, Victoria.

Fine, an antitrust and taxpayer advocate attorney, was thrown in jail last year by Superior Court Judge David P. Yaffe for failing to answer questions about his finances and for practicing law without a license. [His brave fellow lawyers at the ABA had taken his license away from him – an embarrassment to their lying profession, no doubt!]

The contempt charges stemmed from a case Fine filed on behalf of Marina del Rey homeowners who sued local developers.  He had been ordered to pay sanctions and attorneys’ fees in the case. Fine contends he was being targeted by Yaffe because of his challenges to county-funded benefits that judges receive on top of their state pay.

Rather than comply with Yaffe’s orders and be released from jail, Fine vowed to take his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.  In May, however, the [“justice for all”] court declined to take up his petition, meaning he could have remained in jail indefinitely as Yaffe had ordered.

The judge could not be reached for comment late Friday.

While in solitary confinement, Fine filed habeas corpus petitions for his release with the California Supreme Court, District Court and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, alleging that Yaffe was biased against him and should have recused himself from the contempt-of-court case.

His imprisonment was “the latest encounter in the 10-year campaign by Fine to restore due process in the California judicial system,” the attorney, who has been representing himself, wrote in his petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.  “Fine is the only attorney, of the approximately 208,000 California attorneys, with the courage to challenge the California judiciary,” he wrote.

In a telephone interview with The Times in May, Fine said the U.S. Supreme Court had made the wrong decision by allowing him to remain in jail.  He said he would be filing another petition.

“I’m in fighting condition,” he said. “They haven’t broken me down, and they won’t break me down.”

Interesting to note that on September 16, Judge Yaffe made a minute order that Fine should be imprisoned for a further 6 months after which there would be a hearing, and then ON THE VERY NEXT DAY, reversed himself with an order that he should be set free. True, it was the Day of Atonement, (being the first day of Yom Kippur), but I don’t think this moved his change of heart.

I’d rather speculate another reason that this took place. We may never know, but could it have been by Executive Order from the president?

Imagine, he’s sitting across from Ahmadinejad, trying to explain, and complain.  Ahmadinejad  isn’t listening.  Instead, he’s asking how it is that a U.S. citizen is sitting alone in a government prison for a year and a half, on the orders of an American judge, without due process, and brings up images of glass houses.

Obama’s not doing much better with Chavez, who looks at him with a barely concealed smile on his face.

As for Castro, he just slaps his knee, points, and laughs and laughs.

So it becomes a national security issue; there’s a phone call from the White House, and right is finally done. And Yaffe will probably go into hiding after announcing his resignation from the bench.

For a full explanation, and background, to this very shocking very American story, the Full Disclosure Network link provides it here.

And as a lesson to all of us pro pers who would file briefs in court, and could do with a model of clarity and succintness, read Richard’s all-inclusive complaint addressed to some of today’s power brokers.

THREE CHEERS FOR FINE!  WELL DONE!  YOU DID THIS FOR THE DOWNTRODDEN, AND NOW IT’S ONWARDS AND UPWARDS. YOUR SACRIFICE WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN!
READ THE ACTUAL COURT DOCUMENTS HERE, courtesy of the FULL DISCLOSURE NETWORK:

These documents, written by Richard Fine, are models of construction, especially given that they were written while confined to a jail cell. THEY WERE IGNORED! Which leads one to the question, WHY BOTHER? What’s the alternative in this greatest country on God’s Green Earth? What follows is one man’s experience in the justice system of these United States:

1.  CALIFORNIA SUPERIOR COURT (L.A.). In Judge David Yaffe’s Courtroom. Case No. BS 109420.  Notice of Hearing to Order Release. Filed on May 21, 2010.  After filing Judge Yaffe refused to set a hearing.

2.  U. S DISTRICT COURT (Federal Court) in Judge Magistrate Carla Woehrle’s courtroom. Case No cv-09-1914 JFW (CW).  Request for Release. Hearing filed June 9, 2010. The Court failed to act.

3.  U.S. SUPREME COURT Petition for Re-Hearing Case No. 09-1 250. Filed June 11, 2010 ( Petition for Writ of Certiorari.) filed June 11, 2010.  Court failed to act.

4.  Back in CALIFORNIA SUPERIOR COURT, Judge David Yaffe testifies as a witness while sitting on the bench…… and rules in his own favor.  In this December 22, 2008 court transcript Judge Yaffe says he is troubled by the court rule that says “in the absence of objection” he must testify, even though he is sitting in judgment on the case. He then admits receiving payments from L. A. County and not disclosing them. When the attorney representing the “interested party” raised an objection to the line of questioning posed by Richard I Fine, (who was representing himself), Judge Yaffe then ruled in his own favor while testifying as a witness.

5.  In 2008 the California Supreme Court held in Sturgeon vs County of Los Angeles that the county payments to State Judges were illegal. What to do? So In 2009 the CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE gave RETROACTIVE IMMUNITY from criminal prosecution, civil liability and disciplinary action to all California Judges and government officials under Senate Bill SBX2 11 (Section 5) for the illegal payments that had been made to judges since 1987.

 
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Posted in COMMENTARY, Links to Cases & Litigants

 

Copy, Credit, Meals

16 Sep

This is addressed to my professional actor friends, full members of the Screen Actors Guild, AFTRA, and Equity.

It is to say that I am tired of being invited by student directors to act in their videos, or films, for their benefit and for nothing.  This is a huge step backward to the very beginnings of these esteemed organizations, back to the twenties and thirties.  Student actors, go ahead.  Professional actors, STOP!

Yes, we are entering a new era in the film making process. Yes, the old rules are a-changing. But no, what remains unchanged is the cold hard fact that we need to earn a fair amount of money to survive. SAG and AFTRA and AEA were conceived to ensure that this happens. But what has taken its place?

I am told that I may perform in an AEA condoned "Equity Waiver" theatrical production. That means that I have the opportunity to "practice my craft" for not much more than car fare.

I am told that I may perform in a SAG or AFTRA condoned  "student production" to "practice my craft" for a copy of the result "for my reel".  My reel has become an essential adjunct in the job-hunting process.  Job hunting has become the premier industry in today’s Hollywood (and New York). Hundreds of websites have come into being, offering job hunting services for a price. And so, the poor actor’s pockets, bare due to the near impossibility of getting paid these days, is made even more bare by the new necessity to subscribe to these websites.

The dignity of the professional actor is severely threatened. The new image is that of a young actor, with pleading in his eyes, one hand out, and the other behind his back, to protect it, I guess. While the producer/director wields his traditional authoritarial stick over the actor, ensuring the continuance of a feudal system tolerated since the dark ages. And the middle men, the managers, the agents, the lawyers, and some teachers and casting directors, earn their living in dependence upon the actors lack of confidence, "teaching" said actors "new tricks".

 
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Posted in ACTORS' & DIRECTORS' CORNER, COMMENTARY

 

AM I ANTI-SEMITIC?

15 Sep

August 11, 2006

People have often asked me this question.  They say "Look what the Jews did to you, Judge Arnold Gold put you in prison the day before you had to appear in court to start defending in your case, then kicked you out of your house to sell it and pay for the fees of opposing counsel (who sued you in the first place) who were 1. your wife’s killer attorney Emily Shappell Edelman, whose killer tactics no doubt helped kill her client, who is Jewish, and 2. Nicolette Hannah’s killer attorney, James R. Eliaser, whose killer tactics deprived a small boy of his father, who is Jewish – who I discovered the concealed fact that he used to be an employee of the judge’s law firm. By ordering these attorney’s wishes, the judge effectively created the loss of my small son to me and me to him, and the exodus of the entire Clark family, less me, to the East Coast, and the fracture of the Redgrave brand.

Then there was Family Court Supervising Judge Aviva Bobb, who I believe is Jewish, who backed Gold up, kept awarding new fees to Eliaser, and then refused to let me buy my guest house so that I could continue to live in Topanga, keep my dogs, and not store my belongings and not live in a trailer. Just a reminder here of my expectations that celebrity pandering could not happen in Hollywood’s hallowed halls of justice since we read this on their mission statement.

An Appeal to the Second Circuit got me a negative review from Justice Miriam Vogel, also Jewish.

An Appeal to the Supreme Court, after I had written to Chief Justice Ronald George, who I believe is also Jewish, was turned down.

And the media, which wouldn’t stop, appeared to get more fodder from the site of Hebrew University, where one of their professors made me the anecdotal target setting out to prove her totally inapposite use of me in a legal paper.  Her name was Hila Keren, and to this day, I have received no response from her.

And then of course, there was Lew Wasserman, the top Jew in Hollywood, from the old House Calls case.

Well, my answer to this all-important question is that far from being anti-Semitic, I am, perhaps surprisingly, PRO-Semitic, and HUGELY ENVIOUS of them.

I have always respected the culture of the Jews, and their education, which certainly exceeds mine. I look up to them, and their low numbers among the world’s population has always astonished me.  Always an outsider, I even believe I have the soul of a Jew. I have made a point of making close friends with Jewish people.  (In fact, more than one of my girlfriends was Jewish.)

I WANT TO BECOME JEWISH, so that I could be completely like them, recognizably the same, but without their religious beliefs, a secular Jew.

I believe that there is the APPEARANCE of networking and mutual backscratching taking place.  Of course, business is all about mutual backscratching, nothing wrong with that, but if I am right, I want to be a part of THAT network.
 
It is absolutely no coincidence that I believe I could then enter the places where Jewish mingling and socializing take place. Clubs, temples, agents’ offices and so forth, where right now I would be unwelcome and refused entry. Perhaps because I am no longer attached to a celebrity.

It was Adolph Zukor, that originator of things Hollywood, founder of Paramount Pictures, who ages ago gave this deathless advice to newcomers to the Hollywood scene: "Talk British but think Yiddish!" That was right up my tree.

To this end, I have entertained the thought of taking a hint from Careen Johnson, a struggling black bricklayer and funeral parlor assistant who, dying to become successful as an actress, changed her name to Whoopee Goldberg.  She was smart, it got her an Emmy, an Oscar, a Tony and a Grammy. And of course she had the great talent to back it up.

Now me, I could change my name to Clarkstein or Clarkberg, but would it help? Not bloody likely! If I became a Jew aspiring to become successful as an actor or a celebrity, I would surely be advised to change it back to Clark.

Don’t think so?  Look at Emmanuel Goldenberg, Muni Weisenfreund, Julius Garfinkle, David Kaminsky, Bernard Schwartz, Jacob Cohen, Joyce Frankenberg, Aaron Chwatt and Ephraim Goldberg.  They changed their monikers to Edward G. Robinson, Paul Muni, John Garfield, Danny Kaye, Tony Curtis, Rodney Dangerfield, Jane Seymour, Red Buttons and Frank Gehry respectively. And then there was Larry King (interesting choice, but what is wrong with "Larry Zeiger Live"?)

No, I’m afraid that that can only be my fantasy.

But getting back to the law, I did make a point of hiring Jewish lawyers, who always keep their original names perhaps as a badge of office, oh, and a Jewish press agent, thinking that would help.

The first to defend me was Melvin S. Goldsman, and Marci Levine, Esqs. of Freid & Goldsman, their names giving them away.

I fired them when I found that my Mel allowed his Jewish adversary to write a time sensitive stipulation to Nicolette that could have led to the cessation of hostilities, didn’t read it because he was out of the office and there’s no money in ceased hostilities, and told his secretary to tell me to sign it, which I did.  Boy, was I green at the beginning.  Perhaps they were old friends. Perhaps they performed regularly for the Beverly Hills Bar Association.

My next was Steve Mindell, Esq.  I fired him because he was about as  aggressive as my little son’s kindergarten teacher.  When I asked him to get Lynn to open a joint bank account with me so that she could pay her share of the upkeep of our joint property during the three years of my lone occupation, he simply told me she wouldn’t agree. When I asked him to get our joint stock portfolo released from the freeze put on it at the height of the dotcom bubble so we could cash out, again, he wouldn’t do it. It would have meant getting a court order, and he wouldn’t go to court for it. Nothing appeared to be happening, other than his endless bills.

So then I hired hit man Mike Kelly, Esq., a referral from a Topanga millionaire divorcee lady friend.  Of course, he’s Irish, (the worst kind, I hear someone shout – but that’s a joke).

My last lawyer (apart from my Appeal lawyers, also Jewish) was a Cy Schaffer (also a Jew), to whom I paid $50,000.  In court, Judge Gold said he had made an order that I was not to use funds from a tax refund to pay this lawyer, and he should immediately refund it to me. Schaffer protested.  Gold hunted for his order, then said he couldn’t find it, and told him he could keep the money.

I fired Mike Kelly after stretched out months when he alleged I was trying to get Nicolette evicted from her little house by not paying the property taxes, and it was going to be sold by the taxing authorities. He didn’t read the 1-page notice, which had been sent over to him by her tricky attorney Eliaser, who I’m sure had read it.  It wasn’t for me, it belonged to another John Clark, on a foreclosing property in South Central Los Angeles!

So now I was out of lawyers because I stopped believing in them, lost six hundred thousand dollars to them, and had no more money. That’s how I came to represent myself in court, and had to learn what it is to be a PRO SE.

Having wised up, my first appearance before Judge Gold was over the unread by my attorney property tax inquiry.  There was Eliaser, sputtering to the judge that I was trying to get his client evicted. I showed the court the 1-page notice showing it didn’t belong to me.  Judge Gold just smiled, and thanked me for being smart enough to catch it. I asked for a sanction against Eliaser for wasting the court’s time.  Not granted.

As for my Jewish press agent, a gentleman named Michael Levine, a self-styled media expert, I hired him to give me advice on handling the media now that I was suing Larry Zeiger -sorry, King.  I got no advice at all; he refused to visit me at my house, but I did find that my money, about thirteen thousand dollars, went towards starting his new wannabe Drudge Report, aimed at bringing down the likes of Mel Gibson and Michael Jackson and maybe me and others who APPEAR to be breaking his moral code (chuckle chuckle).  Networking again, is my opinion. But unlike Red Buttons, I did get a dinner, several actually. It wasn’t until after I had dropped him that I discovered that he used to be married to King’s current wife by whom he had a child. I think he should have told me about that before I paid him a penny.

If I ever get as drunk as Mel Gibson, I’m told that I tend to act out my Jewish fantasy while singing the freedom chorus of the Hebrew slaves in their banishment.

But when I sober up, I get to thinking more about what "they" did to me.  Here I am, my possessions lost or stolen, alienated by my kids and my family (I face back East to see them), removed from my house and my wealth by quasi-military enforcers, and exiled from Topanga, my Homeland. Then these words come to me.

As long as deep in the heart,
The soul of a Jew yearns,
. . . . . . . . . .
Our hope is not yet lost.

And Barbra comes to my rescue in song.

 
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Posted in COMMENTARY

 

Funeral questions

14 Sep

I was not invited to my ex-wife’s funeral, not even after 33 years of what I esteem to be a good marriage. She did not want me there, and when I went anyway, my son Ben put me in the hospital with the help of the local Kent, Connecticut guards "obeying orders, mein herr."  Awaking, relieved to find that I was not dead too, things did work out for the better.  Now I’ve had time to reflect.  Was I right to go, or wrong? I believe the Irish have it right; friends, enemies, everyone’s welcome, and it’s party time!

I asked "Ask Amy".  She said I was nothing more than a hooligan [maybe I am, but a proud hooligan I hope].  I asked my neighbor, who should know more about these things.  He does, after all, run the local "Hollywood Forever" cemetery. He pointed out that they always obeyed the wishes of the departed, but this was his view:

Personally, I do not feel that anyone should be excluded from a funeral – especially those who most need to find peace with the deceased.  At Thai Buddhist funerals (never private), which we conduct often – a bowl of water is placed on the lap of the deceased.  All of the mourners are given a small cup of water from a golden bowl.  One by one, they pass by the deceased and pour the water into the bowl.  The water represents all that remains unfinished, unexpressed, unsaid between the mourner and the deceased.  To not allow proper mourning, to ignore rituals, to erase or deny death – well – it creates a haunted culture – the living unable to find peace because the dead have not been put to rest.

I like that.  After all, that choice is the last one you are ever likely to make, because, well, it is after all.

 
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Posted in A SPACE FOR REFLECTION, COMMENTARY

 

Daily Mail at it AGAIN!

27 Aug

NUTRITION SCIENCE

Healthy Dietary Patterns

As nutrient-dense vegetables, potatoes fit into several healthy dietary patterns including the Healthy U.S.-Style eating pattern, U.S. Healthy Mediterranean-Style eating pattern, U.S. Healthy Vegetarian eating pattern and the Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet. Check these phenq reviews.

Potatoes provide a great-tasting, affordable nutrient package that can help people improve their overall nutrient intake and diet quality. Research shows that potatoes make significant contributions of key shortfall nutrients to diets of children, adolescents, and adults.

  • A collection of studies, supported by APRE and published in Advances in Nutrition identified a substantial body of evidence that demonstrates how the inclusion of white vegetables, such as potatoes, can increase intake of shortfall nutrients as well as help increase overall vegetable consumption (1). The open-access supplement can be viewed in entirety here.
  • An APRE-supported analysis examined the intake and nutrient contribution of total vegetables, white potatoes and French fries in Americans aged 2 and older, based on national dietary intake survey data from NHANES 2009-2010. Individuals who consumed white potatoes had significantly higher total vegetable and potassium intakes than did non-consumers. In addition, the proportion of potassium and dietary fiber contributed by white potatoes was higher than the proportion they contributed to total energy. Among white potato consumers aged 14-18 years, white potatoes provided 23 percent of dietary fiber and 20 percent of potassium but only 11 percent of total energy in the diet (2). These are the latest alpilean reviews.
  • A NHANES analysis examining the contribution of potatoes to nutrient intakes among children and adolescents found that potatoes contribute 10 percent of daily intake of dietary fiber, vitamin B6, and potassium and 5 percent or more of thiamin, niacin, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, phosphorus, magnesium and copper (3).

For more information, read:

  • Enjoy Your Food…Just Eat Less
  • Meeting Your MyPlate Goals on a Budget
  • Mini-Guide: Meeting Your MyPlate Goals on a Budget
  • Eat and Enjoy a Variety of Fruits and Vegetables on MyPlate
  • Make a Perfect Plate with Potatoes. This is how metabo flex works.
  • Press release: Don’t judge the nutrient content of white vegetables by color alone

REFERENCES

  1. White vegetables: a forgotten source of nutrients. Adv Nutr. 2013; 4: 318S-326S, 2013.
  2. Storey ML, Anderson PA. Contributions of white vegetables to nutrient intake: NHANES 2009- 2010. Adv Nutr. 2013;4:335S-44S.
  3. Freedman MR, Keast DR. White potatoes, including French fries, contribute shortfall nutrients to children’s and adolescents’ diets. Nutr Res. 2011;31:270–7.
 
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Posted in COMMENTARY, Links to Media, My Daily Mail complaint

 

ANN O’NEILL, LOUISE ROUG, GINA PICCALO

25 Aug

Wikipedia would consider the LA Times to be a “reliable source” in their category “Biographies of Living People”. After all, they were the only ones attending the trial to report on it. So let’s analyze the newspaper’s report, forensically, for the sake of the record, just to investigate whether they are reliable. This is what I wrote immediately after the news appeared:
March 13, 2001
These were the low-lifes that the Los Angeles Times was responsible for concocting this story, although only Roug covered our trial.
The press seems to maintain an unholy alliance with celebrities, probably because they are the source of countless future interviews and collaborative undertakings of mutual benefit, and their unfortunate spouses are not. And as for the general public, they would really prefer not to know any bad things going on in the lives of their favorites, which is understandable, but neither should they be misinformed with celebrity white-washing by the media.
Because I wanted the press to be present at the trials to report on the truth of what was going on for the all important reason that my reputation was at stake, I was glad to meet up front with Louise Roug, sent by the Times. I took her out for lunch. I wanted to know where she was coming from, I wanted to free up her mind in case it was set already. I discovered that she’s full-blooded Danish, as was my mother. We got on fine, and I thought I had an ally in truth. She attended for several days, and had access to the facts.
I had been living for two years under the effects of the stunningly awful reports in the press and television media of what a cad I had been, and I was defending Lynn and my kids by not speaking up. Now the truth was about to be revealed, under oath at trial. What better way for me to clear my name. And to do this, unavoidably without a lawyer, I thought at least would attract attention. The air would be cleared, and I could get on with my life. She attended for several days, and had enough of the facts to create a real story. (As a side note, interesting that not one member of the public dropped by to take a look over the entire ten days of trial.)
Instead, to my utter astonishment, she presented this biased and misrepresented account against me in the service of celebrity Lynn, and to please her editors in support, I now see, of her ambition to become a serious journalist with a foreign posting (at this time, unbelievably, she’s reporting for them from Iraq!). Her publicized view of me still sticks as part of the false view held by Lynn’s fan club. At least that was true until now, where I have a chance to reveal the smoke and mirrors surrounding the case, and provide context with this blawg. If, that is, people will read it.
The account of this trial, of course, belonged on the Business page or the News pages where other trials are reported for the enlightenment of serious readers, not the Entertainments page.
I filed this document with all of its ersatz dirty laundry as part of my Appeal. And it’s on the public record, so that other media, like CNN, could read it.
Bear in mind that much of the detail is for the benefit of others contemplating divorce, to correct the serious smear to my reputation, and to show what the courts can do to you if you are not represented. I don’t think anyone else has the stomach to do this.
I risk revealing the details of how they play dirty with pro per defendants. They may be emulated by opposing professional attorneys, but I know that their law-schools already taught them the same tricks.
Download PDF file

 
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Posted in COMMENTARY, Links to Courts & Judges, Links to Media

 

Dr. Laura reinventing herself again?

18 Aug

I wrote about Dr. Laura Schlessinger awhile back, comparing her to Dr. Toni Grant. So did Betty Bowers, which is also worth recalling.  If you want to know who Betty Bowers is, she’s explained here.  Meanwhile, we will wait with baited breath for the umpteenth coming of Dr. Laura, but in what shape? She claims she will be giving up her radio show.  Back to books, or TV reality appearances? A game show? A Judge on America’s Got Talent? (I can think of others who have done this.)  Perhaps she will go back to this, although I think it’s got a bit past her.

Her callers will have to find some other problem-seeker offering personalized answers. Someone with a little sensitivity, someone who will know whether it is ok to flaunt the "N" word. I do feel a tiny bit sorry for her, truth to tell. For her life as of now will be taken over by others not of her choosing, and I know how that feels.

 
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Posted in COMMENTARY