A GOOD MAN HAS DIED

On Friday, Dan, my friend and neighbor, was killed in a single car accident.

The last time I spoke with him, he told me his boss had lots of construction work and things were getting better, so he was going fishing. He never came back home.

This is a man who would carry in my groceries, fix small things around the house, and water my trees and the apartment lawn. My other neighbor said, "He made us a family."

Dan is not important enough to have his death reported in the newspaper. But he was an important man none the less. He was one of those people who did not ask if you needed help, he just helped.

The world is a sadder place without him.

NEW HOME LOAN SCAM

At least one bank is making second mortgages without paying off the prior liens, even if the prior lien is a court order.

If lots of banks do this, it will greatly impact the debt collection problems for everyone but bankers. The US debt collection process is a careful interweaving of the rights of creditors (the person owed money) and debtors (the person who owes the money). Creditors get court orders which they file as liens against the debtor's property. 

If the bank does not honor those liens, the home owner can effectively continue to pile up debt, knowing that they will never have to pay the debt.

The Well Fargo Bank, NA, Short Form Open-End Deed of Trust, San Mateo County Recorder document no. 2009--047950 states, "Borrower covenants that Borrower is lawfully seised of the estate hereby conveyed and has the right to grant and convey the Property and that the Property is unencumbered, except for encumbrances of record as of the execution date of this Security Instrument."

There are at least two prior liens on this property, the first mortgage on the home, and a court order, San Mateo County document no. 2008-062012. It should be pointed out that California court orders generally carry an interest rate of 10% simple interest per year.

We messed with standard banking practices before, and it did not turn out well. It is my prediction that this new practice of not paying off prior liens will also not turn out well.

US HISTORY MISUNDERSTOOD

Today, people are having 'Boston Tea Parties' across America. Guys, The Boston Tea Party was held because people were protesting TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. You folks did have representation. In fact, your representatives did exactly what they promised, they stopped enforcing regulations on businesses.

Unfortunately, businessmen have the same percentage of con artist and thieves as the rest of the population. Yes, most people are good people. But we all know some people that cannot be trusted if you turn your back on them.

You still do not seem to understand what went wrong with the economy. I am still in pain, but I will try to explain what happened. 

Imagine that everyone in your town went to the same bank for everything. Then that bank stopped giving out loans and stopped giving you your money. This is what happened world wide when the flow of cash suddenly stopped when the mortgage crisis hit. 

That problem is NOW FIXED. You need to get back to your lives. GO TO THE BANK or an FHA approved real estate broker and refinance your home. GO TO THE BANK and ask for money to rehire your employees. FIX THE PROBLEMS you see around you.

IF YOU WANT TO PISS OFF THE FEDS, pass the constitutional amendment stopping the war on drugs and cleaning up the food supply. (Yesterday's blog) I believe that the 3/4 of the states passing a constitutional amendment has not happened since the Bill of Rights was passed. Some states REFUSED to ratify the US Constitution without the Bill of Rights. (And how right those states were!)

WHEN MY WHEELCHAIR lift broke, people thought I was crazy because I stated in court that my lift repairman had Alzheimer's.  Let me tell you about my lift repairman.

Paul and his wife are elderly now. Over the years they fostered hundreds of disabled foster children. Paul got started in the wheelchair and lift repair business fixing the equipment for his foster kids. DID YOU KNOW that Medicare only covers wheelchairs necessary to get around your home? NO ONE helps with the lifts necessary to allow someone to go shopping.

Several years ago, I went to get a drink holder for my wheelchair and found Paul is great difficulty shutting down his business. I helped him shut down his business, and he gave me my big wheelchair and a lift that was MUCH BETTER than the lift I had. He also sold me two old hospital beds and a chair that sets me on my feet. He failed to tell me that he was shutting the business because he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

Then, after a difficult negotiation, which I hoped would finish a case that had lingered for years, at 6 PM, my client and I went to my van to go home from the Redwood City courthouse. The wheelchair lift refused to put the chair into the car. I was lucky that time. I was still mobile as my chair was outside the car, and I had another person with me. I could not lock the car as the lift would not go back inside. The scary part was that NO ONE noticed that we were stuck in the parking lot, with a wheelchair lift down on the ground.

So I called Paul and he drove over to Redwood City. He got lost finding the court house, but called me with his location. I rode my wheelchair over to guide him into the parking lot, whereupon several police officers noticed the car following a wheelchair. He got the lift into the van after much experimentation.

Then he and my car mechanic diagnosed the problem. Paul and I went to Halted Electronics to get the switch I needed. Paul could not pick out the correct switch, so a nice customer in the store helped me buy the correct switch. Paul and my mechanic put it in and I was back in business. However, Paul can no longer fix wheelchairs and lifts. 

It is so sad. I do not understand why people think that I should not mourn the loss of the Paul that was.

My mechanic's shop is now shuttered as he and my transmission guy were both put out of business by the bad car parts being sold to repair shops. (The transmission in my car still has an intermittent problem due to a bad solenoid.)

Even if one has brand new equipment, it takes a while to set up a wheelchair and lift system so that it can be easily used by the disabled person. 

BTW, many people think that riding a wheelchair, especially an electric wheelchair, is fun. And so it is, for an hour or two. (See the HOUSE episode where he uses a wheelchair.) Wheelchairs are only fun if you do not need them. If you need them, they are actually embarrassing, as people treat you like an idiot. It is nice to see fewer and fewer people treat me like an idiot, but it still happens. OFTEN, people get VERY ANGRY, if I am in a wheelchair and then stand up. They believe that I am trying to con them. Believe me, there are a lot easier ways to con people.

TIP OF THE DAY. To save money drying clothes in a dryer, put in two tennis balls. Your clothes will come out fluffy and unwrinkled and you will use less energy in drying them. 

BTW, the Oxiclean and dish washing detergent trick also works with cleaning bathtubs. The problem with this is that some bright person will decide to stop up the overflow drain in order to get the Oxiclean to clean the top part of the bathtub. THIS IS VERY DANGEROUS as an overflow is inevitable. If some bright kid floods the bathroom, make the kid wash and dry the towels you will use cleaning up the mess. I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR that you were thrown out of your apartment for flooding your downstairs neighbors or that you ruined your home because you now have dry rot under your bathroom.

A teaspoon of Oxiclean in the dishwasher's first wash cleans even dried on food. (You still need to scrape the big food off the dishes.) DO NOT use more than a teaspoon of Oxiclean as you will have water all over the floor. 

DONATIONS

I have someone setting up donations via PayPal. I do NOT want to give out the name of my new organization until my guy reserves the Internet name for me.

I NOTE that no one is sending me donations. Hopefully, I will soon be well enough to continue practicing law. Assuming, of course, that my wheelchair lift can be fixed.

IN ANY EVENT, I am still appealing a judge's refusal to grant an equity motion, even if I have to do the appeal Pro Bono (which is Latin meaning 'for free'), which looks likely. Especially since the research is all finished, and is contained in my two trial briefs.

RUINING OUR NEW INTERNET COMMUNITY

We have a really neat Internet community of people who use the Internet for all sorts of things. I certainly do NOT want to stop people from having a good time using the Internet. I am totally uninterested in what happens between consenting adults.

However, the Internet is being used to defraud the desperate and to steal money using the wealth of information available. It is also being used to stalk people.

Back in the day, the US Post Office used to be the bulwark against fraud. If you set up a fraud via US Mail, your ass was grass (old slang for you would be caught and sent to prison). The Feds would fly in witnesses to testify against the criminal.

SO HOW DO WE STOP FRAUD ON THE INTERNET? We use my idea regarding an Internet government with the government sites marked by a flag. We have only one law about lying on the Internet.

THEN WE SET UP A COURT SYSTEM USING DUE PROCESS OF LAW. This is easy in concept, but expensive in practice. You have an Internet court hear the case. Then you allow one appeal through the Internet court. We have an Internet supreme court with the authority to hear only cases where the government flag is going to be removed from a website. Otherwise, we allow appeals to the courts of the country where the appellant lives. We obey all court orders from the countries, reserving only the right to decide what website is allow to 'fly the flag.'

It is easier not to lie than you think. Terms like 'I believe', 'I think', and 'perhaps' allow you to speculate about something. Antique dealers do this all of the time. Then tell you something is 'from the school of' a famous artist, or that it is a lovely vase which might be 18th century.

GEEK LOVE

Geeks make great husbands. They are well employed, intelligent and learn quickly. You will learn a lot explaining how human interaction works. I used to match make for my male geek friends. My matches produced at least 5 babies. Geeks are WAY more interested in brains than in looks. Most do not even understand why anyone would wear makeup. The lonely ones are really nice people. They just think too much to make easy conversation.

GEEK WOMEN need to be careful. There are men out there who are looking for a meal ticket. There are also men who believe that, once they are married, they are the person in charge of the family, and the wife MUST obey. It is always wise to watch how your male friends feel about the person you believe you love. They may see something that you do not see. Vice versa for men and their girlfriends.

YOU ARE ALL MAKING A MISTAKE ABOUT FAT PERSONS. I believe fat, especially in women, may be tied to the wisdom necessary to see things clearly. By starving to stay thin, women may loose this gift. I cannot tell you if the same is true for men. I will point out that fat used to be necessary for survival during famine. It is interesting to note that all of the oldest prehistorical depictions of female goddesses are depictions of what we would regard as a very fat woman.

Now I need to go find out how little money I have in the bank.

PLEASE SEND ME DONATIONS which I intend to use to continue this blog and to start a think tank using older experts who actually have real life experience in the real world. Your donation will NOT be tax deductible.

Send the donations to:

Pamela E. Smith

Attorney at Law

482 W. Hamilton Ave., # 2

Campbell, CA 95008

408-374-1820

If you are worried that I will misuse your money, please check out my website, especially the section on Powerful People.

STOP THE WAR (On Drugs)

We do NOT need Congress to stop the stupid prohibition laws regarding drugs. THE STATES can pass a constitutional amendment. It takes 3/4 of the states, but it can be done. It would be in the best interest of the NRA to join this effort. Most of the gun violence is caused by the continuing prohibition laws.

I have taken a stab at writing the amendment. However, I am NOT a constitutional law expert and I am pretty sick. I recommend that you carefully review this idea.

'The government shall make no law restricting the dispensation of any substance that can be inserted into a human body by eating, smoking, ingesting, absorbing or injecting the substance into the human body. A substance which can be inserted into a human body must be accompanied by a list of ingredients and their affect on the human body, if known.'

Nothing in the amendment stops a corporation from requiring a doctor's prescription for dispensing a dangerous medication. Nothing in the amendment requires insurance to pay for a medication taken without a doctor's prescription.

The amendment may also solve the problem of all of the additives in food.

I KNEW about the affects on margarine when you cooked it. I have know about this for thirty years. This is why I was using butter, rather than margarine. Then for twenty years, I watched doctors recommend to their heart attack patients that they cook with margarine. It made me really angry.

We can always set limits on what substances people can use if they are working. Frankly, I think having wine at lunch does not help with the decision making after lunch. However, having wine at lunch sometimes helps with negotiations.

WE HAVE bad germs in our produce because no one is regulating where the cattle feed lots are located. Plus, letting cattle stand in water and feces upsets the cattle and makes them tasteless. We need to study water flow to know where to allow cattle and chickens. We COULD LISTEN to the farmers, who probably already know what to do about this problem.

If you want to eat tasty chicken, try Kosher chicken. The Kosher chicken I get at Albertson's tastes MUCH BETTER than the health food store chicken, which is tasteless. First, wash the chicken under running water, put chicken into a large glass pie pan, rub tarragon and salt over the chicken (about a teaspoon of salt mixed with tarragon rubbed all over the chicken), then bake in a 350 degree oven for one hour, turning the chicken over half way through the baking (use two forks to do this). After you eat the chicken, you can make soup stock with the leftovers. You may need to get a video to show you how to carve a chicken. Soup stock info I got from a James Beard book.

WE SHOULD listen to Doonesbury when it comes to Afghanistan. To quote the cartoon, "If Kabul wants influence here (in the mountains) they need to build roads (to Kabul)."

BTW, I have been telling people about boating on the river by Sioux City, Iowa, which is next to South Dakota, where I was born and raised. NOTE that Iowa has made gay marriage legal. KUDOS to Iowa.

DONATIONS

If you wish to donote money to me so that I can solve some of the issues I have been discussing, please mail your checks to:

Pamela E. Smith

Attorney at Law

482 W. Hamilton Ave., # 2

Campbell, CA 95008

phone 408-374-1820

Please mark the check as a donation. THE MONEY WILL NOT BE TAX DEDUCTABLE.

When I can, I will set up online donations, but I cannot do that until I can pay the people who will do this for me.

THE FUTURE

I have decided that I need to start a non profit think tank. I did not like the greed that surfaced when we did a for profit corporation.

I would like to start the think tank with people at or near retirement. I believe that scientists who worked for years in a particular specialty are better able to judge whether a scientific study is bullshit or not.

I do not know about the rest of the retired people, but I find retirement to be REALLY BORING.

I think I may have lined up a non profit to get me started. However, if you have a non profit that is in good standing but is out of business due to the recession, I could use your non profit. Or else I will form my own, but it takes 6 months at least to get the federal approval.

MEANWHILE, if you send me donations, they will NOT be deductible. 

I AM IN A LOT OF PAIN AND MY WHEELCHAIR LIFT IS BROKEN. It does look like the broken part may be available, but no one will tell me if it is available until I go into a wheelchair repair shop to talk with them. 

I AM AGAIN BEING HARASSED BY THE CALIFORNIA FRANCHISE TAX BOARD. I KNOW I just have to fill out my tax forms as I never make any money. I am allowed to deduct all expenses necessary to allow me to work. However the California Franchise Tax Board has a computer program that tells them how much a professional should be earning. They decide you earned that amount as long as you have an active license. So I am not the only disabled professional to be harassed by the Franchise Tax Board.

BTW, the FRANCHISE TAX BOARD has another good (?) idea. It is to implement the strict definition of 'worker' to get back payroll taxes on people the small business thought were independent contractors. This triggers back payroll taxes and back Workers Compensation fees. This puts the small business out of business, which is not a helpful act during the current economic times. I think it would be better to educate people as to what they did wrong, and make them fix it in the future. But if we go after all of the taxes and penalties, then we will get NOTHING as there will no longer be a small business to pay ANY taxes. REALLY SHORT SIGHTED AND STUPID.

TO FINISH SAVING THE WORLD

First, I have to tell you that I have lost another assistant. I think they believe that they can control my erratic behavior. My family could have told them that they were doomed to failure on that project.

I came in this morning as I intend to take three days off and I am beginning to think that we are running out of the time we will have available to fix things. The Santa Clara County Assessor (a really well run office) says that the price of real estate in Santa Clara County was down only 2% over the last year. So you all will be back at work soon. Let's see what we can do with our time until then.

First, I have to tell you that you are the most credulous people. Let me give you an example of how you believed Fox News and got the whole thing wrong.

Honorable gentlepersons do NOT talk about their sex lives. You can tell an honorable person. He/she is the one who loses his job rather than falsify a report. You think that they are stubborn bastards, but after a while you note that they were right to have been stubborn. So you still call them stubborn bastards, but in the tone of voice which means 'honorable, trustworthy person'.

The only reason to get involved in someones sex life is if it is a child or one of the persons asks for help.

Now you have to do homework. Listen to the Johnny Cash song that starts, 'She walked these hills in a long white veil...'

Now you know that President Clinton did the honorable thing. A Southern Gentleman is supposed to keep his mouth shut. It is up to the lady to decide to save him or let him hang.

Oh, no one ever caught President Clinton in a lie. He just violated the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

WE CAN WIN AGAINST THE BAD GUYS ANY TIME. All we have to do is let women be 50% of whatever we are doing. Women pick up clues to behavior that most men miss. The fun of Bones is that the woman is clueless to behavior clues and the man is not.

Women will go do something else if you will not let them play. After my children left home, no one from the old Minimax days would help me find work. So I did this.

Oh, the comics have been running stuff on good manners making you invisible. My manners are not that good. I swear like a sailor, and often tell people to shut up and listen or I will not help them. I am invisible because I am old, disabled, use a wheelchair and am fat.

You men are REALLY STUPID to hire pretty young girls to do your books and be your receptionist. The receptionist at Technikron could always tell me what was going on. Of course, the men treated her like shit. BIG MISTAKE. She and I once taught one of them a lesson and his proposal did not meet the deadline. His fault, as he waited until the last minute.

The reason that Presidents Clinton and Obama always look so cool is because they know they have a trusted partner guarding their back Same with Secretary of State Clinton and First Lady Obama.

We do not have to worry about the prosecutors any more. No organization with a private justice system like the State Bars can take on protracted litigation when disciplining its members. BUT DID YOU KNOW that the Justice Department has a political corruption unit who is bringing criminal conspiracy charges against the Alaskan Federal Prosecutors who convicted Stevens? (They failed to provide evidence to the defense.)

If the Justice Department is interested, I have a list of cases where the judges failed to follow case law, and where the prosecutors failed to drop charges even when they knew a jury would not convict.

BE VARY WARY of people who speak perfect English, but do not seem to understand American culture at all. Someone tried to convince me he was a gangbanger. His scarf was new and ironed. I think his baby may have been drugged. She was VERY flaccid.

WE NEED A GOVERNMENT FOR THE INTERNET.

I think our government should be very simple and voluntary. We will put a flag on all sites that join our government. We will have to have an internet court system also. I think we should implement a variation of my 'you cannot lie' law. If you lie or we think you are running a scam, we will not allow you access to our servers. We have to allow companies to operate without the flag in countries which censor the internet. It is better to allow the citizens of these countries to have access to some information than to have access to no information.

It is always better to have a group of people write the constitution for any new government. It is impossible for one person to think of everything.

TAXICABS

We need to institute what is called the Medallion Program for issuing airport cab access licenses. This gives the licenses to the drivers and protects them from exploitation by the cab companies.

THE POOR

This is REALLY EASY. Just bring back to original Legal Services Corporation. Let the Legal Services attorneys take any case they want. Bingo, problem solved. And EVERYONE will be angry with Legal Services, so we have to protect Legal Services AT ALL COST.

USE YOUR POWER WISELY

People with power who want to help other people need to do what those other people want. Too many people do what they think that other people should want.

FOOD SUPPLY

I think there is poison in our food supply. I think the only way to solve this problem is to go back to the products that are produced on farms. We are going to have to learn to cook, which is actually practical chemistry and is quite fun. I think we need to do organic farming. This means the government should subsidise the farmers who are switching to organic farming, as I think it takes eight years to become certified organic. 

PASS MY IDEA ON LONGER AND LONGEST TERM CAPITOL GAINS.

IMPLEMENT MY IDEA on nations losing their most favored nation status if their products are faulty. We have to do this because the inspections have to be done at the factory level. They should pay for their own inspectors.

YOU WILL ALWAYS have to follow politics enough to make an informed vote. AND VOTE.

GET RID OF that stupid expense stock options rule. All this rule has done is to take the stock options from the workers and give them to the CEOs. VERY VERY STUPID.

HAPPY SPRING!

You know, all of you are asking the wrong questions about the authentic Gnostic document called the Gospel of Mary Magdalen. The question is not what part of Jesus Mary Magdalen kissed. The interesting fact is that the document was written at all. Unmarried women of that era did not run around with thirteen unmarried men unless they wanted to be stoned to death. If Mary Magdalen was kissing Jesus often on any body part, they were married. Doesn't anybody study history any more? There were rumors of hidden gospels for centuries. Now they are found. Deal with it.

WE NEED TO STOP THE WAR ON DRUGS RIGHT NOW THIS MINUTE. It would be nice to arrange to have the real assholes holding the bag if the bottom drops out of the price of drugs.

Here is what we will do.

A company can designate one of their drugs as so dangerous they want it to be only prescribed by a doctor.

Otherwise a company warns of the effects of the drug in clear English (Kaiser has this down pat.) They the adult person taking the drug can make his own choices. If a company lies, we will sue them.

Feel free to tax recreational drugs, but not so much that you cause intrastate smuggling, like with cigarettes.

I AM VERY TIRED OF DOCTORS MAKING MY HEALTH DECISIONS FOR ME. I know my body better than they do, as I have to live with it. 

DO NOT FORGET TO LET all persons convicted of possession and possession for sale out of jail. If they had done a violent crime, they would be in jail for the violent crime also. This will leave room in our prisons for the con artists who are making our lives miserable. 

WE HAVE A LOT OF PROFESSIONAL IDIOTS because we are requiring too much memory work in our professional exams. Memorizing case names is STUPID. What you need to remember is the legal logic inside the cases. I make my connections from the theories. I can always look up the name of something. My mind works very similarly to the Google search pattern, so I use Google lots. Oh, Google, do you want a present of my idea on how to search legal data bases? BTW, Crome makes my slow internet connection go much faster.

FUN WAR STORY

One day, outside the Legal Services trailer offices in Sells, a two year old locked herself in a car. The tribal police officer showed me how to open the door using a coat hanger.

When I got married to my second husband, I was driving a Chevrolet Caprice that had been owned by my parents, and then by a sibling. I was adept at the coat hanger thing as I was always locking my keys in the car, and back then, everyone had a wire coat hanger.

The week before my wedding, the corporate council of Tecknikron asked me if I wanted to negotiate a contract with the Federal Reserve Bank. With ALL of my family in town, I accepted the challenge and spent two days doing a really good negotiating job when I should have been getting the wedding organized.

I had a family member with me when I locked my keys in my car. Naturally, I coolly broke into my own car.

Then, in San Francisco, my dad locked his keys in his car. My family member coolly broke into his car for him, informing him that I had taught her how. Dad never did ask me how I knew, but I told him anyway.

DOG STORY

In Tucson, I had a dog that was half black lab. Her father came from a good neighborhood. Tasha could tell white men from Papagos. She NEVER barked at a Papago. She would always bark at a white person who did not work in the office. I asked the Papagos if they wanted me to stop her from doing this, but they thought it was REALLY FUNNY.

One day, Tasha trapped a white man in his car. He was on the reservation to repossess a car. I calmly told him that he had to apply to the tribal court to repossess a car on land controlled by the tribal council. He went back without the car and Tasha was the hero of the reservation.

I taught that dog how to ride on the back of my motorcycle. I had to build a platform so she would not fall off. We used to ride around town together.

UPDATES

I have been told that people enjoy the longer blogs more. So today's blog will be one long blog. Then I am going home and resting. I cannot be home, as home is being cleaned.

The people meeting in London to discuss the financial crises looked really happy. So it looks like things are pretty much fixed. It will take awhile to get people back to work as wise people ramp up projects slowly.

SO you will have some time on your hands. Why don't you go to court? In the US very few courtrooms are closed to the public. The closed courtrooms almost always have juvenile in their name. 

COURTROOM visiting rules. Please do not have more than two people per courtroom. Many of the courtrooms are very crowded. Get there on time and sit as far away from the door as possible as everyone will crawl over you when their time comes. Do not watch just the judge, watch everybody. Be quiet and polite. The court will take a bathroom break and you will all be thrown out of the courtroom for about 15 minutes after no more than two hours. You will note the attorneys have priority because if they did not, no one could afford an attorney. Be prepared to be searched like you were going on a airplane. If you are asked to leave, leave. The courtrooms and their locations are posted on the court's website. Do not forget to visit traffic and drug court. THe parking will be horrible, and you will have to walk long distances in most courthouses. CHECK out the wheelchair lift at the Palo Alto traffic courthouse. The one that goes up the stairs.

I BET YOU A BEER (assuming I ever have some money) that they are still not providing defense attorneys at criminal misdemeanor arraignments in Santa Clara County.

I am starting to eat into my capitol at an alarming rate, mostly because I HATE asking clients for more money if I know it hurts them financially to pay me.

I AM REALLY TOO SICK TO DO TRIALS. Generally, I take cases that involve short cause hearings only. I am careful to represent clients for whom a disabled attorney is their only alternative. Usually my law office costs me money to operate, but I enjoy practising law part time, which is all I can manage.

BUT NOW, my wheelchair lift is broken. My landlord forgot to put my wheelchair charging cord in the new neighbors lease, and they are refusing to plug it back in. Actually, it never occurred to my landlord that someone would deliberately unplug a cord that was being used to charge a wheelchair. 

I am used to petty revenge. People do it to me all the time when they find out that they had misjudged me. The wheelchair thing makes them get even madder than they used to get. Or else they think that I am helpless in taking care of myself.

WHICH REMINDS ME. If you do social protest, eventually someone will suggest to one of your friends that you are suicidal. (This same technique is being used by vengeful soon to be ex husbands.) This triggers the police coming to where you are and carting you away in an ambulance. BOTH TIMES this happened to me, three or four days later, I was finally escorted from the building by the head of the department babbling apologies into my ear.

SO WHAT DO YOU DO IF IT HAPPENS. Calm down, act normal, eat when there are meals, sleep or pretend to sleep during the night. DO NOT take any offered medication. You have the right to refuse medication. You also have a right to a federal hearing within three days. ASK FOR THIS FEDERAL HEARING. Let all of your friends know where you are and talk to them normally as often as possible. Try to help your fellow inmates. Most of them are very lonely. Many cannot talk in group therapy, which is all they have, but they might talk one on one to you. WHEN YOU GET OUT, sue their asses. (I did not do the last part. I did not want to harm the friend who was frightened for me.)

TO GET OUT QUICKLY. Hire an attorney. Psychiatrists are amazingly frightened of attorneys. Or maybe they are just frightened of me. I recalled teaching one a lesson in the law in Napa County back when I was Pamela Lance.

I AM SUING EVERYONE INVOLVED if it happens to me again.

BTW, no one actually diagnosed me as crazy. I was just in for observation. However, I now can not buy a gun. Or teach in a school.

I BADLY NEED TWO VOLUNTEER APPELLATE ATTORNEYS FOR A FAMILY LAW CASE. I have a perfect example of harassment by court hearings, which I hope will trigger a appellate ruling that the respondent has unclean hands. I have carefully protected the record for appeal. I was well taught in how to protect a record for appeal when I was doing Legal Services poverty law on the Papago Indian Reservation. (I think Catholic Charities are the people who taught us.) I do not know how to relieve the mother and grandmother from having to pay me. If we win this appeal, WE COULD FIX FAMILY COURT. Assuming that California comes to its senses and adopts the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

WHICH REMINDS ME, I think Jerry Brown would again be a great governor of California. He did a good job last time, he was just ahead of his time. He really helped Oakland, but could not stop the violence caused by the drug wars. Aren't you all tired of pretty idiots? Oh, that idiot who investigated the private records of her Board of Directors is running for governor.

I THINK THIS MESS WAS CAUSED BY THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT. Let me tell you why. All of the fraudulent paper was purchased by Chinese investors. Chinese are some of the most savvy investors because the whole family is willing to sacrifice to make the family rich. Car parts from China were so unreliable that mechanics were going out of business because they could not afford to do warranty repair. About 25% of the computer chips from China failed to work or they have no idea exactly how they work. These chips made some of our electronic toys be unreliable. These chips also went into the manufacture of our defense and communications systems. I think the Chinese just want to slow us down so that they could catch up and that they have already been punished by the mess they created.

THIS IS WHY IT IS STUPID to be fighting nineteenth century wars in the twenty first century.

THOSE OF YOU who are thinking that your county is too small should look at the fact that I vote in city, county, state, and federal elections. There are also regional districts where I vote for people who are planning regional transportation. You also need courts to rule on what each government can do. The governments have to obey the courts. (We are having trouble with that in the US for some reason.)

FUN WAR STORY. Back when I was doing poverty law for the Pagagos, Legal Services was allowed to take any kind of legal case. (This soon changed as we became more and more effective in stopping petty harassment of poor people.) Anyway, I was doing an old drunk driving case in Tuscon, and I had NO DEFENSE AT ALL. The prosecutor refused to give me the standard deal that they were offering to white men with attorneys.

Three days before the trial, I saw my client in the parking lot. But it was not my client, it was his look alike cousin. So I asked the cousin to come to court, which he agree to do as he had to see his attorney in Tuscon about smuggling cocaine.

So, I asked the judge if I could have my client sit in the back of the courtroom and the judge agreed that I could do that. My client and his cousin sat in the back together. The cousin covered his face every time the police peeked into the courtroom. (I DID NOT INSTRUCT HIM TO DO THIS.) Of course, the officers ID's the wrong person and the case was dismissed.

The prosecutor was LIVID. We went back into the judges chambers at his request. I thought the prosecutor was going to have a stroke, he was so mad. But the judge just sat back in his chair and said, 'I do not know why you are so mad, all Indians look alike anyway.'

BTW, some of you seem to think that medical marijuana laws solve the marijuana problem for sick people. MARIJUANA IS A FEDERAL, SCHEDULE 1 drug. It is more illegal that morphine. It is against federal law to even prescribe marijuana. And doctors are so afraid of the federal government, that they will let people be in pain. And they will not give out opium based drugs to the non dying unless it also contain Tylenol, a known poison which damages the liver.

ALL OF THE ABOVE means that if you are operating a medical marijuana clinic, you could be arrested for federal criminal conspiracy. And the feds change their minds all of the time about what laws they will enforce.

I WAS REALLY HOPING to have a think tank. But I think that no corporation or government will fund me as I am too controversial. So I would like to be able to give street level legal advice to the writers of TV and movies. Maybe if we teach people how the law is supposed to work, they will tell us when the courts are not working. Right now, thanks to Law and Order, they think it is normal for prosecutors to violate US Supreme Court decisions. I also have to finish the child custody case that I am working on. There is too much information to allow another attorney to take over. Damn.

SHOPPING FOR BARGAINS

I LOVE shopping for bargains. Let me give you a few tips.

Flea markets are great. San Jose Flea Market has inexpensive socks sized to the size of the shoe, so they are really comfortable. They also have dragons. WAIT until you see the dragon I got while I was finding out if my old wheelchair was reliable. (It is not reliable.) 

The trick with Goodwill is to shop in an upscale neighborhood, as Goodwill asks the same price for Target jeans and for designer jeans. Note that the Goodwill jeans are already broken in. Do not forget to look through the jewelry pile. We found earrings made like little phones, and other great goodies for 50 cents each.

Salvation Army has upscale stores in some areas. I LUSTED after a fake fireplace, because I REALLY miss my fireplace. The stuff at Salvation Army is generally less expensive than the stuff at Goodwill.

Junk stores. I found eighteenth century copies of matched fourteenth century swords in a junk store for $125 including a steel shield.

Chinatown, Japantown, Korea Town, Little Saigon and other ethnic areas. All of these places have crafts from their counties some of which are quite inexpensive. Chinatown in San Francisco has Japanese cooking knives with carbon steel blades that do not rust. These are NOT inexpensive.

If you start to feel frightened in an ethnic neighborhood, just start meeting peoples eyes and smiling. Most people are really friendly. I do not understand the newspapers attitude towards East Side San Jose. I got REALLY LOST on the way to the flea market. The area looked really nice, and the people were amazingly helpful about giving me directions.

CHILD SAFETY

If you are worried about the safety of your child while playing outside, use the Boy Scout swimming rule. YOU HAVE TO HAVE A FRIEND WITH YOU AT ALL TIMES when you are swimming. I think they call it the buddy system.

Again, older kids LOVE playing with younger kids. Hire them to play outside with your children. My daughter was playing with the kid next door, and being paid a little, when she was 6 years old. EVERYONE BENEFITED. The mom got to get things done, my daughter felt important and grown up, and the child LOVED it. NOTE THAT THE MOM WAS HOME THE ENTIRE TIME, so I got babysitting also.

MY WHEELCHAIR LIFT IS BROKEN

My wheelchair lift is broken. I suspect it was petty revenge from someone. It happened after my electrical cord which I used to charge the batteries on my chair kept getting unplugged. 

Anyway, I had to walk into court on Friday, and am now REALLY in pain. But this has happened before, and I know what to do about it. I am not quite certain how I will get my laundry done as it is outside and it is now raining. But I will figure it out.

WOULD YOU BELIEVE that the judge did not even know about the U S Supreme Court decision regarding courtroom access for disabled people? Judges and attorneys are SUPPOSED to follow U S and state Supreme Court decisions, especially in their area of expertise.

OH, and you can solve the mess in the California court system by adopting the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The criminal law section of the Arizona Bar solved the criminal procedure problem back in 1973. Ask them how they did it, because it may be mucked up again by now.

FUN WITH WASHING DISHES

First, you need a sink you can stop up completely.

Stop up the sink. Put in two heaping tablespoons of OxiClean Free, and a good squirt of detergent.

Pile in the dishes, including silverware.

OXICLEAN needs to be thoroughly dissolved so, sorry, but you will have to READ THE DIRECTIONS.

Go play for an hour.

Come back and RINSE DISHES well.

This stuff can make your hands chapped, so rinse your hands well after you unstop the sink.

You can do this with pans also.

HAVE FUN!

If you use OxiClean to wash clothes, put in about three heaping tablespoons in bottom of washer under where the water comes in, so it will dissolve. You also have to use laundry detergent.

BTW, did you know that laundry detergent is mainly filler? This means you can buy the concentrated stuff, it is the same as the other stuff, but has less filler.

WICKEDNESS

There is a LOT of wickedness that is just petty. Our generation would call it 'mean.' The kids use 'mean' for a good teacher who controls the classroom.

Right now, someone is poisoning my two ficus trees that I have been nursing for five years.

As minorities have gotten better treatment, this petty wickedness is being used on the disabled.

TRUTH, LIES, AND DAMNED LIES

All fantasy science fiction authors agree that elves CANNOT tell a lie. But you had better listen VERY CAREFULLY and ASK QUESTIONS. This is because elves do not have to tell you the entire truth. Sometimes telling part of the truth is WAY more effective than a lie. Sometimes the language is deceptive.

Most modern politicians do not actually lie. 

BTW, did you know that Elvis and Elva mean, 'of the elves.'

TRANSLATION

The translation of political speak is fun.

'It is psychologically addictive.' This means that your body does not REQUIRE the drug to function. People use the drug again because it did not cause them any harm and it was fun.

'We have to stop nuclear proliferation.' This means that our bombs are OK but their bombs are not OK.

'The bankers fixing our problem need to JUSTIFY themselves' should be, 'Please explain this to congress one more time.'

Unconscious Racism

Unconscious racism is everywhere! Look what they did to that great character in HEROES. You know the one who says, "I know what to do. I need to save the world."

They would not even let him play, but sent him to medieval Japan.

WIZARD OF WOZ -- Part 3

Dancing With The Stars is going to try to tell us that The Woz recieved only a little more than 77,000 votes. They must think we are REALLY STUPID.

LEARNING ENGLISH

The best way to learn English is to watch Sesame Street. Fun, too.

FACTS ON TV

CSI taught us all a lot!

However, I quit watching, because CSI New York had a show where someone gets a cut from blood spilled during a murder and then spends the next three shows worrying about whether she got AIDS.

GUYS, AIDS lives outside the body for less than two seconds. NO WAY she could have gotten AIDS from that blood.

TV can teach and entertain. BUT GET THE FACTS RIGHT!

THE MILITARY

We need the military. We can discuss how to deploy them, but we cannot be rid of them.

Even if we were a peaceful world under one government, we would still need a military force to fight the bad guys.

EMPTY HOUSES

Let's start a program to sell the empty foreclosure houses to our nurses, firepersons and police officers, so they can actually live in the communities they serve. 

BTW, ambulances need to be run by the fire department. The only real child molester that I came across had been an ambulance driver.

The GI Bill worked VERY WELL during Vietnam. I bought a house with my GI husband. The loan was VERY GOOD.

OJ WAS NOT GUILTY OF MURDER

It is incredibly difficult to slit someones throat. Ask any Army Ranger. 

To slit TWO peoples throats without getting LOTS of blood on you, takes practice.

OJ lived a nice quiet life. He just married a WHITE WOMAN. For that, we have put him in prison AGAIN. Or do you think those Las Vegas hotels actually called the police on a good customer?

BTW, any other person who did a similar crime with no violence would not have gone to jail. You are supposed to sentence people based on CONVICTIONS, not on gossip.

CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS

I think you could fairly distribute congressional districts using a math formula like California uses to allocate child support.

PLEASE NOTE, the child support stuff is powerful and must be filled out correctly to get the correct results.

ATTORNEYS -- NOLO PRESS OCCIDENTAL has a program that is easy to use, acceptable in court, and easy to play with to see what make the most difference in the program.

ENERGY CRISIS

I am fairly certain that the solution is hydrogen.

Hydrogen is not as explosive as people think. In fact, I think it is less explosive than gasoline. It burns cleanly. I do not know how it is made, but it probably causes WAY LESS environmental damage than ruining our mountains, hot springs, and deserts. Windmills that can make electricity also kill birds.

You are going to tell me to remember the HINDENBURG. The Hindenburg fire was caused by the flammable outer covering. Find the PBS show on this.

Batteries are REALLY EXPENSIVE to replace. An engineer once told me that the difference between a battery and a small bomb is the rate of release of the energy. This is why Apple had trouble with laptop batteries.

Florescent light bulbs have mercury in them. Mercury is what caused the phrase, "Mad as a hatter." NO ONE throws them away correctly, which means we are putting mercury into the ground water. HOW STUPID CAN WE BE?

WIZARD OF WOZ -- Part 2

There is NO WAY that Dancing With The Stars is a real reality show.

The instructors do not even know ballroom dancing. You cannot dance if you are wearing tennis shoes, you need leather shoes that have been worn enough to not slide too much.

Dancing in high heels is REALLY STUPID. It ruins your feet. If girls cannot walk easily, then they cannot do the things that boys do.

None of the dancers but The Woz had the correct posture for the dance. The contest is on the net, so look for yourself in the company of someone who knows ballroom dancing. (Hint. The posture in the tango is very similar to the posture in the flamenco.)

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT PEOPLE WILL DO FOR A MILLION DOLLARS? They will starve themselves to death in front of your face.

CITIES

Anything that was important in both Athens and Rome is important for cities.

This means we need sports stadiums. DO NOT ASK ME WHY, as I cannot even get into a stadium high enough to see the patterns in a marching band. 

This also means we need theaters, street food, flea markets, farmer's markets, street musicians, and lots of actual art. Personally, I want a Roman Bath.

BTW, don't you just LOVE the R2D-dome in front of San Jose City Hall. Can we please give it a light saber?

LEGAL SELF HELP

The only legal self help books that I have found to be totally reliable are the books published by NOLO PRESS. They are always in understandable English, and have the details you need to know. I use them myself when I am doing something new.

Court websites also have legal self help, and sometimes courts have people who will help you fill out the forms, which is a big help as the forms are not simple.

FIX CALIFORNIA

I think the idea to have open primaries was brilliant!

Yes, the US Supreme Court wants the congressional districts drawn fairly. This does NOT mean that you can draw them so that they are long, thin districts covering parts of San Jose and Monterey.

ALICE WATERS

If you want to know how to do restaurant food correctly, ask Alice Waters.

STUPID TAXES

We need taxes to run the government. Some taxes have bad social consequences. 

WORST EXAMPLES:

MINIMUM CORPORATE TAX

The minimum corporate tax in California. The way you protect your home from being taken in a lawsuit against your business, is to incorporate, form a limited liability company, or form a limited partnership. All of these forms of business must pay a minimum of $800.00 a year. This puts this form of business out of the financial reach of many small businesses.

INHERITANCE TAX

I think this tax was designed to steal family farms from the children of the farmer, so that corporate farming could take over.

IGNORING TRUTH

If you ignore the social consequences of your profitable acts, eventually the social consequences will affect you.

The Black Plague is an excellent example of this.

SECURITY

I AM RUNNING SECURITY. 

FORGIVENESS

One of the most important principles that all religions share, is the principle of forgiving your enemies. A person who cannot forgive an enemy will have an enemy forever. A person who can forgive an enemy, may make a friend.

Another important principle shared by all religions is, 'Do unto others as they do unto you.' This lesson is taught very well when Obiwan stands over all the dead children. Darth Vader thought that his child was more important than hundreds of other children. I am sorry, but it does not work that way.

The way to tell if someone is doing bad, is to look at the results of his/her actions. Another way is to look at how he/she treats those who are less fortunate. If a person mistreats the disabled, the sick, the poor, and the homeless, that person is not a nice person.