 |
|
|
|
PRESS RELEASE : DAY FORTY EIGHT
Assignment Editor or Other Interest Parties - Day Forty Eight -- 69 year old man
Starting Wt: 223lbs Today’s Wt: 181-lbs Body Temperature: 96.7 Blood Pressure: 111/79
Today is 4/17/2004 the 48th day of my hunger strike. Weekends are always at Parker and Fulton in front of St. Ignatius Church.
Daily diary: St. Ignatius Church has settled into a real routine. Unlike the City Hall cite pretty much the same people are there all the time now. The disgusted lady who thinks I should take the sacraments instead of having a home and eating regularly, the ‘teched’ gentleman with the short attention span. It turns out that he wasn’t so teched that he couldn’t beat me out of $14 dollars. I could not find my sunglasses this morning, so I asked him to go buy me a pair. He said to give him $20 dollars. I did so with trepidation. Not that I thought he would steal my money, but that he would forget why he was on an errand and what to buy. Plus, I knew it would be a while before he showed up again because he seems to walk everywhere. He did show up. Climbing off a bus of all things. He was wearing sunglasses! My sunglasses! He came over and gave them to me. He said, ‘they were six dollars, can I keep the change.’ Slow on the trigger I took the glasses and shook my head yes. Later I realized I should have asked for $10 back. Se la vie (sp?). For the first day in a 48-day stand I gave no books out. I am thinking of going permanently down to City Hall. I’ll simply reach more people down there and probably have a greater effect. A concerned looking young man whom though only about 5’ 8” tall favored Christopher Reeves of Superman fame. He comes up to me with a candy bar extended to me. I said, ‘you are kidding aren’t you?’ He seemed quite shy but clearly a spark of human decency resides in his heart. How different are the people on the street from the callously indifferent and inhuman Catholic clergy. I discovered he was a high school student. I thought he looked old enough to be a college man at USF. People are commenting on the duration of my hunger strike but not stopping. They seem impressed. At least that is good.
In 1993 my mother had a cerebral stroke, which left her unable to care for herself. I did that, though it meant quitting my job. We made an informal agreement that I would be paid for my services but I decided to defer payment until her death so I did not prematurely exhaust the trust. Conserving resources for the longest possible run was our goal. I was especially concerned about a catastrophic illness that would wipe us out completely, so I guarded the trust zealously and in fact managed to double its worth to $700,000 by the time of her death. The written part of our agreement stated clearly I should be paid at least minimum wage, as prescribed by the federal and state laws, not a lot for six years of work, but hopefully enough to carry me through my own retirement.
When she died I wrote a letter to the remainder beneficiaries, The Catholic/Jesuit University of San Francisco and the Shriners Hospital Group, asking them to honor the agreement between my mother and me. Their reply was not payment or an offer to negotiate and didn’t even include condolences on my loss. Instead they deployed an army of lawyers as legal muscle who dragged me through the courts for five years, exhausting all my remaining personal resources and bringing me to this point: 69 years old, out of the workforce for too long to reenter it, and about to lose my home and join the ranks of San Francisco’s homeless. I’ve got nothing left to lose and nothing more hopeful than to stay here on the corner of Fulton and Sacramento, eating nothing and asking only that the Church should negotiate a resolution with me. This is my last stand, my Alamo.
|
PRESS RELEASE : DAY FORTY SEVEN
Assignment Editor or Other Interest Parties - Day Forty Seven -- 69 year old man
Starting Wt: 223lbs Today’s Wt: 182-lbs Body Temperature: 96.6 Blood Pressure: 120/77
Today is 4/16/2004 the 47th day of my hunger strike. Weekends are always at Parker and Fulton in front of St. Ignatius Church.
Daily diary: I discovered that there is new Sheriff in town at Kinko’s (the copy center). Jeff the industrious customer friendly clerk was now no longer with Kinko’s, because he was customer friendly. The new company man (Kinko’s was take over by Fed Ex) is surly, 50ish and said, ‘Jeff is not here for doing things he shouldn’t have that’s why I still work here.’ Jeff told me the reason Kinko’s was called Kinko’s is because the founder had kinky red hair. His board banned him from stores because he used to travel around the country and stop into stores send people out for a coffee break while he took over. My kind of guy. But, alas, the bean counters and corporate buttoned down types always take the humanity out of everything. Found out I can make a two or three minute speech before the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday coming. I will be there with bells on. A stout guy with hippy looking clothing and a white rope wrapped cane asked me if I still believed in God after getting hosed by the Catholic Leadership? I asked him what the Leadership and God had to do with each other? He had no answer. But did proceed with his agenda. He was an Atheist. I forgot to ask him if he was a member of the Atheist group. Met a partially toothless ex(?)drug addict I wasn’t clear whether he relapsed on occasion or not. But Methadone works for him. Seems he earn (?) $800 dollars a month on SSI. There certainly is a lot of welfare money floating around. Says he used to make $500 dollars a day panhandling, but now he doesn’t stay at it a long time because of his back. He made personal contact with Mayor Newsom who seemed to like his panhandling sign (these are the kind of people politicians love…politically harmless). He even got written up in the Chron (local rag) because of his sign. Makes sense as long as they step on nobodies toes. A 47-day hunger strike is worthless to the Chron or any news agency for that matter. Too dangerous, USF, Shriners, ooooooooh these guys tremble in their boots at the mention of the names. Complete corporate control of the media is now a fait accompli. People are mixing me up with the Pastor hunger striking to rid his neighborhood of a Sex Club. A lot of people reading my signs. They don’t seem to believe the book is free and walk away. Some may be embarrassed to take something for free. I’m giving out my Open letter to America flyer,now. Guess people don’t want to read a whole book. Lets watch TV. Good god! I found out why there was very little action at City Hall today. The funeral for the slain police officer was held today and everyone turned out for it. Even Feinstein. Got a call from Human Rights Watch. They told me to stop the press releases because they don’t do personal issues. Exactly what is not a personal issue relative to Human Rights? All of these organizations are just bogus make work centers for Foundation friends and family members to draw a paycheck, from a rich deceased man’s estate setup to avoid taxes. We’ve truly created and allowed to exist a sick social order. Where nothing is real. Everything is an illusion of function. Worst yet nobody cares! When they came for the Jews, well I am not a Jew so I did not act. When, they came of the disabled well I am not disabled and know no one who is so I did not act. When they came for me there was no one left to act!
There is a larger goal to my ‘Hunger Strike’. My case besides being a gross violation of my 13th Amendment right against being sold into slavery by any government entity is also a gross violation of my mother and my father’s 14th Amendment right to dispense with their own property in any manner they deemed appropriate, without interference from the state. The US Constitution and the Bill or Rights is slowly but surely burning to ashes and no one cares.
|
PRESS RELEASE : DAY FORTY FIVE
Assignment Editor or Other Interest Parties - Day Forty Three -- 69 year old man
Starting Wt: 223lbs Today’s Wt: 182-lbs Body Temperature: 97.4 Blood Pressure: 125/83
Today is 4/14/2004 the 45th day of my hunger strike. Continuing at City Hall on the Plaza Side Monday 4/12 to Fri 4/16 for the week. Rain is forecast for Wed through Sun.
Daily diary: Back on the pound a day slide. Two African-American guys walk swiftly past one says without looking back,’ if you hadn’t eaten in 45 days you’d be in I.V. heaven, man!’ I could tell by his jiggling backside he never missed a meal in his life. He reminded me of the song “Baby Got Back” he had plenty of back. Big anti-gay demonstration only one devout came over to talk to me. The compassionate Christians really show it?! Some Asian photographer, maybe a professional did a photo shoot of me. Probably for a street people thing in a book or photo show. Another walker took my picture I watched him for a bit and he was shooting as he walked nothing sinister about him I reasoned. A tourist family took my picture a white man, an Asian woman and two teenage children watched on as the father? Listened to my story. Then, he made a crack about my needing to loose weight any way and that when he came back (I didn’t know when that would be) and I was 140 lbs he would lend me the money to go to the Supreme Court. Some character who was supposed to be homeless whom I met before the hunger strike started and told me he would come and picket with me showed up and asked why I wasn’t at St. Ignatius on the first day. I reminded him it rained. He attempted to extort coffee money out of me, as I reached for the buck and a quarter he wanted he said,’ Give me two dollars,’ I replied the round number was okay, then he said, ‘make it five dollars.’ I stopped replying with a hard stare, ‘Do you want the coffee money or not?’ ‘Yeah, yeah, my girl friend is holding my money up on (street?).’ I wondered what that had to do with anything. As he walked away he called back, ‘I was there, I was there,’ the only thing I thought to say was, ‘Man I don’t owe you anything.’ ‘Oh, yeah,’ he backed down and disappeared into City Hall. Then I realized that the street must be a microcosm of prison where people attempt to impose their will on you and if you don’t stand up to them they will eat you alive. On the street there is open space and you can escape. That is probably why the homeless don’t want to go into the shelters. The confined space traps them and they can be beaten, robbed and otherwise intimidated by the strong. Called the African-American DC I met the other day. My back is out from lifting. I had trouble communicating with the guy the last time and it happened again. I asked his price. He said, ‘Barter, pay what’s in your heart or nothing.’ Startled I asked, ‘Give me some idea of what I need to pay you,’ He replied, ‘What did I say?’ Wondering if I was doing the right thing I made a tentative appointment. Later I realized this must be some kind of control mechanism he uses to confuse your mind for some purpose that is not yet clear. Hope I don’t find out what it is the hard way as I always usually do.
There is a larger goal to my ‘Hunger Strike’. My case besides being a gross violation of my 13th Amendment right against being sold into slavery by any government entity is also a gross violation of my mother and my father’s 14th Amendment right to dispense with their own property in any manner they deemed appropriate, without interference from the state. The US Constitution and the Bill or Rights is slowly but surely burning to ashes and no one cares.
|
PRESS RELEASE : DAY FORTY FOUR
Assignment Editor or Other Interest Parties - Day Forty Three -- 69 year old man
Starting Wt: 223lbs Today’s Wt: 183-lbs Body Temperature: 96.6 Blood Pressure: 133/83
Today is 4/13/2004 the 44th day of my hunger strike. Continuing at City Hall on the Plaza Side Monday 4/12 to Fri 4/16 for the week. Rain is forecast for Wed through Sun.
Daily diary: On the horns of a dilemma, rain is forecast, but not until evening though everything will be unsettled for the next week. Pneumonia is my greatest danger. Since the media is roundly ignoring me completely an anonymous quiet death by pneumonia would have the Catholic Leadership dancing with glee and they won’t even have to wring their hands in false remorse and saying we’ll do better next time. Yeah, dream on laity. Mayor Newsom walked right by my sign today and never gave me a look. I bet a real populous like Clinton or even FDR would have walked over and shook my hand. I’ll have to play this by ear and go out for just a light setup and pacing with sign. We’ll see. The ‘F..d in the a..’ guy showed up again. This time he qualified for General Assistance that amounts to about $200 every two weeks. He thinks he has to go to Seattle or Los Angeles to find work. An African American Doctor of Chiropractic engaged me in a very odd conversation. No matter what I explained to him it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. I began to turn off until he said what are you willing to do energy wise to fight for your cause? He further explained that money is an illusion. Sounds like gobble-de-gook to me, but he says he will contact me and I’ll see what he comes up with. This one requires some wariness. Scott of the Green Party returned and talked with me. I’m going to one of their general meetings next week. He thinks people might come out for me. That probably would bring out the wimpy press and the Catholic Clergy and the Shriners Leadership will have to explain how they walked away with $700,000 and refused to help the man who built it stay financially solvent. How they can justify keeping all of the money and put me on the streets on food stamps and welfare, just because I took care of my mother. It’s disgusting, indefensible, immoral and unethical, but the press is trembling in their boots afraid to offend their corporate masters. Gone are the days of the aggressive press guy with the fedora hat. Those guys would never have allowed federal marshals to erase their tapes. They would have fought and went to jail and raised all kinds of hell. The press tries to fool the American public by praising and congratulating each other for going into a war zone and getting the story risking death. My god man that’s a no brainer of course you walk into the teeth of death if you are going to get the biggest bump in your career, hell all you have to do is stay alive. We no longer have Katherine Grahams whose business was news. The Corporate interest is in selling toothpaste and automobiles don’t offend anyone. Especially not the Catholic Leadership or the all powerful Shriners. If I were white the media would be there. It’s always the middle class white woman who lost her children to an Arab abductor; no African American women have this problem; no Hispanic American women have this problem. An elderly white guy forgot to pay his insurance premium because his wife died and he didn’t know he should, the media is all over that injustice of him losing 20 years worth of premiums and getting no insurance over a technicality. It’s all white, white, white. No other ethnic woman was killed by her husband; only the white middleclass Peterson woman. F…Tito and his potential homelessness and bankruptcy he is nobody, just another nigger to the white media.
There is a larger goal to my ‘Hunger Strike’. My case besides being a gross violation of my 13th Amendment right against being sold into slavery by any government entity is also a gross violation of my mother and my father’s 14th Amendment right to dispense with their own property in any manner they deemed appropriate, without interference from the state. The US Constitution and the Bill or Rights is slowly but surely burning to ashes and no one cares.
|
PRESS RELEASE : DAY FORTY THREE
Assignment Editor or Other Interest Parties - Day Fourty Three -- 69 year old man
Starting Wt: 223lbs Today’s Wt: 184-lbs Body Temperature: 97.0 Blood Pressure: 124/81
Today is 4/12/2004 the 43rd day of my hunger strike. Continuing at City Hall on the Plaza Side Monday 4/12 to Fri 4/16 for the week. Rain is forecast for Wed and Thu.
Daily diary: Weight plateau again. It happened at 210 where I fluctuated between 208 and 210 for several days. It happened at 198. Bouncing between 198 and 195. Now, my body is refusing to give up 184. A steel worker looking man with salt and pepper graying hair and hardhat attire stopped and engaged me in what turned out to be a weird conversation with a startling revelation, when we got to the molester priests subject matter. He revealed that he was molested as a child and refused to go to church and his mother never figured out the reason. But, suddenly he reveals with intensity that he was ‘f’..ed up the a…’ by a self help guru. Someone rather famous around here in the sixties free love era. As he walked away I wondered how the guru got that far if my erstwhile conversationalist did pull his pants down and received the pleasure instrument. Apparently, he decided he didn’t like it after it was over. On the other hand he may have been putting me on all the while. Somehow, I doubt it. Many times these things seem like a good idea at the time, especially if the rapist is a smooth talker. Big demonstration. A policeman was shot in the Bay View district with an AK-47 Supervisor Sandoval called a press conference all the media was there and they deftly ignored both me and the other hunger striker. Though Pastor Huang is getting interviewed by Asian TV on camera. One of the newsmen sniffed me. But he didn’t return. The African American community of Bay View was out in force with speech givers etc. They wore green jackets emblazoned with ‘Inner City Youth’ on them. I took a page out of Mr. Chew’s book. Mr. Chew is a guy who walks all day around the city in a sandwich board saying something about the 12 galaxies; and some other gibberish about the end of the world. He seeks out news people covering events and paces back and forth in the media crowd. Well, today I paced back and forth in the media crowd with my sign: Mayor Newsom please talk to me before I die. No one cared. At the end an average height man with a scruffy growth of beard in a tan summer outfit started shouting, railing against America giving the Israeli’s and the Palestinians weapons to kill each other. When the Inner City Youth leader tried to shake his hand the man screamed at him,’ Paul said never touch another man,’ or something to that effect. Then he walked across the street to the Plaza to the other Hunger Striker’s station and shouted at him. I wonder why he didn’t come over and shout at me. Seems everybody ignores me. A man and his wife and toddler arrived in a cab and I saw picket signs come out. ‘Oh, oh,’ I thought more competition. I asked, ‘What is your issue?’ As they rolled the baby carriage up the handicap ramp the husband called out, ‘They are moving parking out of our neighborhood,’ they moved their demonstration inside City Hall. Then, I wondered if I could go into the building. The Bill of Rights First Amendment is quite specific about public place. I wonder if that includes inside City Hall. I should find out about that. An African American gentleman shared his story of defeat by the Probate system. His father died in North Carolina and the state provided a lawyer to give him the $30,000 left in the estate. Unfortunately, out of the blue a man arrived nobody ever heard of or had seen before claiming he was the legitimate son of so and so the court believed him, the man didn’t explain why they believed him (corrupt set-up? kick back scheme?) but the law in North Carolina says that an illegitimate son cannot inherit!
There is a larger goal to my ‘Hunger Strike’. My case besides being a gross violation of my 13th Amendment right against being sold into slavery by any government entity is also a gross violation of my mother and my father’s 14th Amendment right to dispense with their own property in any manner they deemed appropriate, without interference from the state. The US Constitution and the Bill or Rights is slowly but surely burning to ashes and no one cares.
|
PRESS RELEASE : DAY FORTY TWO
Assignment Editor or Other Interest Parties - Day Fourty Two -- 69 year old man
Starting Wt: 223lbs Today’s Wt: 184-lbs Body Temperature: 96.9 Blood Pressure: 133/83
Today is 4/11/2004 the 42nd day of my hunger strike. Back at City Hall on the Plaza Side Monday 4/12 to Fri 4/16 for the week.
Daily diary: Easter at St. Ignatius, the mother church of the Catholic Jesuit University of San Francisco was quite busy with the Catholics or others who show up to Church on High Holy days, weddings and funerals but that is exceptional as I have now noted. That huge church is generally very sparsely attended. I wonder if it is the effects of the recent scandals. The callous indifference to my plight by this congregation is astonishing. They walk by with blinkers on pretending they don’t see me. One regular elderly lady I see every day comes up to me and cries out,’ They don’t care. People don’t care. Give this up. Go take the sacraments save your soul instead of your house.’ (Paraphrased). Interesting how the safe and secure can think others don’t need shelter and sustenance, taking the sacraments will suffice. Books continue to go into good hands. Very important development, an African American student of the USF Law School picked up my book after reading my ‘secession’ flyer. He says he will get back to me after reading my book. The secession flyer is getting into the hands of more African Americans. I hope something ignites. Minorities have to take a page from the National Rifle Association’s book of political action. Don’t let the camels nose under the tent. Slavery or even the hint of slavery has to be fought right at the beginning of its rearing its ugly head. Saw a curious apparition. A lean man I took to be elderly but with a lively gait whisked along across the street from me. He sported one the most peculiar square cut long white beards I’ve ever seen. The beard didn’t bounce as one might think. It just hung straight down a caricature right out of a ‘Three Stooges’ comedy of a false beard disguise that was no disguise at all. Was it real? A Russian charwoman looking elderly lady with a peasant neckerchief on her head and a long black coat called to me,’ You should eat! You should eat!’ I now have a huge sandwich board setup that says ‘Hunger Strike’ it seemed no one knows I am on a hunger strike. One of my supporters walked by and said, ’Now that’s the way to do it. Very Irish!’ The Bishops are ticked at Senator Kerry for having communion at a New Age Church it is contrary to church teaching they complain and admonish. When is some one going to ask in these same articles that report this crap how it is in Church teaching to cover-up deliberately and with malice the sexual abuse of children and nuns and the robbing of senior citizens of their livelihood. If these creeps are not held accountable for their actions how will we effect any change in the Church leadership’s behavior. The laity that was not affected by the enormity of the crimes against children seem perfectly willing to give these rats a pass. A youngish lad with a light mustache and a soft cap came up to me and said,’ I took a book and this newspaper was that okay.’ I replied,’ the book yes the newspaper no.’ He thought the stuff was just there. In further conversation he seemed inclined to give the Phoenix hit and run Bishop a pass on prison because he was old. My God! All you have to do is get away with your crimes until you are old and then you can walk away into the sunset whistling Dixie? I’m 69 I’m old that didn’t stop the Catholic leadership from throwing me out of my home and on to the streets of San Francisco! Is that also Church teaching?
There is a larger goal to my ‘Hunger Strike’. My case besides being a gross violation of my 13th Amendment right against being sold into slavery by any government entity is also a gross violation of my mother and my father’s 14th Amendment right to dispense with their own property in any manner they deemed appropriate, without interference from the state. The US Constitution and the Bill or Rights is slowly but surely burning to ashes and no one cares.
|
PRESS RELEASE : DAY FORTY ONE
Assignment Editor or Other Interest Parties - Day Forty One -- 69 year old man
Starting Wt: 223lbs Today’s Wt: 184-lbs Body Temperature: 97.0 Blood Pressure: 120/79
Today is 4/10/2004 the 41st day of my hunger strike. Today I am at Parker and Fulton in front of St. Ignatius. I will be back at City Hall on Monday 4/12 to Fri 4/16.
Daily diary: Unfortunately, I don’t know what to make of the steady one pound loss per day average. Though the book on fasting the neighborhood guy gave me does say at some point the weight loss slows down because the body refuses to give up what it has. I suppose that is why it is so hard to lose weight. As usual the weekend stand is pretty much uneventful though books continue to go into good hands. Now, only people who really want it pick one up. I will have to admit and it is not unexpected that City Hall and the downtown environment is just teaming with the weird and unexpected. A thin as a rail white bearded man in a Hawaiian shirt came up to me and began to talk about himself being born on 9/11 and then came the a steady stream of religious nonsense about apocalypse and how he predicts them and some how he told all this to the Social Security Office worker. I tried to politely shake him by saying as I walked toward my car, ‘I have to put money in my meter,’ he followed me. Finally, back at my picket station I said, ‘I need space to be available for my cause.’ ‘Oh, yeah,’ as he walked away. I wish I knew earlier it was that easy to shake him. Off in the distance I am aware of a large man walking his large dog and jabbering into a cell phone, as he approaches me he spots my signs and begins reading and says into the phone, ‘ this guy looks certifiable I won’t try to engage him,’ he continues to read and say, ’he wants a book deal he has a book, oh, my he’s on a hunger strike says the number of days impressed) still don’t want to talk to him looks dangerous.’ Then, I realized something the antenna wasn’t extended he wasn’t talking to anyone because no one was on the other end. As he walked to the crosswalk he turned still talking into the phone and shouted, ’I admire your spunk.’ Everything he said sounded rational and logical, but!
In 1993 my mother had a cerebral stroke, which left her unable to care for herself. Our family had had terrible experiences with nursing homes and she asked me not to put her in a home but to take care of her myself. I did that, though it meant quitting my job. I believe it is right to honor our father and mother as the Bible commands and this was surely that I didn’t know whether she would live one year or twenty years, but whichever it was, the resources for her life would come from a trust established by my Step-father. We made an informal agreement that I would be paid for my services but I decided to defer payment until her death so I did not prematurely exhaust the trust. Conserving resources for the longest possible run was our goal. I was especially concerned about a catastrophic illness that would wipe us out completely, so I guarded the trust zealously and in fact managed to double its worth to $700,000 by the time of her death. The written part of our agreement stated clearly I should be paid at least minimum wage, as prescribed by the federal and state laws, not a lot for six years of work, but hopefully enough to carry me through my own retirement.
When she died I wrote a letter to the remainder beneficiaries, to The Catholic/Jesuit University of San Francisco and the Shriners Hospital Group, explaining that my labors amount to 55,928 hrs of covered labor asking them to honor the agreement between my mother and me in a negotiated settlement that would be reasonable and fair. explaining that my labors amount to 55,928 hrs of covered labor Their reply was not payment or an offer to negotiate and didn’t even include condolences on my loss. Instead they deployed an army of lawyers as legal muscle who dragged me through the courts for five years, exhausting all my remaining personal resources and bringing me to this point: 69 years old, out of the workforce for too long to reenter it, and about to lose my home and join the ranks of San Francisco’s homeless. I’ve got nothing left to lose and nothing more hopeful than to stay here on the corner of Fulton and Sacramento, eating nothing and asking only that the Church should negotiate a resolution with me. This is my last stand, my Alamo.
|
PRESS RELEASE : DAY FORTY
Assignment Editor or Other Interest Parties - Day Forty -- 69 year old man
Starting Wt: 223lbs Today’s Wt: 184-lbs Body Temperature: 96.9 Blood Pressure: 105/65
Today is 4/09/2004 the 40th day of my hunger strike. Today I am at Parker and Fulton in front of St. Ignatius. I will be back at City Hall on Monday 4/12 to Fri 4/16.
Daily diary: Interesting contrast between the behavior of the Catholic Jesuit leaderships behavior on seeing me set up my picket station: Day One at St. Ignatius as I was setting up a Carmelite nun pointed toward me after getting the attention of the priest that I now know is the pastor of St. Ignatius. He simply stated, ‘Horseshit’.
Excerpted from PR dated 4/7 day 38: Then as the hustle and bustle of the City Hall day begins in earnest a tall barrel chested movie star looks dark haired Sheriffs deputy walks up to me shakes my hand reads my signs and says, ‘If you need anything, going to the bathroom, medical attention just anything me and my men are just inside don’t hesitate to pop in and ask for assistance,’ I was astonished by the sweetness of his tone and demeanor.
The “Priest and Pastor” and man of god(?) says ‘Horseshit!’ The Sheriff says ‘If you need anything, going to the bathroom, medical attention just anything me and my men are just inside don’t hesitate to pop in and ask for assistance,’
As reported yesterday I was significantly out of sorts because I failed to get enough rest. Today after, a good nights sleep my spirit is much elevated. I am certain that because I labor in my vineyard alone and solitary I am much at a disadvantage to my fellow Hunger Strike across the street in the Plaza the Tenderloin Pastor I reported in PR Day 38. I envy his little band of loyalists. When I arrive one or two of their number sit beside him, he stays all night. During the day a dedicated horde of volunteers confers with him and then march toward City Hall and I hear them plan their agenda to each go to a City Supervisors Office and hand out their demand letter. They don’t seem to know the Supervisors or out this week for Hanukah. I cry and ache inside because I don’t have volunteers to aide me in my lonely fight for my United States Constitutional right not to be enslaved by any entity of this government by the absolute provision of the 13th Amendment. But I don’t have $150,000 to hire a Constitutional lawyer to argue my case. Since I can’t get the media attention that the Pastor got (a quarter page San Francisco Chronicle write-up with picture and a follow-up photo session with a reporter in a black suit I didn’t recognize) I am afraid I will end up in bankruptcy and in Mayor Newsom’s ‘Care Not Cash’ concentration camp (opps) I mean homeless housing. The thorough control of the judiciary by the Catholic Leadership in this country has condemned me to an economic lynching just because I cared or my invalid mother. I wonder what the Pastor’s minions will do when the Psychiatric Gestapo arrives to clap him into a straight jacket and cart him away.
There is a larger goal to my ‘Hunger Strike’. My case besides being a gross violation of my 13th Amendment right against being sold into slavery by any government entity is also a gross violation of my mother and my father’s 14th Amendment right to dispense with their own property in any manner they deemed appropriate, without interference from the state. The US Constitution and the Bill or Rights is slowly but surely burning to ashes and no one cares.
|
PRESS RELEASE : DAY THIRTY NINE
Assignment Editor or Other Interest Parties - Day Thirty Nine -- 69 year old man
Starting Wt: 223lbs Today’s Wt: 185-lbs Body Temperature: 96.9 Blood Pressure: 138/86
Today is 4/08/2004 the 39th day of my hunger strike. Tomorrow Friday 4/9/2004 I will have to stand down a day. I will be at Parker and Fulton in front of St. Ignatius on Sat and Sun 4/10 and 4/11 and back at City Hall on Monday 4/12 to Fri 4/16. The Reason is as follows:
Daily diary: I finally got a Television invitation to be interviewed for a News program. It is a public access station program called Newsroom Cable station 29. Air date to be announced my pre-hunger strike video was shown as a lead in to a six-minute interview. Now for the realities of television; the interview was set for 6:15 pm, then it was moved to 8:15 pm I didn’t get out of there until a little after 10:00 pm. A Hunger Striker needs to conserve energy and part of that conservation is a good nights sleep. I usually retire at 6:00 pm and awake at 3:00 am. Needless to say I did not wake up at 3:00 am. My set up is significant. I don’t just sit in a chair. So if I can’t get a parking spot close to my station, a 69 year old man a lone picketer moving 100 pounds of material well you know the drill. That’s why I arrive at my sites at 6:00 am every morning.
The Psychiatric Gestapo
Slowly it is dawning on me that we are living in a police state. No longer do we have the right of William Bennett Travis to announce he would ‘Win or Die!’ at the Alamo and actually die. Or the right of Patrick Henry to say,’ I’m sorry I only have one life to give for my country,’ and give that life. They say, probably a variation of the Stockholm syndrome that you take on the characteristics of your enemy. We have taken a page right out of the book of the Soviet Union. They used to put dissents into psychiatric institutions declaring them insane for not wanting the glorious benefits of the Communist Utopia. We now have just such a technique that the Catholic Jesuit University of San Francisco and the Shriners Hospital Group can use to silence me. It’s called the 51.50. At some point they can call the police and say we think this asshole is a danger to himself and thus invoke the 51.50, rather than come reason with me. Once this is invoked the roving Psychiatric Gestapo swoops down on the dissident claps him in a straight jacket. They can hold you for 72 hours in a psychiatric institution fill you full of drugs and IV needles declaring you insane for not wanting to be driven out of your home and made a pauper by billion dollar uncharitable charities who control the judiciary and blatantly violate your 13th Amendment rights and your 14th Amendment rights. Since I stand alone like David but without my slingshot which should have been the Fourth Estate, (if it did it’s job) against Goliath I would be drugged into a stupor turned over to a conservator all my belongs would be liquidated and I would be thrown on the streets to rot in the “Care not Cash” concentration camps being implemented by Mayor Gavin Newsom to rid the streets of human rubbish that the business community wants out of the way so that business as usual can go on. All because I relieved my mother of her phobia against nursing homes and took care of her. Yes, bankrupted by the state just because I was a Caregiver. The new criminal act punishable by economic death is Caregiving!!
There is a larger goal to my ‘Hunger Strike’. My case besides being a gross violation of my 13th Amendment right against being sold into slavery by any government entity is also a gross violation of my mother and my father’s 14th Amendment right to dispense with their own property in any manner they deemed appropriate, without interference from the state. The US Constitution and the Bill or Rights is slowly but surely burning to ashes and no one cares.
|
PRESS RELEASE : DAY THIRTY SEVEN
Assignment Editor or Other Interest Parties - Day Thirty Seven -- 69 year old man
Starting Wt: 223lbs Today’s Wt: 188-lbs Body Temperature: 97.0 Blood Pressure: 125/83
Today is 4/06/2004 the 37th day of my hunger strike. I will be at City Hall on the Plaza side not the Vanness side.
Dear Mayor Newsom:
I will bring this ‘Hunger Strike’ to you in hopes that you will come out and talk to me personally before I die.
It is clear to me that you didn’t make a good faith attempt to even try to understand my letter of 3/20/2004, and that I am in a desperate pitched battle for my very life. You have it in your power to make a good faith effort to salvage my economic life by being the honest broker, and fulfilling your foundation duty to every individual citizen of this city of which you are its leader. We are a democratic society a government by the people and for the people. You persist in saying that my case is a legal one. That is just boiler plate avoidance of the truth, that it is now a human rights issue outside the law and can be solved by you by calling Father Stephen Privet of the Catholic Jesuit University of San Francisco and prevailing upon him to let the three of us “come reason together”. Just explain to him that it is counter productive for USF to be the proximate cause of creating another welfare/food stamp dweller on the Streets of San Francisco. You ran for office on a platform promise to do something about homelessness. This one is easy to accomplish with equity, fairness and mercy applied by a ‘so called follower of Our Lord Jesus Christ’. Remind him what Jesus said in effect: What you do to the least among you, you do to me. This is now a human rights matter and we can end it here with a fair and just settlement brokered by yourself as a leader of the community or you can force me to struggle on to whatever savage end awaits me because I no longer have the resources to go to the Supreme Court to argue for my 13th Amendment rights and my father’s and mother’s 14th Amendment rights against the conversion by any government entity of their property. Yes, if you had really analyzed my story in good faith you would have referred me to Organizations that defend Constitutional rights instead of giving me bogus telephone numbers everyone of which informs me they don’t do my issue.
Willie Brown left you with a $352 million dollar shortfall, you are contemplating a city tax which will go over like a lead balloon in a city whose population has never paid a city tax historically and they will have to pay it because of inflated salaries of as ineffective government work force. Before the citizens of this city pay a city income tax they will demand a sacrifice of government workers salaries to come into line with the national norm. A median $200,000 base salary for top level workers is outrageous when the median wage of the average citizen is less than $30,000 a year. On top of that you seem not willing to lift a finger or more accurately use a finger to dial USF’s number (415)422-5555. I should have to remind you that USF pays on taxes and neither do the Shriners Hospital Group. They no longer even have a Hospital in San Francisco. You don’t even get a benefit from the hospital that used to be here. With it’s photo opts of player visiting the children. If the city would stand behind me, I can proved you with sufficient evidence to support removing the Shriners from the beneficiary list on the grounds that my father and mother’s intent was that their was a Hospital in the city that they loved which they wanted to support. My mother’s next favority charity is St Anthony’s Dining Hall. We could get the courts to replace the Shriners with St Anthony’s and that would benefit the city of San Francisco.
I am fighting for my home not just for my home alone. I want to keep my house to leave it to the city of San Francisco as a living memorial to my loving mother and her husband....Lawrence A. Hall my step-father. My mother fell in love with San Francisco the first day she came her and Larry Hall though I have not researched it may be a scion of the Hall who built the Golden Gate Park.....this would immortalize them both and me as the giftor. The most fitting honor I can bestow on my loving parents is to immortalize them and be the instrument through which they will be always remember in the History of the City of San Francisco
|
PRESS RELEASE : DAY THIRTY SIX
Assignment Editor or Other Interest Parties - Day Thirty Six -- 69 year old man
Starting Wt: 223lbs Today’s Wt: 189-lbs Body Temperature: 96.7 Blood Pressure: 107/74
Today is 4/05/2004 the 36th day of my hunger strike in front of St. Ignatius Church, the Mother Church of the University of San Francisco at the corner of Fulton Street and Parker Street in the city of San Francisco. Moving on Wednesday 4/7/2004 to City Hall to confront Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Daily diary: A family of tourists (?)four girls and one boy of varying ages and appearance (not all belonging to the talk spare dark haired man accompanying them) walks slowly looking around. A curly haired slim girl confers with her taller blond haired pear shaped friend. They all slowly walk toward me I think to myself, ‘Oh,oh.’ They all stop in front of me. The curly haired one asks, ‘Can I give you a sandwich?’ I realize they think I am a street panhandler. I think many people do. I was rummaging through my accessory box yesterday and at the bottom I found a bunch of loose change. At first I was surprised wondering how I could have lost coins like that since I have a coin pouch. Then I realized people thought I was begging and dropped coins in what they thought was a donation box! I looked at the girl with amusement asking, ‘Didn’t you read my picket sign.’ She shook her head no. They went over to read it. ‘Oh, my,’ she exclaimed, ‘you have had no food for 36 days!!?’ I told them the story. The father took a book. The Catholic leadership still doesn’t get it. Bishop Vigneron of Oakland refused to allow announcement of a Voice of the Faithful meeting in his paper. Bishop Levada in San Francisco refuses to endorse Voice of the Faithful. But, censorship is a sure sign they still want to operate in hiding. The staff did not resign! That is a shame. No good journalist would allow himself to be censored for such a petty reason. Unless the laity stands up to be counted and demand an open governance of the Church nothing will change. Children will still be molested and nuns sexually traumatized. And the leadership will continue to pay out hush money quietly or in the news but whose money is this they are paying out? Another Martin Luther schism is coming. In fifty years I predict that the Catholic Church will be a shell of what it once was if it exists at all. The Leadership thinks it will live forever but, the crimes they have committed or too monstrous. This is not Attila the Hun attacking them. This is their predatory culture of vipers that will spell their end. My neighbor recently told me that he carried out boxes from his church for Father O’Shea the rogue sexual child predator in the news recently, he now suspects it was money he was spiriting away out of the collection box. Along with his sex crimes he was stealing money. It all came out in the paper that’s what made my neighbor realize what was in those boxes or what he thinks was in those boxes. He sadly asked me, ‘If you can’t trust a priest who can you trust?’ I answered, ‘Nobody!’
There is a larger goal to my ‘Hunger Strike’. My case besides being a gross violation of my 13th Amendment right against being sold into slavery by any government entity and a gross violation of my mother and my father’s 14th Amendment right to dispense with their own property in any manner they deemed appropriate, without interference from the state. Since they did not die in testate their will is manifestly stated and they live on through those document with all the rights and privileges they always enjoyed as American Citizens while they were alive. Besides making California a Slave State (which it wasn’t even in the time of slavery in this country) by their ruling which is now a precedent, secessionist/slavemonger Judges James Gray, Kathleen O’Leary, Eileen Comerford and William Wiley have created a defacto public policy that says: If you come into this family? Court after a long debilitating, income destroying caregiving stint and ask for compensation to ease your economic future we will destroy that economic relief effort. My larger goal is to reverse that public policy and have one that says Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother we will bend over backwards to help you have a life after caregiving. My health and my life is on the line to accomplish this goal. If I accomplish this I will put a nail in the coffin of the neo-slave state.
|
PRESS RELEASE : DAY THIRTY FIVE
Assignment Editor or Other Interest Parties - Day Thirty Five -- 69 year old man
Starting Wt: 223lbs Today’s Wt: 189-lbs Body Temperature: 96.9 Blood Pressure: 119/78
Today is 4/04/2004 the 35th day of my hunger strike in front of St. Ignatius Church, the Mother Church of the University of San Francisco at the corner of Fulton Street and Parker Street in the city of San Francisco. Moving on Wednesday 4/7/2004 to City Hall to confront Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Daily diary: Like clockwork almost every day I am dropping one pound. I can’t even remember when I was in the 180’s last. Looks like I might be able to fit into some of my earlier clothes I’m glad I saved most of them. Starting to feel weak. Bishop Levada marched in North Beach in opposition to gay marriage and defense of family values. He still has not answered any of my entreaties for him to stand a one day fast with me against the Catholic/Jesuit University of San Francisco’s display of greed and avarice in the destruction of a family member’s financial viability just because I obeyed the Fourth Commandment: Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother above and beyond the call of duty. So this self-professed follower of Jesus a teacher who stressed human compassion and universal love marches against a specific class of people. Who harm no one, who contribute to the social good of the community and just want to live in peace normal lives? Yet turns the other way and ignores the willful destruction of one of God’s children by one of his minions. Hypocrisy is too obvious. More like people who look in the mirror and see someone else ala John Nash, paranoid schizophrenics. For gods sake the Catholic priesthood is predominantly gay. Yet none see fit to challenge them or call for them to task. Strange encounter. Three people two males and a female walking a dog. I’ve seen them before. Now, they stop and a well build lightly dress man with thinning hair squats and asks, ’I see you here everyday, what exactly are you doing? I live just down the street,’ he points down Parker St. Just then his friend square headed in a checkered shirt begins surreptitiously (sp) begins video taping me like he was trying not to be seen doing it. The woman pulls on the dog and is disinterested. I explain to the now squatting fellow. He suggests he knows the lawyer who did the Gap case of workers forced to buy Gap clothing to work in the Gap stores. Then he begins to kid about walking by with food. Laughs. I laugh,’ explaining I have no desire for food even when I see someone eating. He has a hard time believing me. He knows about George Sand the Irish dissident who died in his hunger strike. But, not about Dick Gregory, the African-American comedian activist who did 100 day hunger strikes. He also didn’t know about the Irish Ten who died in a British prison in a Hunger Strike. Nor about the two Irish females who died in 17 days in their hunger strike, I remarked they must have stopped drinking water. I still have an eerie feeling that this trio are they Church spies of some sort??
There is a larger goal to my ‘Hunger Strike’. My case besides being a gross violation of my 13th Amendment right against being sold into slavery by any government entity and a gross violation of my mother and my father’s 14th Amendment right to dispense with their own property in any manner they deemed appropriate, without interference from the state. Since they did not die in testate their will is manifestly stated and they live on through those document with all the rights and privileges they always enjoyed as American Citizens while they were alive. Besides making California a Slave State (which it wasn’t even in the time of slavery in this country) by their ruling which is now a precedent, secessionist/slavemonger Judges James Gray, Kathleen O’Leary, Eileen Comerford and William Wiley have created a defacto public policy that says: If you come into this family? Court after a long debilitating, income destroying caregiving stint and ask for compensation to ease your economic future we will destroy that economic relief effort. My larger goal is to reverse that public policy and have one that says Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother we will bend over backwards to help you have a life after caregiving. My health and my life is on the line to accomplish this goal. If I accomplish this I will put a nail in the coffin of the neo-slave state.
|
CLICK HERE TO READ PREVIOUS DAYS PRESS RELEASES