tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54751261098728183612024-03-05T19:35:45.693-08:00Stanford 4 Modesto - Airport DistrictROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-18035328658546323712019-02-23T06:16:00.001-08:002019-02-23T06:18:35.251-08:00San Francisco Safe Injection Sites-Down But Not Out<br />
San Joaquin Democratic Assembly member, Susan Eggman and Senator Scott Weiner, recently authored legislation championed emphatically by San Francisco Mayor, London Breed. AB 186 – A bill to provide safe injection sites for the intravenous drug using population of San Francisco. It began it’s uphill battle 3 years ago, originally presented as a bill that would allow all 58 counties throughout California to independently run safe injection site programs, also referred to as safe consumption centers.<br />
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After being rejected outright by both the California Assembly and Senate, these same authors re-introduced the bill, reducing the number of counties to pilot a safe injection site and program from the originally all-inclusive 58 Californian counties to nine counties chosen because of their high rate of intravenous drug addiction. The counties included Humboldt, Mendocino, San Francisco, Alameda, Santa Cruz, San Joaquin, Fresno and Los Angeles.<br />
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That bill, also rejected, was re-introduced, yet again, for a third time to allow no other county in the state other than San Francisco to run three pilot safe injection sites for a trial period of 3 years.<br />
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Having the full support of the entire san Francisco Board of Supervisors, District Attorney’s Office, Sheriff Department as well as the San Francisco Public Health Department, the push for the bill’s passage was spearheaded by Mayor Breed, who herself, lost a sister to a fatal intravenous drug overdose.<br />
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As soon as the bill passed the California Assembly and Senate, it was on its way to be finally decided by California Governor Jerry Brown and signed into California State law by his signature.<br />
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Previous to Governor Brown’s consideration, the ultra-conservative Trump administration sneaked through a dire warning via a New York Times op-ed piece in which Deputy U.S. Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein made direct threats of property confiscation and incarceration of any individuals and/or organizations who may participate in the life saving program that this legislation would legally condone on a State level.<br />
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Just as the current legal standing of cannabis clubs operating legally under California State law, the practice is still illegal under Federal law. This means that the Federal Government could at anytime today exercise these same persecutions against cannabis clubs as well, anywhere throughout California.<br />
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He stated in the op-ed piece, emphatically:<br />
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“It is a Federal felony to maintain any location for the purpose of facilitating illicit drug use. Violations are punishable by up to 20 years in prison, hefty fines and forfeiture of that property used in the criminal activity.”<br />
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Governor Brown, a political leader, who has long served California through the past several decades, has been historically known to be traditionally progressive. But when it came to legislation to provide for overdose prevention sites, he gave in to the Trump administration’s intimidation and morality based anti-drug user rhetoric as he vetoed the bill and cited falsehoods regarding its content to justify the outright veto. As though he may not have even read the bill, saying that the proposed services did not provide for any rehabilitation services, which is utterly false.<br />
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The truth of this bill being the direct opposite of one in which there is no pathway to rehabilitation. One of the primary goals of the proposed legislation was to provide a safe harbor for those that suffer from the disease of addiction. So they would have secure, safe and ready access to detoxification and rehabilitation services, as well as many other necessary quality of life services through informational referral.<br />
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As mayor Breed has unwaveringly stated multiple times, “We need to connect with these people on a human level so that we may offer them hope.”<br />
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Modeled precisely after the overwhelmingly successful safe injection site operating since 2003 in Vancouver, Canada by the name of InSite, Glide Memorial Church in partnership with Healthright 360 (formerly known as San Francisco’s legendary Walden House Incorporated. A rehabilitation and recovery center) constructed and hosted a fully stocked, staffed and functional prototype based upon the InSite safe consumption facility in Vancouver, Canada. All of this was painstakingly done to show clearly and unequivocally that these program sites would in no way be anything more than safe consumption centers. Not the illicit shooting galleries and crack houses as described by the Trump administration and the alt-right conservative opponents of drug users here in California and elsewhere.<br />
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Never does the proffered program’s critics mention the five goals that are the very framework of the proposed legislation, which are all described in great detail as the top priorities of the center’s operations.<br />
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Preventing and/or reversing incidents of overdose, thereby saving lives that would otherwise be lost.<br />
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Preventing diseases, particularly of the blood borne variety such as AIDS/HIV and Hepatitis C as well as many others resulting from otherwise non-sterile practices of injecting on the streets under desperate and hurried conditions.<br />
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Detoxification and treatment availability. An opt-in opportunity open to anyone choosing to make an attempt to cure his or her disease of addiction.<br />
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Connecting people to other services, both socio-economic and health wise.<br />
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Reduction of discarded needles on the street and further reduction of needle sharing.<br />
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San Francisco’s currently operating and successful needle exchange program faced a similar battle. One in which, also, the act of sterilized needle distribution was considered to be an act of enablement of addiction, thereby propagating the very problems the sterile needle distribution addresses successfully with incontrovertible evidence. An outright deception that the alt – right promotes as a distraction of their real intent, which is to circumvent the conventional wisdom of the United States constitution, granting us on both State and Federal levels, the inalienable rights provided by the separation of church and state. Therefore the facts are dismissed, if not concealed, so that an unconstitutional morality may be imposed. Which of course further marginalizes an equally precious segment of our population, resulting in needless suffering and death which the anti-drug user alt-right conservatives consider to be their just desserts - a sick and albeit psychopathic viewpoint that a drug user’s death is a solution in itself.<br />
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The authors and proponents of this bill have vowed to keep fighting and make the pilot test program of providing safe consumption centers in San Francisco a reality. In a city in which the San Francisco Public Health Department has estimated that approximately 22,000 needle using addicts reside, (and we know these numbers as they are collected only scratch the surface of the actual number, which is much, much higher) this is nothing less than a disease health crises of literally epidemic proportions.<br />
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The operation of the safe consumption centers is simple, yet extremely effective at putting a huge dent in the number of deaths San Francisco suffers on a daily basis due to overdose as well as other complications caused by unsafe practices of drug injection.<br />
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Throughout the lifetime of the Canadian InSite program, over an approximate 3.5 million medically supervised injections have taken place at the time of this writing. Of these, there have been approximately 6,000 cases of overdose that transpired, which, without the medical oversight provided by a dedicated staff of health care professionals would have resulted in assured death for all 6,000 incidents. Out of all of these, there was not a single occurrence of death.<br />
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The prototype provided by Glide Memorial Church and Healthright 360 demonstrated the actual functionality of the proposed facility by providing guided tours.<br />
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With counselors and trained healthcare professionals constantly on staff, there are 12 booths provided for people to inject drugs that they themselves provide. Everything else is provided to ensure that their injection is performed safely within a clean and sterile environment by providing cotton swabs, clean water, other materials such as fresh tourniquets as well as other supplies to clean wounds so as to greatly reduce the chances of contracting infections.<br />
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As the user injects, they are monitored from the other side of the booth to ensure that if any indications arise that the user may be at risk, that they will be treated immediately with the appropriate procedures that would be necessary to save their lives.<br />
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People to person connections are developed through the repeated use of the facility where they come to be on a first name basis with the staff. If at any point the person feels that they wish to change their lives and attempt to cure themselves of the addiction that tortures them so, the staff members are there and equipped to provide instant detoxification services.<br />
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For those that need help with basic survival matters, such as food, housing, clothing and an entire host of other social services, likewise, these are also immediately available through effective referrals.<br />
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As a community, state – as a country, we absolutely cannot in good conscience, continue to allow these brothers and sisters of our human family to perish, all simply because we lack a basic understanding that drug addiction is far beyond a choice. It is in fact a disease. Drug addiction is a disease that we will only be able to eradicate from a starting point of compassion and love.<br />
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Copyright 2019 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-68929980388471818322017-10-28T05:46:00.000-07:002017-10-28T05:49:49.934-07:00Take A Stand - by Modesto/Peace Life Center Founder Sam Tyson - January 2002<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Every so often people should take a stand, to keep in practice if for no other reason. Conscience needs exercising or it can become dormant.<br />
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In the early days of the Peace Center the Girl Scouts raised the United nations flag at the McHenry Public Library. John Birchers immediately took the flag down despite the tearful young people. As no one else would fly that flag, it was flown at the original, dark, storefront Peace Center at 15th and G. It took two or three years for that furor to die down, so the flag was flown these years at the Peace Center for U.N. Day.<br />
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Before the UN flag event and before the Modesto Peace Center, officials decided the school lunch program should not be utilized. True such officials are generally well fed so the brunt was carried by those less favored. A sit-in occurred with more than a handful of arrests in Modesto.<br />
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Came a time when the local Klu Klux Klan wanted to march in Modesto. Of course the idea may have been hateful but it was their freedom of speech. The Center came down on the side of allowing the march. Jim Higgs, though working with people who would oppose the march, came down very vocally to allow the Klan to go ahead. Should there be a counter demonstration, boo, ignore? The march did go on and a blah. The Peace Center's image was not bunished for the stand.<br />
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The Peace/Life Center bought the 922 6th St. property in 1980. Several years later the Center, along with the American Friend's Service Committee S.F., Chico Peace Center and several others, were sued for one million dollars. Something of a shocker it was. Enter John Frailing for the defense. It basically was a harassing effort by the local Consumers Alert, subbing for utilities. The action withered away in light of facts. The suit was supposed to be about anti nuclear power activities at Diablo Canyon, MID, PG&E. The irony was Stanislaus Safe Energy Committee was responsible for the various anti-nuclear power pickets, leafleting, testimony in Sacramento. However, Safe Energy had no money, the Center had a building at that time.<br />
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In the days of the Contras in Nicaragua local Congressman Tony Coelho was a political power in Washington DC. It seemed he should be exercising his free speech a little more robustly in human terms. He became a focus which turned into a sit in at this office. Dennis Wilson building owner brought in the pol,ice to dislodge the sit-in. Jane Jackson, Coelho's office person got to see so many people she knew get arrested. Three mornings this went on.<br />
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Not long into a new century it is time to stand out again. The Martin Luther King Committee is not an official part of the Peace/Life Center though individuals were involved in the work. King Kennedy Center was the organizer. The Center helped financially but not with policy. For 2002 things started as usual. The proposed speaker, Danny Glover, took some strong positions not necessarily aligned with the politics of the day. When this dawned on those in public position the need to be politically correct took over. King Kennedy operates as part of the Parks Department. Parks refused to sign on the contract. Modesto Jr. College withdrew its facility. Modesto Bee backed down. One by one, the domino effect took over. Modesto Peace/Life Center which started as just one of a group of supporters now became the lead agency. Finances became a major issue necessitating a special fund appeal.<br />
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What originated as a normal speaking engagement became a free speech issue. Word got out. People from Fresno, Bay Area, San Diego phoned to get connected. An East Coast paper, the Boston Globe, phoned.<br />
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If truth and integrity were to be upheld the Modesto Peace/Life Center had to hurry up and adjust to a major problem not of their making. The Center does stand behind what it believes, the Danny Glover visit was a tremendous opportunity to speak out for civil liberties, free speech and diversity of opinion.<br />
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By Sam Tyson January 2002<br />
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<br />ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-11249571053539616802017-05-19T17:51:00.000-07:002017-05-19T17:51:29.408-07:00Surviving Checkpoint Stanislaus<br />
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The information I am providing in this article is solely for use within the boundaries of Stanislaus County proper. Derogatory references to any aspect of law enforcement are only inferred and or implied regarding the law enforcement agencies as a whole of Stanislaus County proper, California, USA <br />
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To appropriately survive a police encounter it is important that you know specific rights that you have, yet more specifically, it is important to realize the consequences of exercising and not exercising each one.<br />
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1. You have the right to remain silent. USE IT!!!<br />
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This is a right that you have every single moment of the day that you were first introduced to American soil whether by birth or immigration. This is considered an inalienable right to exercise in that you may refuse to speak to law enforcement in any manner or affect. With new “hear-say” laws in effect at present, the persons you should speak to should be extremely limited.<br />
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Seldom is the time that you should be compelled to communicate in any manner, matter or way with law enforcement. Only under the direst or circumstances, such as if it were to be that yours or another’s life is in jeopardy, and even then, always remember that the very life you may think you are saving by calling 911 could be otherwise ended by the circumstances arising from that same call. Mainly via homicide committed by law enforcement themselves.<br />
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Since this right is inalienable, you do not need to vocalize your wish to enact it. Simply don’t say anything.<br />
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When invoking this right verbally, which is unnecessary, since it is an inalienable right, the chances of being directly challenged regarding your persecution are generally much more heightened as to vocalize your exercised choice of implementing this right that you have without having to say so or that you choose "not" to waive it. Also, the very act of invoking this right will generally be a factor that will lean toward your implication in crime(s), if not assumed guilt.<br />
This may also invite police brutality and possibly as with all police encounters, you or a loved one (even including your pet no matter what size or breed) may even be shot and killed by law enforcement. They flex their power and control in this way on a very consistent basis. Much more occurs than what the local media chooses or is allowed to tell you.<br />
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You have the right to refuse to consent to a search of yourself, your children, any family member or another person that may be under your care (without proper warrants provided with your full opportunity for inspection (yeah, right), your vehicle(s) or your home(s).<br />
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DON'T RESIST OR REFUSE THEM!!!!<br />
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Let them search. You would be stupid to resist – they will affix additionally fabricated obstruction and evading charges onto you and once again, use the very act of verbally telling them that you do not consent to search you at the scene, in their presentation to the da to file charges against you and then again, later in court after the charges have been filed. They will continue to use this verbal statement as direct evidence that you are guilty of whatever charges they need to bring against someone.<br />
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If you are not under arrest, you have the right to leave. If you leave without clear instruction from law enforcement that it is safe to do so, you may be killed or taken down and beaten. In the best case scenario they may call you back over to their vicinity, but this action will also be used against you, though it too, is an inalienable right.<br />
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You may ask to leave, but do not do so unless you fully understand that you are truly free to leave, even though you have the right to leave at any time unless you are specifically told that you are under arrest. Arrest being defined simply as you are not legally permitted to leave as you have been informed of this by a law enforcement officer.<br />
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Though you are under arrest or not - local Stanislaus county law enforcement refer to any encounter that they have with a "suspect" without possessing valid probable cause as "consensual contact". If a member of law enforcement is questioning you, it would be best to assume that you are under arrest and refuse to answer any questions whatsoever.<br />
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You have the right to a lawyer if you are arrested. You have a right to a lawyer if you are not arrested. You have a right to a lawyer to be present when a member of law enforcement merely glances over at you. Once again, this is an inalienable right that you have every moment of every breath.<br />
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But unless you free yourself in some way from the resulting incarceration resulting from the arrest you will not be allowed to exercise that right for up to 72 hours or in some situations that may be fabricated by law enforcement, even longer (i.e. being held on suspicion of being a public threat or an judge’s whim or influence of law enforcement including the district attorney. In Stanislaus county, most are NOT allowed to exercise their right until their arraignment in a court of law, however unconstitutional this may be – that’s just the way it is. Work on getting yourself bailed out, your bail reduced or getting out on your own recognizance. Then work on the attorney as you prepare to go to war with your persecutors.<br />
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Regardless of your immigration or citizenship status, you have constitutional rights. Don’t expect any of these rights to be recognized in Stanislaus, Merced or San Joaquin counties. Remain silent and request to exercise your international inalienable right to contact your consulate. Speak only to them until you have been able to arrange appropriate legal counsel and any translation you may need.<br />
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Copyright 2017 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-34988253710537301612017-05-02T05:42:00.000-07:002017-05-02T05:42:01.954-07:00Homeless and Truly Needy or Homeless and Really Greedy?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Do nothing Modesto Gospel Mission security guard<br />posturing for me after I told him I was going to<br />file a written complaint against him with the Mission.<br /></td></tr>
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With Dunkin Donuts an impressively vigorous stone’s throw across the thoroughfare, you find yourself lulled into a crowd at the counter of yet another refugee camp – Saigon. I am just sure these people behind the counter are Vietnamese. I can tell by the way they interact with me.<br />
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Which, by the way, seems like an event that could only happen as I approach my turn to be able to request my Cup-a Joe so that I can read the morning’s obituaries summing up the useless lives of many that were in line before me that very same morning. Sounds far out, if not paradoxically impossible, but if you were there behind this unsuspecting mob, every single one of you would, quite suddenly, break that nasty habit of running every single day to catch the mailman in hopes of some sort of an AARP publication with your name on it.<br />
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Mortality becomes ominously omnipresent in your solar plexus. So much so, that life begins to lose all meaning.<br />
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But of course, these are all elderly Americans. On the other side of the counter, they don’t need to mob. It’s guerrilla warfare with lard being the ammunition of defense and protection.<br />
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Yet their clientele may already be dead by the time I do order that discreet cup of coffee, poured from an unseen pot.<br />
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And by the time they do interact with me, it is with the greatest of familiarity. As I am recognized as an envoy, if not an all-out American double agent, enjoying the warmth and security of my many safe houses as I conveniently choose to do so. This time it’s been nearly five years since I last sought refuge here.<br />
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I turn away from the counter to look out over dozens of elderly bodies strewn across the floor, slumped over tables and others merely decaying within the shelter of a dwarfed and somewhat fragile hedgerow.<br />
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And it is just over that hedgerow I look out and see what the future hold for me – One less safe house. One less refuge. The new generation will prefer this new order of a donut shop – Dunkin Donuts.<br />
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Yet how could they possibly know anything else? After all, Dunkin Donuts really is a donut shop. Not a Vietnamese refugee camp posing as one, simply to fight off the round faces with lard laden pastries.<br />
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No. No one would even know me there.<br />
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Yes. The price to pay for my elation of finally being served black coffee, was to be no more than the full realization of my normalcy bias. What’s a covert narcissistic, triple cultural spy to do?<br />
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Say, “Good-bye Saigon.”<br />
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And hello Ho Chi Minh. Where the lesson I learned in Saigon, I just might be able to turn the tide of this genocidal war, despite the lowering statistical percentages of diabetes and heart disease among the psychopathic American factions hell bent on the complete sterilization of any culture bearing roots before the May Flower crossing. We call this “assimilation”.<br />
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But Ho Chi Minh is under siege from a different kind of force. A force fueled by the inevitable apathy produced by dope and booze, forever descending like a viral plague upon the camp. Emitted by the Modesto Gospel Mission, primarily with no consideration whatsoever of the business welfare of the camp.<br />
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They converge on anyone approaching the shop, demanding money, tobacco, transportation and if the unsuspecting customer refuses, they are pelted with a barge of extremely profane insults and threats, often times including very real threats of violence.<br />
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So the would be patrons take the only alternative they have at their disposal and drive away as fast as they can. Never to return. One less happy, satisfied customer and just another nail in the coffin of a thirty year old establishment.<br />
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I’m sorry. I need my refuge. I can’t let this happen. So enter the scene – Pollo Suave.<br />
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“Hey Bro,” I announce, looking up from these scribbled bits of paper you are reading now, “If you’re not going to buy something, you need to leave.”<br />
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“I don’t need to leave”, they say, “I have every right to be here.”<br />
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And I fire back, “If you’re not going to buy something you need to leave.” At which point, I rise up, flexing my chubby forearms and I throw down my pen and heave my man-boobs outward, shouting like a NAZI pig, “HEY BRO!! I AIN’T GOING TO TELL YOU AGAIN!”<br />
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They are usually out the door just after the first step I take toward them.<br />
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It doesn’t take long for my asshole reputation to take hold and soon, with great relief, families return. Working people return and don’t suffer the harassment of junkies and derelicts threatening their safety, if not their very lives.<br />
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The Modesto Gospel Mission parades their mock security guards in a golf cart they drive around the parking lot all day. Ignoring the many junkies shooting up in the doorway where paying customers must wait for them to move or step over them. These so called “Security Guards” should give me their paychecks or at the very least, perform the job they pretend to do.<br />
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But, as is everything else with the multi-million dollar a year grossing Modesto Gospel Mission, its nothing but just another farce.<br />
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So I will take care of it. Even when I know these people are mis-catagorized as desperate homeless people. Yet there is a vast difference between desperation for drugs and/or alcohol and desperation to grasp a sustainable livelihood.<br />
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So now Ho Chi Minh may once again commence in the assisted suicide of the round-faced Americans and contribute to the economic wellbeing of the community. The latter of which no one really cares about outside the safe confines of their own refuge, namely, their pocket book.<br />
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“Hey! You not want donut?”<br />
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Copyright 2017 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com01200 yosemite ave.37.6392609 -121.0124101000000112.281316899999997 -162.3210041 62.9972049 -79.703816100000012tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-22459440511335444812017-01-14T21:12:00.000-08:002017-01-15T09:40:44.583-08:00I Don't Care About Your Political Fan Fiction<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #8e7cc3; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Words in papers, words in books</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #8e7cc3;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #8e7cc3; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Words on TV, words for crooks</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #8e7cc3;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Words of comfort, words of peace</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #8e7cc3; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Words to make the fighting cease</span><br />
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<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #8e7cc3;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Words to tell you what to do</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #8e7cc3; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Words are working hard for you</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #8e7cc3;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Eat your words but don't go hungry</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #8e7cc3; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Words have always nearly hung me</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<b>So, I just
ate a candy bar on my no-carb diet. Don’t worry. I can keep a secret. I won’t
tell anyone. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>You know the
last time I posted on this blog, I was told it was fragmented and really didn’t
make any sense. That really took me aback in a sarcastic sort of way. You see,
the real problem here, is that I need to make yet, yes, another transition. I
must be a statesman. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Since I am
running for <a href="http://stanford4modestocouncil4.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Modesto City Council District 4</a>, I must concentrate on the Serenity
prayer and not go off on a tangent, flaring my ego like the wings of a phoenix
rising from the ashes, trying to convince you1 that I have upgraded part of the
slang English language and that my references of certain members of our
community2 are only meant as hard degradations to these individuals personally,
and that I am, by no means trying to erode any part of my voter’s sect.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>I am the man
for all parties3 and I mean why not. I am pro Queer, but pro Life. Pro Immigration,
but Pro-Gun.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Anti-Law
Enforcement? No, not at all. I back the Badge. Just not the corruption behind
it.4<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>People want
to tell me what to say and what not to. What to write, what to show, what to
tell, how to live. If it does not agree with them 100 percent they become my
enemies in a heart beat, leaving me going, “Wait, what? What?”5<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>And that
reminds me of my 2007 Modesto City Council Run in which I ran at large, rather
than by District. After getting a teen drinking ordinance passed in Waterford,
CA, a member of the Council had heard that I had turned in my paperwork to run
for the office and asked me, “So, Bob, why did you decide to turn to the dark
side? – Politics!”<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>I took that
to be more of a rhetorical question, and was later to learn, as I learned even
what my aspirations really were that it truly is the dark side if the line is
not carefully walked. But that makes me the perfect candidate. A politician
with issues you will agree and disagree at the same time with, but the issues
of the community solely. Not a developer interest in annexing and zoning purely
for profit, prestige and whatever else the hell these bastards are after. Such
as golf course memberships, etc. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Me? I want
to openly carry a firearm. And so should you. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Neighbor’s
dog barking just a bit too much for your taste in the night? Save the taxpayers
some money and do what you know you must do.6 <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Music too
loud?7<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>And that’s
just one idea. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Watch how
easy it will be for me to annex every square inch of the City of Modesto that
is not incorporated.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Watch how
red my fellow money leeches on the Modesto City Council will turn when I force
the City of Modesto and the County of Stanislaus to turn over millions of
dollars worth of misappropriated and withheld grant funds with interest. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Watch
indictments fly, only to be shot down by statutes of limitations, but then the
truth will be known. And not just through a self promoting blog.8 Well, that
and that the head of the Civil Grand Jury (our indictment vehicle) is headed consistently
by District Attorney Dave Harris.9<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Guerrilla
politics? No, just a simple man with a plan. A plan to liberate his fellow
Stanislausian. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>I don’t have
to kiss baby’s and ass. All I have to do is bring my years upon years of
experience to the table and show that I know what is up and that I have a plan
to do it. And what better way to do it anyway, than to do it as part of my
race. That way, even if I lose, my agenda is still accomplished.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Thank God
for DC and the Supreme Court. Otherwise, I am sure that the existing members of
the Modesto City Council would have me drawn, quartered, tarred, feathered,
whipped and altogether exterminated, just exactly in the same way that the
Chinese that worked the Stanford railroad in the mid to late 1800’s were
slaughtered exactly where the Modesto City Council Chambers rest today.10<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b>Later, in
the next Century there was to be built two great monumental buildings that the
very beginning of the glory of Modesto was borne of. That would be the Hotel
Houston and the Hotel Covell respectively.11<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>But that is
not before the true story tellers of history, would most certainly have you
believe that the Chinese man (women and children too – they just forgot to
mention them) was literally saved by the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s
Department, formed specifically for the purpose of eliminating a group of
Chinese killing vigilantes calling themselves, “The Regulators”. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Because the
killings did not stop and the Sheriff Department participated as well all to
appease Mr. Stanford, the Central Pacific Railroad tycoon. A man isn’t a man
till he has had to make payroll. But since when would these people think of the
Chinese as “men”? Certainly no sooner than the Supervisors and Council members
would think of the homeless as humans.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>But a blind
eye is a happy eye.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>And you are
reading the ramblings of a man that is going to set right what was wronged so
many years ago and stand up for the “Oriental” massage parlors. I will be
pretending that they are all Chinese, just like I pretend they are Vietnamese
at Ho Chi Minh – right smack dab in the middle of the 132 Freeway, Highway or If
I had my preference in feign reference – Interstate 132.12<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>But I
digress.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><b> </b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">1.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Yes, you. You know who you are.</span></div>
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2.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>In particular, members of the Stanislaus District Attorney’s Office</div>
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3.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>Dennis Banks was on the Presidential ticket by the way – Peace and Freedom Party. You might know them better as socialists.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="gmail-MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
4.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>The Swastika is actually a peaceful religious symbol.</div>
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5.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>Yes, you know who you are and so do you as well.</div>
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6.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>That’s right. You know what I’m talking about.</div>
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7.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>You get the idea. Problems solved.</div>
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8.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>Yes, you know who you are too. And you. And you. And you. And you. And you. And you.</div>
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9.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>And you thought Richard Nixon was bad.</div>
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10.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>They even have proudly portrayed the photos of Stanislaus County Supervisors upon the walls of the City Hall Chambers that participated in the murder of Chinese Americans where Fuzio’s is now. I wouldn’t order the Chinese food there.</div>
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11.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>But as though a time machine has gone rogue somewhere, nobody is going to know what I am referring to, except for that fool at the White Only Modesto Museum that is once again going to be irked that I would have the audacity to mention the genocide that took place in my name. (Not that this is the first time, mind you).</div>
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12.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>Sorry Nick, I just had to.</div>
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Copyright 2017 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-90553601785958368952016-06-04T00:19:00.001-07:002016-09-23T22:47:57.592-07:00Bui – Doi - Stanford at Large in the Modesto Airport District – Ho Chi Minh (Again)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHoqJc-njaMkUb5CUBBQ5Clff4sDkygKIHk04uA8cNVmwhiG6BvpfSVmV2ol-CiABvTM_1KHxN0VKViP7tY_nRMlNn8X3d7k-1BjckpO3Rgcmqh6OR04uuXB8iYL8-UZqEH2PScKbLk0s/s1600/bui-doi-cho-lon-goc-khuat-sai-gon-len-man-anh-viet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHoqJc-njaMkUb5CUBBQ5Clff4sDkygKIHk04uA8cNVmwhiG6BvpfSVmV2ol-CiABvTM_1KHxN0VKViP7tY_nRMlNn8X3d7k-1BjckpO3Rgcmqh6OR04uuXB8iYL8-UZqEH2PScKbLk0s/s640/bui-doi-cho-lon-goc-khuat-sai-gon-len-man-anh-viet.jpg" width="424" /></a></div>
<b>The blazing sun is reaching out across
the deserted landscape of Modesto again, although no one will dare
admit it in such polite and political company. Man. It's hot.
Seriously? Really? Right?</b><br />
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<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> The very same, indeed, as none will
admit that when George Lucas envisioned Tatooine, it was all too
easy, because he had been raised there. Here, as it were, in Modesto.</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> Modesto. Where fair weather
politicians such as Chris Murphy, feebly attempt to revive long dead
corpses, such as George Lucas' interest in Modesto at all...or his
father, Darth Vader. Seriously? Really? Right?</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> Darth Vader, AKA – George Lucas Sr.
never left, nor ever cared for his son to leave either.</b></div>
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</b>
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<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> Luke Skywalker, AKA – George Lucas
Jr. <span style="font-weight: normal;">never looked back [1]</span><i>
</i><span style="font-weight: normal;">. All was soon to seem
forgiven and forgotten except for the things we just simply don't
speak of in hick company. Things that make us grit out teeth and
tightly rub our fingers together as though it were a tell. Hoping all
the while nothing upsets the rocky road apple cart, which is the la
la fantasy that every Modestan seems to be inflicted by.</span></b></div>
<b>
</b>
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<b><br /></b>
</div>
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</b>
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<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> Chris Murphy, AKA
Princess Leha - knows that the dark side is important to me. I am
the antidote to the Death Star Soma. Thirteenth at the table. The
uninvited guest. Seriously? Really? Right?</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> I saw Star Wars
on McHenry and Briggsmore in 1977. I was a fresh 12 year old out of
Kindergarten. About a decade later, I was a nineteen year old nurse
working at the first year of a posh nursing home by the name of
English Oaks, AKA – Michael Ray's New Redbluff Convalescent
Hospital.</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> Michael Ray, AKA
the strict Dunkard Director of Nurses (D.O.N.) was more of a hero to
me than George Lucas Jr. was. He ran the new facility with even more
strict rigor than he did the other facility in Riverbank. Yet, George
Lucas was just as much of a hero to me as any Modestan. And that is
saying quite a bit since his was the only name they could remember,
considering no one here knows that this is where the Olympic Medalist
Mark Sptiz also grew up. Seriously? Really? Right?</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> Twas' one fateful
night that I did find myself, literally cradling Darth Vader in my
arms, in the process of changing his linens. Frightened he was.
Shivering he. Never looking at nor acknowledging me at any time.
Oblivious? I doubted and doubt now. What could one expect from a
person, left to die in a nursing home? Seriously? Really? Right?</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <b>All
of Modesto's claim to fame celebrations are absent the presence of
the not so prodigal native son. If this was a perfect world, the
Modesto Chamber of Commerce would have done a Ribbon Cutting for
Vader and Son's Office Machines.</b></span></b></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <b>The
Multi-Million Dollar Modesto Gospel Mission, AKA - the People's
Temple is under new management now. Though most certainly a God sent
blessing for a chosen few – the price is still your soul.
Assistance in exchange to an inquisition type acceptance of the
doctrine according to Billy Graham. Heart disease and diabetes
slopped onto a prison tray, even if you bow down to the Holy Spirit
of Bill Graham, they will still treat you like a derelict</b></span>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><b>[2]. Whether you truly be one
or not.</b></span></b></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> Now they have
their brown shirts riding around in golf carts as though the parking
lot of the Mission and Ho Chi Minh were the sole property of Billy's.
Everyone is a potential target. The only thing that protects me from
them, is that they think I am a cop. Seriously? Really? Right?</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> And now we have a
new mayor. Another shill, put up by the agricultural killing machine,
AKA – the development industry. And a new City Council. To me, at
the very least. I have not spoken to them for quite some time. I was
estranged as it were. It was a few years that went by, if I can
recollect correctly, but I had to approach them nevertheless.</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>It's all about
freedom. It's all about holding the Pigs of Modesto's Great Camelot
at Bay. Yeah, I know. I get frustrated too. I hate having some
unshaven, toothless junky blowing their stale alcohol breath on me
like a dragon of old.
</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> “Hey. Hey.
Buddy, do you got fifty cents?”</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> “What? You
actually think I'm going to give you money? Fuck you, bitch.”</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> At this point
there is a fork in the social and legal road that is ignored by both
the media and the Chief Carrol of the Modesto Police Department, AKA
lipstick on just another pig. Both from pressure from a City Council
that is propped up and placed by what? By what? Developer interests.
And what is it they ignore? The rights of an individual to express
their need to another. Seriously? Really? Right?</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> And why is that
so important to me? Because I know some things OK? For instance, I
know that you may very well be able to wish success upon someone,
even if it is someone you have never seen or even been near. Or it
could, perhaps, be a large group of people that you may certainly, by
all means, wish to be successful. But the success of this is not very
successful. We have to deal with reality. And when we deal with
reality, it is inevitable that we must talk about opportunity, if we
are going to realistically talk about success. Not how much any
individual deserves to not be a success.
</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> And what that
means, is that a person will inevitably increase their chances of
getting their need(s) met by expressing their need to as many people
as possible. I also know that there are many more than not that do
not spend, nor intend to spend the money or resources they receive on
drugs or alcohol. And the most compelling thing that I know is that
it is their first amendment constitutional right to do so.</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <b>But
there is a downside. That fork in the social and legal road that I
mentioned. They do not have the right to continually harass or hound
an individual that has indicated in any way that could be reasonably
understood by the solicitor that they do not wish to yield.
Seriously? Really? Right?[3]</b></span></b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> That is one of
several ordinances that I am attempting to challenge, not in the
court of public opinion, but by Civil Disobedient Extortion. And
kindness along the way, wrapped up in a big wad of shock value.</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Yeah, that's where
the real juice is. Right there. At the dais I told them the truth;
that I have the solution to homelessness. Love, compassion and
understanding. Enough of any one of those would solve any social
problem we would ever have. That's just common sense. For those with
frontal lobes.</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> Yes, it had been
some time since I had addressed the council or anyone else for that
matter, and I knew it was going to have to be orchestrated,
professional and as precise as a neurologist's dull scalpel.
Seriously? Really? Right?</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>And just outside
is the Modesto Gospel Mission Secret Police, salivating at the
thought of intimidating me somehow or getting me to do something
simple like leave the premises altogether. But the pull of the golf
cart is too much for him and he cannot escape the very idea of racing
through the black top of the vacant parking lot with the wind blowing
through his hair and the Windsong 1977 commercial soundtrack playing
for him in the back ground. What a weirdo. Seriously? Really? Right?</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> To enjoy the
company of an elderly indigent is far more validating than
compliments from fake activists or fascist local politicians
mistaking me for a Caucasian. The conservation of my saliva alone,
makes it all so much grander. It feels as though I should be setting
miniature plastic china for an imaginary tea time. Why not? It
befalls the wickedly pretentious avows of recovery. Some of which I
can now say I have been told by some for four decades. By some, I
mean so few, as so many missed many of my tea times. You know, due to
sclerosis of the liver and other natural causes of a tragically blind
suicide. Quite natural, all the same, as it always is. Fuck. Fuck.
Fuck. Never mind. Just the mutterings of a burned out missionary in
my position.
</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> I don't smoke
anymore and if even I were to, it would make no difference at five
o'clock in the morning, after a hectic night of doubling down on
black jacks and splitting tens, raising the ire of my Mom, Chin, AKA
– Cinnamon as they call her, I am sure down at the strip club,
where she has been having to perform to keep the Vietnamese Refugee
Camp operating. Within another hour I would be pulling into Ho Chi
Minh and if I were to be early enough, I had an actual refugee to
smoke cigarettes with and discuss my many wins, losses and arguments
of the previous night that I had with Chin, AKA the Vietnamese Gang
Prison Killer.
</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> Those days are a
not so distant memory now, as he was shot in the head only to have
his wife, also to be shot in the head, not to mention his daughter
with down syndrome shot in the head too. I think she was the sole
survivor for a few minutes. Just before the Modesto Police Chief,
Harden used the entire affair as a photo op. He laughs at the expense
of my loved ones getting shot in the head and then gets mad when I
make fun of his name in a council meeting. But I'm not bitter.
Seriously? Really? Right?</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> So I have been
working on branding myself with an image that is peaceful innocent
and pure. It's my new message – Love, Compassion and Understanding.
Yes, I have finally succumbed to the subliminal lyrics of an Elvis
Costello song. But he was right. And what's more, that sweet girl
with down syndrome could tell you that. If they had not shot her in
the head. Seriously? Really? Right?</b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Footnotes, as if you didn't know.</b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<ol>
<li><b>What? Do I have to spell it out to
you? Seriously? Really? Right?</b></li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>If you understand that sentence,
than you certainly too, have been inflicted with the generalization
disease of this local “community”.</b></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>I don't care if you don't agree
with me.</b></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>You guessed it.</b></div>
</li>
</ol>
<br />
<b>Copyright 2016 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.</b>ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-19565689504803358332015-10-31T00:39:00.000-07:002016-09-23T22:55:02.497-07:00Memories of the Modesto Peace Center by Samuel R. Tyson - A Founding Member<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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By the time the Peace Center came into being, the Saturday Night Group had all but disappeared when so many people went to Canada.<br />
<br />
The remnants were available for the new effort, although it was originally limited to draft counseling. The draft work had been ongoing in an ad hoc sort of manner by individual volunteers. Vietnam took counseling from the theoretical to the hard facts of reality. Lives were very much in jeopardy.<br />
<br />
The true organizing work of the 1970s was not by or through the Peace Center with its limited vision. Something different popped up – nuclear power. The proposal to build nuclear energy facilities west of Waterford brought opposition. At various times it became necessary to take on Pacific Gas & Electric, General Electric, Livermore, Turlock Irrigation District and Modesto Irrigation District. It was a new learning experience to perform this service under pressure. Stanislaus Safe Energy then came into existence to block, refute and deny any such facility. Of course Government bodies and the Stanislaus and San Joaquin Farm Bureau were all for it.<br />
<br />
For once the Modesto Bee did it – a half page story with pictures of the half dozen activists standing up on the front lines for Safe Energy. Public meetings, Dr. John Gofman speaking, the pancake breakfast a three month Notice of dissenting was created and then the Harvest Supper was started as a second fund raiser. Safe Energy’s last major public event was at the 1987 Stanislaus County Fair of 1987 in the midst of the super conductor-super collider protests. The proponents of this super warfare program were the University of California, Livermore, liberal Democrats, Chambers of Commerce, as usual, the school system and of course Governmental agencies.<br />
<br />
In between these events came the farm workers to Modesto, 8000 on foot or car to add to the 1000 or so already at Graceada. Vietnam was over so a lot of energy was now available energy to work on farm worker issues. Gallo was far and above the great villain as a large outfit not interested in being limited by the Farm Worker’s Union. What was Modest to do with such an invasion and with it, its inflammatory possibilities?<br />
<br />
Having done crowd control by invitation several times in San Francisco’s anti-war marches, it was an interesting challenge for me. Organizer Chuck Gardenier and I agreed it would be useful to have a non-violent presence on March 1, 1975. Since there had already been joint meetings with the California Highway Patrol, Sheriff deputies of several counties and the Modesto Police Department. Chuck and I were known to them, to say the least. There had been violence during the march in Merced County recently. So in blue jeans and jacket with a red arm band, I was a presence all along the side to take (block) intersections or along the front as Modesto was cut in half from Gallo to Graceada Park. Holding half of Needham for the crowd, the traffic got real messy, but there was no violence. The Modesto Police backed off and left the crowd to discipline itself.<br />
<br />
When the Latin Americas group decided to stage a sit in inside Tony Coehlo’s office during the Nicaraguan Contra imbroglio, I was brought in to do the non-violence organizing. Now with the people ready to sit in, it could be done all at once, a big bang, as it were. It appeared more useful to split into three groups for a larger impact. So, poor Jane Jackson, who knew many of us, had to be at her desk three days to watch people be arrested. It was not that Coehlo was a poor congressman but as one in a leadership position, more was needed and could have been done to end the conflict.<br />
<br />
Whatever organizational skills there may be, it cannot work without other people. Foremost were Howard Washburn and Howard TenBrink who were both there from the beginning at the monthly Fellowship of Reconciliation Meetings. He was in Nevada, Self Help Housing (SHE) (Visalia), Everyman Building, Coehlo’s office and in later years collating the Stanislaus Peace/Life Connections.<br />
<br />
Howard Washburn – Rural Life Conference (1940-1950s), first director of SHE (1960s), tax resister at Fresno, Livermore, Vandenburg, who tragically, with much of his family, was killed in an automobile accident. Jake Kirihara (Livingston) SHE board, Livermore, Coehlo’s office, United Technology Middle plant (Merced County).<br />
<br />
Mel Harvey was of this breed in Nevada, arrested for leafleting at the IRS in Modesto (I was not ready for arrest, nor was Betty Tillotsoin or Frank Muench), Oakland Induction Center 1967. Mary Harvey upon the Everyman sentencing in 1960, went to Nevada, crossed the line and was arrested, given 30 days in jail – the only woman in the Tonpah jail (she was on the second floor). These folks were there; open and allowing themselves to be available for joint action over a period of many years.<br />
<br />
For its time slot, Safe Energy found Dan Pollack (Ecology Action) a stalwart. Jim Higgs came along in the 1970s but did not break out until the 1980s, with more than one visit to Livermore and Santa Rita.<br />
<br />
Involved with the United Technology venture and sit ins at Coehlo’s office – Jim Higgs was a long time Peace Center board member. He could be frustrating, certainly. But he did hang in with Peace Center activities as long as possible.<br />
<br />
Kay Barnes, who overcame her military raising to come to look at Peace. For nearly 20 years she did the little things to keep the Center going, as a volunteer. As usual there was little thanks, if any at all.<br />
<br />
Not doing in public does not mean the service is worth less. One does not relish the value of such help until it is gone. A venture to Livermore was not her thing. An example of her commitment: When coming out of the Stanislaus County jail for sitting in at Coehlo’s office, I was totally disoriented. It had been a hot day and the air conditioner broke down, leaving the inmates dripping and half clothed.<br />
<br />
For once Zane Clark, or whoever was running the place, arranged for inmates to shower out of regulation. Mine was at midnight, but the cell was crowded, with most inmates on the floor.<br />
<br />
The next morning, I was pushed out the door after minimal sleep. But there was my guardian angel, Kay, to transport my carcass to Waterford. Christmas. This was a service more than once was provided at the Choose Life Christmas-blocking at Livermore. My going number there is under 1000 as one of the lags (1960) though they can have 10,000 entices to Santa Rita in a year. No organizer can do it without help.<br />
<br />
When one is lucky there are those who can be leaned upon for years.<br />
<br />
Those who dare to follow conscience under fear, but refuse to allow it to dominate or paralyze action and are in this sense free.<br />
<br />
After exposure to various situations, there is an esprit which may well appear to be arrogance.<br />
<br />
Experience has taught certain lessons. There are probabilities of behavior and results. However, planning based on effectiveness tends to backfire as the means become distorted by the desire.<br />
<br />
Results are long term. It is ludicrous to expect change of a useful nature in under five years. Patience is not a virtue much cultivated, because our ego demands satisfaction.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-2537916250182573942014-07-20T08:45:00.001-07:002016-09-23T22:56:18.252-07:00Nobody Cares<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For several years now, I have been trying to save the world. Seeking my own salvation through the redemption of others, I have ended up with several sociologically dry case study books, a new language and a perspective unique, yet at the same time impaired by my own lack of experience. Experience I will never have. If I am to be so fortunate.<br />
<br />
I was a good neighbor. I was a good priest. I was ethical and never once did I wince in the face of danger, manipulation or ridicule in the public square. I gave more than I had to give of my time, money and most of all - my self. I gave everything with a pink bow, emblazoned with gold lettering that spelled out "ACTIVISM".<br />
<br />
Activism is a catch-all drawer of a word. It means so many different things to so many different people. For me it was more than a title, it was a condemnation. At the very best, it was a label that gave a clear indication to the community that it was OK for me to be ineffectual in relieving the plight of lesser, undesirable human beings, because I was nothing but shadow to begin with.<br />
<br />
I held on tightly to the ideal that matters of life and death were to be taken with the utmost urgency. With the utmost importance. But that particular ideal, as with so many others, had long-since slipped away from the consciousness of the community. Along with any hope of compassion, empathy or understanding. All of these priceless precious things had been exchanged for narcissism and personal "Quality of Life" goals. <br />
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I thought that I could bring these ideals back again. I thought that I could surly demonstrate by example passion and devotion to others in such close proximity that it was worthwhile to address the needs of the suffering, whoever they may be. I thought wrong. I was wrong. Its true. You cannot revive a corpse.<br />
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In the face of further ridicule, slander and even persecution by my own religion, I write the truth to you now. The truth that no body really cares about anyone else but themselves and with good reason. To care about the plight of another human being is to take that suffering upon yourself, albeit in a different form, but suffering nonetheless.<br />
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For all of my valiant and noble effort, I am left with so much reward. A reputation that precedes me everywhere I turn, wrought with falsehoods and lies. I am penniless, unemployable and forever spilled over with suspicion and looked upon as nothing more than a maniacal, bothersome, trouble making dissenter. I am now seen exactly as those I have served - an undesirable human being.<br />
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And that is just on the outside. On the inside, my memories haunt my dreams, nearly every night. Filled with horribly unspeakable evil. Gang violence, child abuse to a horrific degree and lonely deaths along the creek's banks, all of which I will never be able to prevent. Now I see their wounds, tears and death states in every moment of my life.<br />
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I am nothing but a loser, having thrown my life away because I am so insane, I actually thought that I could lead the lost to reason. I thought I could redeem them somehow. I was wrong.<br />
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Now I am nothing but a shell of a man, hoping that my fake confidence will buy me a little more patience with the few friends I even have today.<br />
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Even finding solace in the refuge of my original religion has been fraught with misunderstanding and cult-like abuse. Led by a self-proclaiming thug that touts violent tendencies as a badge of honor, he sports the colors that have married me to children's funerals for so long that I have now come to know how inescapable these tragedies are since they are taken so lightly by so many who are protected forever behind the very veil that I myself have provided - "They just don't understand".<br />
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My angst over the injustices that have caused me to see so many dead bodies is so fierce and fiery, that it has mentally incapacitated me. I am forever locked in a dungeon of despair and anguish over things I could never have prevented in the first place.<br />
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All I can tell you anymore for sure, is that you nave no idea how terrifying and horrible it is out there. All because no one really cares about matters of life and death anymore. All they care about is themselves.<br />
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Copyright 2014 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-75205701544004113962012-04-05T18:37:00.002-07:002016-09-23T22:57:25.203-07:00DEATH, DEATH, DEATH<h2>
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<b>by</b></div>
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<b>Robert W. Stanford</b></div>
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<b><i>"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and goodwill shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."</i></b><br />
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<i>Ezekiel 25:17, Pulp Fiction</i></h4>
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<b>Along my daily path, by the fork, the chickens have fortified their ranks with bunny rabbits. Now late at night, what at first appears to be leaping cats, are rabbits. At least two dozen encroaching upon the fork and the chickens that reside there. Almost as joyful as the older dogs that bark upon my approach, only to subside at the sound of my voice. “It’s me!”<br /><br />Of course, it didn’t use to be that way. Literally, years ago, I would leave seething canine ferocity in my wake down every Airport District street I would walk. Not any more, just the occasional bully dogs, we all come across no matter how many of our own shoe prints are etched into the dust which shall never be covered by sidewalks. Now, I leave broken hearts and whimpering in my wake, as so many dogs want me to spend more time than a passing pet and reassurance of what magnificent animals they are. But there is always tomorrow…for me, at least.<br /><br />Not so much for JD Love, who’s memorial still graffiti’s Oregon Park appropriately for the surrounding neighborhood. Walls that many of us, probably including his own mother, are not looking forward to seeing be re-painted. Despite the murderous numerical references to the CA state penal code - 187...and Norte. <br /><br />Now he is forever a part of the Modesto Airport District; a part of it’s culture. That is of course, at least until Nazi Joe Muratore, the sixty-two thousand dollar thief finally gets his way and has the entire 1.2 square mile area that comprises the Modesto Airport District razed in favor of a financial shell game to be forever played with outside investors and the actual Modesto City/County airport that separates us in the Airport District from the bordering area between Ceres and Modesto, aptly named, “No Man’s Land”. Two ghettos separated by Lear Jets and caviar. All the while, useless to those that are in reality just like us, is their fork in the road.<br /><br />Pollo, Polo and Looney were standing outside of the now infamous non-tobacco front shop one day. <br /><br />And then, just like every other day, dark clouds appeared and commenced engulfing the atmosphere with grief. One of us was missing - Lil’ David.<br /><br />“Why pollo?”, he softly asked me. “Why did the cops have to lie to her like that? They said that they would protect her. And now look at David.”<br /><br />Through his tears, it was not that I had nothing to say, but at this point, it would have sounded insensitive and uncaring for the situation at hand. Not because it was a rant against local law enforcement, but rather, because it would sound more like an “I told you so!”. It just really wasn’t the time for another political lecture against the ways of the tyranny that has now befallen us.<br /><br />All just another piece of scenery stripped away from me, just like animal control always picking up the wrong strays. Or my neighbors that delight in killing my dogs. Taking something away from me that makes the Modesto Airport District a beautiful place to live. Leaving a tragically ended memory in it’s place, with much pretentiousness.<br /><br />I have found it to be not just the trauma of these murders that take me away to a place of intense and bitter anger, but their repetition. Is this really what I have chosen to do? Watch everyone die, while trying to show them which side of the fork to take instead? <br /><br />Seems pretty noble, since there has been nothing but sacrifice of every part of my being and rewards that seem rather inedible.<br /><br />Walking past the fork in the dawn of a new day is quite different than two to three o’clock in the morning. It’s like night and day. No longer are there only the stragglers and scrappers afoot. Now there are the familiar faces. Faces I have greeted more than twenty-four hundred times.<br /><br />Everyone knows my name, where I am going, what I do, what I eat - everything - with affection - just like David did. <br /><br />They see in me, something they can depend and rely on - hope. They see hope in me because they have watched my struggle for so many years. They can see now, that the only way I will be leaving them, will be as their own family members leave them - as a murder victim that not even the Modesto Police Department gives a second thought to.</b><br />
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Copyright 2012 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-67677092752799336822012-01-11T00:30:00.000-08:002012-01-11T00:35:02.175-08:00Nothing Changes On New Years Day<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Don't Forget To Pay For That Donut!</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table><b>I didn’t see the roosters as I passed by the fork this morning, although a few hours earlier, at about three, roosters could be heard from all around, walking through the Modesto Airport District(1).</b><b><br />
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</b><b>It was like they were calling to each other, back and forth in turn. One could almost reach out and touch their grandiose plans of having the Modesto Airport District completely dominated by fowl at the crack of the true dawn. A rooster revolution of sorts. Plotted through their hidden language.</b><b><br />
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</b><b>I was so impressed with them, that I have decided to forego any rants that I would care to indulge regarding the avian flu and weak county interventions for personal aviaries of fowl. I will let these brave birds have their hope. Unless the economy doesn’t turn around, at which point I may be charged with chicken rustling.</b><b><br />
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</b><b>Yet in the morning, seeing lush fields of chickens starting about their foraging day is just so invigorating on my slight trek to the start of my day. Especially when they are in the street and I start chasing them to and fro across the road. One really has to be aware of traffic when…chicken spotting.</b><b><br />
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</b><b>Walking through chalk lines, some real - some imagined, I would think that others like myself would care to take comfort in the luxurious safety of good scenery.</b><b><br />
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</b><b>So that in the midst of a dozen, obviously robustly large roosters planning some sort of a…coo - a master plan, if you will, of domination. </b><b><br />
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</b><b>Just the energy of being within that interchange, while some guy that lives in what appears to be an RV has an exploding bonfire going in a burning barrel. A different scent every night, or should I say, “every wee morning”. </b><b><br />
</b><b><br />
</b><b>On some of these wee mornings, he incinerate particles board. Bonfire fuel acquired by chopped up furniture abandoned in another lot made vacant by Strand/Depot(2) type developer arson. </b><b><br />
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</b><b>The formaldehyde fills my senses like Testers model glue in a plastic bag. At any moment I begin picturing myself writhing and twirling, while lying perpendicular to and abutted to the gutter of the sidewalk surrounding the county park. </b><b><br />
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</b><b>Only the menthol provides any relief. And the coffee.(3)</b><b><br />
</b><b><br />
</b><b>Coffee acquired at the Vietnamese refuge camp, we are now not suppose to talk about or advertise for. I suppose something came over the wire. Of course all of this information comes from Chin. The one that says I eat like a cat. The one with that birth mark that looks just like a tattoo one would get for killing someone in a Vietnamese prison.</b><b><br />
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</b><b>The same tattoo that she didn’t want to talk about anymore(4), not more than just a few morning ago(5) she dared point to it and made some vague reference to the hard life that she endured, trapped in a Vietnamese prison. But one knows that she is safe now in the confines of a Vietnamese refugee camp disguised as the Ye Olde Donute Shoppe. </b><b><br />
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</b><b>It’s not a refuge for everyone though. That was finally decided when the latrine was redone in tile and the very best in bathroom fixtures. It must be part of the Asianic cultural reaction to disrespect from a community that completely thrashed the bathroom to the point of necessitating it’s complete replacement. Everything.</b><b><br />
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</b><b>“Pollo.” She whispered.(6) “I go into bathroom today and people have sex in there.”</b><b><br />
</b><b><br />
</b><b>“What? Seriously? That’s horrible. I keep telling you. Just don’t let anybody use it. They can go to Jack in the Box.”, I replied, six years ago. That was before the re-model.</b><b><br />
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</b><b>And a year or so after someone committed suicide in the Jack in the Box bathroom. Now they have to “buzz” you in. </b><b><br />
</b><b><br />
</b><b>Today, on any shift, they refuse no one. Most of the time they don’t have to, since the bathroom is occupied by families shooting up heroin they acquired from just around the corner. It’s so heart warming to see a mother pushing a stroller, accompanied by her older offspring - scurrying into the Jack in the Box bathroom to inject herself with heroin and nod out in a bathroom stall for an hour or so.</b><b><br />
</b><b><br />
</b><b>“Um, can you buzz me in?”</b><b><br />
</b><b><br />
</b><b>“Sure, go right ahead.”</b><b><br />
</b><b><br />
</b><b>That was the same family that approached every single one us, one morning - pimping out her oldest child to panhandle change for his mother’s heroin fix.</b><b><br />
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</b><b>“Hey can I use your bathroom? I need to change my baby.” The zombie mother asked Chin.</b><b><br />
</b><b><br />
</b><b>“You want to use the bathroom? OK. You can use the bathroom. I will go and unlock it for you and you can go use the bathroom.”, Chin chipped into the undead whore of heroin and mother of three.</b><b><br />
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</b><b>“SSSS - hey!”, I side whispered to the Mother Teresa of Vietnam.</b><b><br />
</b><b><br />
</b><b>“What what what is it?”</b><b><br />
</b><b><br />
</b><b>“Don’t let them use the bathroom.” I silently said, yet ever so sternly, while vigorously shaking my head back and forth. </b><b><br />
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</b><b>“Pollo! She needs to change the baby. You can’t expect her to go Jack in the Box. That too far.”</b><b><br />
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</b><b>And with that, it was not long until loud knocks were to be heard.</b><b><br />
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</b><b>“Hey! What you do in my bathroom?! You need get out now! Pollo. Man. You were right. Why I not listen to you.”, Chin said to me, her hair unusually ratted out as though it had been styled that way, when in reality, it was from the sheer stress of the entire family having locked themselves in the bathroom for nearly five whole minutes now. </b><b><br />
</b><b><br />
</b><b>“Just give her a few more minutes to finish shooting up and she might be easier to get out.”, I said, as though I were giving report to a general regarding enemy troop alignment.</b><b><br />
</b><b><br />
</b><b>“Shoot up?! What you mean Pollo?!”</b><b><br />
</b><b><br />
</b><b>“Nothing. Nothing. Here, I’ll take care of it.”</b><b><br />
</b><b><br />
</b><b>And with that I was once more overcome by an air of exaggerated over bearing maniacal role play as I cast the family into the cold dampness of the street.</b><b><br />
</b><b><br />
</b><b>“And stay there….bitch.”</b><b><br />
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</b><b>Coming back into my Morelia(7) fold, I am able to fill in half a dozen people with the situation’s past, present and probable future in less than 30 seconds. After all, I have to get to work. I can’t just sit here all day talking about some junky mother shooting up with her kids watching locked up in a bathroom of a Vietnamese Refugee Camp overtaken by Mexicans. Even the Vietnamese refugees have to adapt. </b><b><br />
</b><b><br />
</b><b>It’s the perfect backdrop for my budding Spanish - Vietnamese refugees aggressively trying to keep dozens of Mexicans at bay with dirty Mexican words screamed with Vietnamese accents. It’s really special when Chin starts waving around her Babe Ruth slugger and threatening to kill everyone if they don’t provide her with enough session money for a Black Oak Casino(8) weekend.</b><b><br />
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</b><b>1. For the lone traveler through the internet that may have no interest here….this is a private article. Be gone with you - NOW! To feather dust.</b><b><br />
</b><b>2. Two Modesto, California historical monuments that didn’t have to pass the giggle test of any landmark preservation laws, state or federal due to arson by local developers.</b><b><br />
</b><b>3. Coffee so good, it deserves to be my hook lead in. Keep reading.</b><b><br />
</b><b>4. When they, “arrested the man and the girl”.</b><b><br />
</b><b>5. Or more.</b><b><br />
</b><b>6. Like, “psssst”.</b><b><br />
</b><b>7. A group of approximately 36 rotating Mexican friends, all quickly claiming to be born within an eagles nest at the very top of the tallest mountain in Morelia, Mexico.</b><b><br />
</b><b>8. Actually, it was at Jackson Rancheria Casino that I was accused of eating like a cat. At a buffet, it was. And upon further recollection, it was actually her husband that accused me of that, after seeing my self-made sampler plate with only 3 items from the entire buffet. That’s right. He had to drive us back in my van to the David Bowie’s Low album that night.</b><b><br />
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Copyright 2012 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-13282201772069529982011-10-30T22:39:00.000-07:002016-09-23T23:07:53.148-07:00Dog Day Afternoon<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">“As it would certainly seem to seem as of late, not so many things are quite as dull as one would most likely prefer. Not here anyway.”</span></i></blockquote>
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Robert Stanford answering any question posed.</blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>There was a time, of course, that walking through the Airport District was a myriad of gunfire and dog barks/bites. Pepper spray was certainly a must have. A quick car and path to the Memorial Emergency Room for pit bull victims (always children). The Grand Am I had at the time, did the job well.<br />
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It did not take too much education to make this entire situation subside. Especially in consideration that for the entire County of Stanislaus, the Modesto Airport District had the highest amount of animals sent to the gulags of the Stanislaus County Animal Control (We don’t call it the “humane society” anymore, of course).<br />
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And then there was that time, not so long ago, that I lost a pit bull to a kidnapping and then it was used for training a fighting dog, all for the purpose of killing my dog. I think this was some sort of a gang assault against me, but the children that witnessed it said nothing about that per say. Of course, to avoid any legal entanglements like a possible 187 charge for either one of us, I just don’t go there. In any way.<br />
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Though I do often use my snitch abilities to report illegal dog breeding and fighting, but it is just not as satisfying as a sawed off shot gun would seem to be.<br />
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And of course that’s where it starts. Local feuds and fights over dogs and dog fights. That’s just life in the Modesto Airport District. For pit-bulls and those that love them or use them. <br />
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I did not raise mine to fight. But I guess that is all over now, what with the presumptuousness of the tweaked out natives of the Modesto Airport District and their dog-fighting heritage. <br />
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Why shouldn’t they have the right to steal my dog and use it for live training bait for a gun-powder fed, hard ran dog raised for nothing more than an illegal activity so many seem to overlook as an infraction here in Stanislaus County?<br />
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I was once mauled by four pit-bulls in the street, one morning. Like a pack of demons - lovingly cuddly and soft puppies came out of the middle of nowhere and seduced me into dropping to my knees to embrace them on the side of the road, with the foreboding thought on my mind, “Oh God, now they are all going to be following me.”<br />
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And then of course, there was that time I found myself on my knees once more, gently head butting a cat on the sidewalk. I turn my head to notice an MPD officer shaking his head and grinning at me. I would have waved, but that does not go over to well in the area. The affiliation with law enforcement is frowned upon by many, mostly the white residents, such as the multi-generational corn fed speed freaks that kidnapped my dog to feed it to theirs.<br />
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But there are enough of them that I have to work with, that I try to keep any type of a law enforcement affiliation on the “down low”. Now that I work out of a bail bonds company in the Modesto Airport District, this problem is fading as well as they are better able to peg me now, as opposed to before, when they were mostly overcome with confusion when I told them that I was not a social worker, but would not describe myself any further than using the words activist, advocate, sponsor, etc.<br />
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It’s also one of the primary defense points showing it’s true colors regarding Stanislaus County Sheriff Deputy Investigator Kari Abbey’s falsely received assertions from fringe media, not even pervasive in the community, that under the color of law, she exercised unfair advantages over tenants that lived in this same area. This would be virtually impossible, and as an officer, herself, well known to her, that it would more than likely constitute recklessness to the point of suicide by gang if she was to openly flaunt to her tenants that she was affiliated with law enforcement. But like the rest of the general public, you may not have been aware of that.<br />
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I have had countless violent encounters with dogs in the Airport District, generally in the early hours of the morning. It did not take me long to learn that the trick to surviving an attack by an animal, is the ability to appear to that animal to be so menacing that they feel like they would have no chance, thereby running away from you, rather than you running away from them. That and a hot cup of coffee works pretty good too.<br />
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The Modesto Airport District as of 2004 through 2005 is mostly comprised of Mexicans now. A much healthier and positive culture than the red-necked corn fed NAZI speed freaks that previously dignified the primary demographic of the Modesto Airport District, no matter how humble their dust-bowl fashioned beginnings may seem to be by any, including myself.<br />
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But I still miss my dog.</b></span><br />
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Copyright 2011 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-82217820753073384682011-10-16T22:58:00.000-07:002016-09-23T23:10:38.942-07:00When it's Christmas out in Ho Chi Minh<em><b>Robert Stanford reporting live, from the Modesto Airport Business District.</b></em><br />
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<b>Thus the story so far….</b><br />
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<b>So the flower shop across the street has now disbarred me from boutiqing1, I am quite sure. It is a combination of the words “kidnapping” and “extortion” that they cannot seem to get past.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Either that, or the older man of the shop is quite shaken, scared and all the more offended, after I chased after him one day, in a performance designed to dissuade those that would defecate along the back doors of the office. Perhaps it was a mistaken identity, but either way, a shortcut to where again?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>But that’s just what happens when you walk out onto the stage of that kind of a reality. You just don’t know what you will find. What you will face. Many assumptions will be made of involuntary necessity of survival. Depending on the situation of course. Or not.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>And in the seemingly newly dedicated way, the “Mission District” has set about building up within their few city block domain. King of the homeless problem. Expanding the detox center - new life for good people. Well “Praise the Lord”.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>I wanted to get some pictures, but the abatement crew that came to abate the asbestos in the building ruined my best shots. Who do I sue?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Interesting, the struggles the Modesto Union Gospel Mission has endured under the felinity and circumspect attacks of the La Loma Neighborhood Association’s assault upon the homeless in a Melville storyline manner with Mike Moradian at the helm. No matter, though. Just another contestant for the Robert Stanford Local Celebrity Death Pool.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>I even have it figured out what I shall stamp in blood red letters across his apple pie face. I was going to use it for Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Kenneth Tam, but thought better to bite my tongue for the time being, in favor of coming back later for Tam with some interactive video of a rape scene from the movie Pulp Fiction. Therefore, I find it comforting and satisfying to use it to brand Mike Moradian’s portrait - FAGGOT. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>It would seem that the Voice of Modesto's very own Less Nesman, Emerson Drake, has left the building, never to be heard from again? It’s all hush hush and on the Q-T - like that police report the publisher filed on his laptop and precinct lists. I certainly hope that when I am old and decrepit, that I do not see middle aged men as nothing more than a group of juvenile delinquents that neer do well, not paying attention to me in my poli-sci class. Mindy should really put him in a home now.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>And of all days to day. I cannot get the thought out of my mind of carmen, standing there, with the Modesto Bee in one hand and holding his weenie in the other.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Probably because he will be sporting a hot-dog cart at his makeshift Italian diner hustling for votes with party poppers and kazoos - complete with a coned party hat that is just 10 sizes to small for him……..it’s his birthday after all. Today is the day2. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Of course what do I know, if I were still in the running for mayor, I would probably be selling out gay hot weenies at the Brave Bull trying to makes sure the marriage equality vote knew I was firmly in their corner. I figure they would just go along with the rest. Especially after those weenies. I know Kasey would let me do a Donna Summer DJ session if I showed up in drag. Or not.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Walking around the corner the other day, suddenly everything became unfamiliar and dark as the wind blew about handbills of announcement that only jimson root could tell. And an old lady with large hairs growing from her chin looked up from the cumbersome misused baby stroller and cackled, “How cum yoo not in jaaayle?”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>I said nothing. I just kept trying to wake up and then I saw him. The old man that had once been so friendly now peeked up and over at me as he scurried inside to the safety of his building to be warm and protected from two words - “kidnapping” and “extortion”.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>To get to the Vietnamese refugee camp or home, I have to cross in front of the Modesto Union Gospel Mission. Tempestuous it is. Once having to walk home from work crippled by my very shoes, I limped across the fresh tarmac, yet stopped midway. I looked down and took off the shoes that tortured me so. As I looked up and over, I saw a young man grinning at me. Or so I thought. I did not have my glasses and he was far too away for me to see. There may have not been anyone there at all.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“You’re quite an interesting character.” The youthfully beaming apparition said to me. Or not.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“Yeah, why is that?” I asked sharply, as though I had several cars to be lubing in Brooklyn, all the while, proceeding to take off my socks.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“You just are. You work at that bail bonds place, don’t you?”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“Why?”, I hissed. “What do you want?”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“Nothin, I just….”, and with that I briskly stormed away from him, unencumbered by ill fitting shoes as though I was born to walk through the Modesto Airport District without fear of neither needle, metal or glass.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Tonight the Brown Shirt NAZI guards of the Modesto Gospel Mission were even farther away. To me it looked as though they were rising up, preparing to shoot me down with .22 cal. pistols and then proceed to call animal control for a “pick up”. Or not. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Maybe they would whisk my body into the building and feed me to the homeless. One could only hope, considering the five million dollars they brought in for the year 2010, the gruel they currently serve those unfortunate enough to have to endure the sacrifice of their very Constitutional rights for a partial portion of a disgusting meal. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Here. You can have mine.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>No, no. I’ll be allright (live longer). Cigarette?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Ducking into the safety of the Vietnamese refugee camp, it is in and of itself, the perfect camouflage. The perfect cover. The perfect disguise. Where everyone knows your name. Well, my name at least.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“Pollo. So they away take the man and the girl?”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“Everyone is out now. Yeah. But it’s all political. You know. Like in Vietnam.”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“I not joking now. You need be serious. I worry about you. You be careful.”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“It’s all political. Seriously. Everything is fine - they are lying in the newspaper”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“You want coffee Pollo?”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“Yes, please. You know, I would love some coffee. Some coffee would be great. Thank you. Yes. Coffee. Coffee coffee coffee”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>The Vietnamese Refugee camp is on the Yosemite Boulevard, which is just a fancy name for a short stretch of the 132 interstate. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>And here, along that interstate in this God Forsaken valley is this place. A place where Vietnamese hospitality is taken advantage of as though it were franchised. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>A refuge from the rain, the cold, your problems or the police. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Not from me though.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>I saw her grinning twice as wide today, from in the back of the camp, in the kitchen. It was the Den Mother. “Hi Pollo!”. Obviously relieved that I was not arrested and taken to jail along with “the man and the girl”. “You OK?”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“It’s political. It’s all political. You know, like Vietnam.”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“Pollo!” The other one snapped, “We not from Vietnam. We Cambodian.”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“Same thing. I saw Apocolypse Now.” I said smugly, as though I was tossing imaginarily long locks of hair across my other shoulder.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“What? What Pollo?”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“It’s a movie. It’s about the war.”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“Oh, the war. I little girl then. That long time ago. You want donut, Pollo? I give to you.”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“He don’t need more donut. He get fat now!” The Den Mother said, upon coming across to the counter to join us. “You OK?”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“I’m fine. Really. And so are they. This is not what they tell you it is. It is totally different”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“You promise? You don’t want donut? I sorry for what I said. You not fat. You need more more donut!!!”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Our laughter chimed as a reminder to me that everything was meant to be the way it is today, despite how uncertain it might seem all too often. As though there is no use to resist and fight for the preservation of moments such as these. Right Here. Right Now - a refuge. A home. A place free from those that would enslave, imprison and kill us without any recourse to the law for us.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Just like Vietnam. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b>1. Sorry, it was unspellable.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>2. Actually, I wrote that last week. So it’s really not his birthday today. And yes he is still alive. But I got fifty says he won’t make to election - ricket’s - they move fast.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Copyright 2011 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.</b>ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-7420969840408559672011-09-16T12:37:00.000-07:002016-09-23T23:11:55.744-07:00I Wish It Were Federal FridayWritten September 16th 2011 a couple of days after Aleo Pontillo and Janelle Llorens were arrested on charges of kidnapping and extortion by a rogue justice system in Stanislaus County<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">I Wish It Were Federal Friday<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">By<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Robert W. Stanford</span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">With
nothing more than a glance across an empty desk I can see what intricate games
she may be in the mood for, seemingly guided by the phases of the moon, they
are only random to me when I don’t look up into the night sky to keep track of
the astronomically astrological force that guides the ocean’s waves.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Familiarity
breeds habits of escape. Especially at a time such as this, as my glace reveals
who her real friends are. Me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">We
use to sit closer, without the empty desk between us. She didn’t want me to go,
nor did I as much care to, yet by the same worry and fret that had caused me to
lose track of the paths of the moon, so too did I need to position myself for a
secluded power base in the midst of Bad Moon irony.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Trading
names like bubble gum cards, ours was the language of twins. Others that
listened could not quite understand as we exchanged names, like machine gun
fire – the ammunition jacketed in the details of a payment history, telephone
record and residency report. Perfectly, we complimented each name by providing
the date the other lacked. We had momentum. Ah, that’ synchronicity.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">What
better job could one have, then be able to work n a environment that is all too
easily transformed into a Soho café?<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">With
the chatter of nail paint and quaint experiences wrapped within moments of
brief silence, only to be bundled among moments of what to others seemed like
some esoteric wordplay – as though two detectives had been working the same case
and began to compare notes from memory.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">So
hedonistic I had become while entrapped in the arrogant elegance that Soho café
had offer. And then of course there was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i>
girl. Suddenly she and he were gone. Leaving nothing more than myself and my
twin.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">We
had lost our audience that had never once thought of walking out.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">As
though an era had ended somehow, it seemed, looking across the aisle, out of
habit expecting a glance, or two, yet nothing. There was no one there. So
discomforting, and it’s not even Federal Friday yet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">“You’re
goin’ down Stanford!!! You’re goin’ down!” he said, his carefully fixed gaze of
the board meeting mine. “I’m gonna crush you Stanford.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Then
pushing back a bit into his seat, he lifted his Herculean arms and said, “You’re
white man.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">And
then a bit louder, “Hey! Dumbass! It’s your move!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Slowly
I relaxed the dramatically acted squint in my eyes, “What?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">“It’s
you’re move! C’mon maaan.” Rising his hand half way to his forehead as though
he thought he was about to suddenly experience a migraine.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">“Oh,
ahem. OK. Here we go…” and it was King’s Pawn to King Pawn’s three. All within
the motion of moving my piece, his palm began to be rubbed on his leg and become
the tell that I was successful in my attempt to at least create an immediate distraction
for him. Knowing that he would insist on wanting my attention on the game at
least close to what his was. We both wanted a better game and we knew how to
get it from each other if for no other reason than it was our one thousandth
game.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Such
a charming piece in my life it was. Another natural environment that I shall,
for all my days, liken to a remote resort. Yet forever haunting me would be the
inevitable public perception that I see to this day, is all too real. That
rather than fancying myself having vividly inspirational and deep conversation
with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, it would be more likened to H.G. Wells playing
chess with Jack the Ripper, in grand revolutionarily debatable conversation of
the siege of the New World Order – for us, as we are increasingly oppressed
today by the same Police State as foretold by the most brilliant individuals throughout
Americas history, today, the 4th Reich of the United States of America. Nothing
more, than a forever burning red, white and blue flag, dipped in chocolate
sauce.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">And
now that Federal Friday has come and gone, no longer do I bear the yoke of that
despair. That anticipation of what others may think.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">What
others think of me is power that they believe they have over me, as well as
others. Something to hang over one’s head as it were. Wisdom from the very
sandboxes of kindergarten. If you do not believe as they wish, then they will
subtly demonstrate the lack of their faith in your moral turpitudes. Birds of a
feather and all that, you know.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">But
I am not so sure that applies to me. No. Not me. I am on the teeter-totter. It
is nowhere near the sandbox.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">My
ride is much wilder.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">So
I try not play with them and just like unwashed hair, my image begins to look
rather “rogue”. Which is OK, since many ultra-conservatives have assured me that
they believe in me enough to wait and see if they believe in my cause. There is
a God after all, I suppose.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Through
the desperation of moments that test the very definition of my courage – many differences
of opinion between myself and members of the community quickly dissolve like
water into wine. Like darkness into light. The discovery of what is most
important, without being so judgmental as to mock God himself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">It
all started one morning in the Vietnamese Refugee Camp disguised a <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>remodeled Winchell’s Donut franchise – Ho Chi
Minh.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Since
I last wrote about the camp, many confused my reference to our Den Mother, as
MA – the top of the Vietnamese food chain gang, borne of the necessity of years
of genocidal warfare. The survival of refugees and lard. Having spent time in
prison, coming away with a tattoo so crafted from generations upon generations
of Vietnamese tattoo artists. So inked that it is disguised as a birth mark,
just under her left eye.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">A
tattoo one gets for killing another in a Vietnamese gulag.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Or
so, I delighted in teasing her.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">“Oh,
Pollo!” she starts out, gathering the other regular’s attention, “Yeah! I take
a shiv. I stab him with a shiv, man!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">It’s
the same joke told in a different way every day. This day could be heard
Spanish translation of what we just said. And then more laughter. As each of
the patrons throws out his or her try for a quick line to carry on the joke.
Accept for the new customer of course, having not been in there at the 7AM
rush, and if they be bold enough to still be there with us, they are nervously
clenching their teeth, yet not laughing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">They
inevitably do not understand our humor. It belongs to us, after all – They don’t
live in the Airport District. It has been steeping for 7 years. The same joke –
every day – like so many unfinished crossword puzzles.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">The
laughter from the half dozen Mexicans lulls the unsuspecting new customers into
accepting the reality that this actually is, a remodeled Winchell’s donut franchise
and not a Vietnamese refugee camp.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">And
then the next day everyone read the newspaper or had it read to them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">By
a glance across the count, I could tell that Federal Friday had finally come.
Chin wasn’t going to play the Vietnamese gulag killing joke today.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">It’s
just not funny anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<br />ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-5504435927244579552011-08-21T20:32:00.000-07:002016-09-23T23:12:50.827-07:00Pain, Suffering and Families Dying Out From Methamphetamine Abuse In the Modesto Airport District<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><br /></b>
<b>By </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Robert Stanford</b><br />
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<b>For a sociological perspective, myself and Jorge Perez conducted a tour for the teachers of Modesto’s Johansen High School of the Modesto South Side, Empire1 and the Modesto Airport District.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Jorge Perez explained plainly to the school bus-load of teachers, the recruiting practices of South Side Gangs. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>As we sat in the still hours of the morning, that time that the dew is just about completely gone, inside the school bus, pulled up along side the park, Jorge Perez unfolded, in no uncertain terms, the ongoing true reality of gang recruitment, combined with the seriousness of a matador facing off understanding with the Norteno Red Cape as an abrupt wake-up call. “This is where these kids are coming from.”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“Excuse me”, one of the teachers asked, raising her hand as though grandmother’s Kleenex was about to escape the comfort of her sleeve. “Did you say as young as sixth grade?”</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Jorge stared from the steps of the forward door of the bus out into the South Side expanse through the back window and in a surprising undertone answered succinctly and precisely, “Yes”.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“Oh my…” she said, through the fingertips rapidly forming a shield across her mouth to protect the outside world from the shock waves beginning to ripple through her very being. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>All from an experience of sitting where that sixth grader is going to sit while awaiting recruitment. Awaiting to be “jumped in”2 to a Gang to sell drugs for the gang - an instant Prop 21 gang enhancement for the sixth grader, who shouldn‘t have to know any better to begin with.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Of course, she had it well, as I had mistakenly prepared the teacher sitting next to me that this was more of a historical society tour, rather than a tour having really nothing to do with anything more than a dramatically infused experience of demonstrating the potential of youth in the ashes of suffering, pain, violence and death.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Reciting property titles of the local Empyrean bar and admission requirements according to decade, I became so caught up in my own esteem fulfillment of manipulating through over talking her to the point of relating anything that was said to the admission policy and era of the Empyrean bar. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>All meant to be a grand platform to explain generational pockets of a 1.2 square mile area4 in which entire families are dying out due to methamphetamine use. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>A deadly affliction that entered the family through the mother of invention during the war3. Something that began when their heritage first took up in the Modesto Airport District in the late 1930’s and 1940’s - Fathers absent due to hardships and war left single mothers to care for themselves at a time in which women made approximately half of what their male counterparts made in the local canneries all to support a household comprised of themselves and their children.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Children borne of a time of prosperity in their parent’s lives. Just a couple of years prior to the dust bowl that came to destroy everything they had worked all of their lives for. But those outside of the Airport District had not had the opportunity to see them before they became poor.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
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<b>To work the double shifts, most of the working single mothers in the Modesto Airport District at this time, resorted to ingesting bennies5 to endure their sixteen to twenty hour shifts in a facility that in the summer, smelted glass and did not have the conveniences of the Gallo glass plant, today.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>People from other areas of the town would look down upon these “Arkies and Okies”, calling them, “Down in the Gallos”.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>In the 1930’s and 1940’s drug addiction was not widely understood by any means. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Most of the problems with drugs in the area had traditionally been opiate in nature, through opium used in the raw by the Chinese at the turn of the 20th century, to the injection of the plant refined as heroin. Some heroin imported in different formats of purities.6 However, speed was quickly becoming the acceptable drug of choice - “Mother’s little helper”. The one to be used before you completely give up.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Kids being kids, of course learn as they are imprinted in other ways7. Therefore, as these single working mothers adopted a lifestyle with other single working mothers in their “neighborhood” or “District”, as I like to call it, the children they were supporting understood all too clearly that to succeed down in the Gallos, or anywhere else, was to use amphetamines. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>And, once again, there was little if any information at the time in any form that would educate them that this was an addictive method, saving their only experience being the likelihood that they would have been able to see after so many generations today what the end result was going to be - that this very drug was going to completely kill off their entire family line. Of course this is 2011 and that was in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Mothers and fathers living with their children and grandchildren, with the adults of the household working sixteen to twenty hours a day, down in the Gallos. All strung out on speed if they were old enough to pop the pills. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Especially affected as they were growing up into the Vietnam war and the plethora of drugs that dominated the hyper-epidemic drug phenomena throughout the world. Not that this was a new event, mind you.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>And still to this day - families remain. Dying from the habitual use of what social speed freaking has become - Crack and Meth. A white line nightmare. Death. Death. Death. Then nothing. Nothing. Nothing.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Nothing but ashes and another generation of children in some instances, yet not in others. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>But it was these children that remained which was primarily a part of my concern when it was suggested that one might care to think on those that might be saved in a triage sort of way in the Modesto Airport District.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Both Jorge Perez and I, Robert Stanford, valiantly proposed a single call to action for each teacher on the four hour cruise that day. A call to reach out and show caring. To mentor. Every child needs one.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Due to the jacked-up, white methamphetamine and heroin addicts that comprise a significantly large portion of the Modesto Airport’s demographic, their recent two decade die off combined with the housing foreclosure crisis has been filled with Mexican immigrants with different problems but identical needs.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>However, during the migration of the Mexican population which occurred at the same time as the “housing foreclosure crisis”, they became preyed upon by PMZ8 affiliates preaching from the short sale scripture.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Re-Fi men and women in sharp business suits descended upon the historic properties like a plague of unwatched hyenas, luring poodles out into a trap through play, only to feed on the family pet. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>This was perpetuated by such as organizations such as El Concilio that had catered to building bridges between Re-fi cons (real estate agents) and the quickly in fluxing Mexicano immigrant population by taking healthy contributions from Wells Fargo, County Bank and other institutions while allowing Mike Zagaris himself to serve prominently on their board. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Not that Mike Zagaris speaks Spanish, but what business could be had from serving on the board of an organization that simply stated by their own declared charter and mission as a Civil service organization for the Spanish speaking?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Perhaps the same as Steve Madison experiences as serving on the Salvation Army board. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>An organization that serves displaced families that have come in floods as though it were another migration similar to that which originally and still fills the Modesto Airport District due to the “housing foreclosure crisis”. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>In short, what are quite simply, these displaced families that have worked so hard for nothing? </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Steve Madison’s victims. As are anyone that can’t find work today in Stanislaus County.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>But Madison will not elude to displaced families, the elderly or the disabled. It’s all about the homeless wino hobo for Steve - those are the only ones we need to care about. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>And in the best interests of everyone involved in their existence (or around at the time) is to get rid of them and save yourself the trouble of picking up your own trash (again). </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>And like the asbestos ridden bricks secretly buried9 in the vacant lot of another bribe to me from down in the Gallos for a “Victory Garden” - what better way to cover your evil deeds and dispose of the soon-to-be bodies but by gifting them to you? </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>I had spoke to a sociology class a few years before, in which the spot chosen was not ideal for me due to so many personal experiences of death, pain, suffering, joy, love, sunshine, children laughing, etc. for so long in Oregon park. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Yet at the time I just found myself there - words came quite easily to me then, as I was speaking in public at the very least a half dozen times every week and sometimes many more.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Not this time though. All I could think of was homicide. I felt that I had completely failed at what I was trying to accomplish by allowing myself to show that I was certainly not as emotionally detached from my cause as I should have been. For an overtly macho and non-effeminate male, such as I, it was quite an embarrassing episode.</b><br />
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<b>Feedback that I received showed otherwise, however11</b><br />
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<b>As it was with the sociology class before, though, so it was here once again as we arrived and began to pull up to Oregon park. </b><br />
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<b>Jorge Perez introduced me as though I was the king of the Modesto Airport District, which I have no choice but to agree with, certainly having paid prices here no one else has, he still left me with quite large shoes to fill in my presentation. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>A presentation I had not prepared for.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Rather, I had inadvertently wasted any preparation time that I had once possessed10 by trying to seduce the teacher sitting next to me into becoming fixated upon my historical observations of the die off occurring to the white population, that at one time, to a greater extent than now, dominated the demographics of the Modesto Airport District. But due their untimely methamphetamine fueled deaths - not any more.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
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<b>Once again, I was overtaken by those things that men should never do. God’s mistakes, if you will. The tears brought by memories of joys intertwined with the most horrible of imaginable tragedies.</b><br />
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<b>I thought, also once again, that I had failed, being unable to remember anything that I had said, due to having been overcome with the vapors of my own scarring emotions. </b><br />
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<b>I asked the coordinator of the ghetto field trip, what she thought in a practically apologizing manner12. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>To which she succinctly and surprisingly simply answered, “No, God that was great! I even wrote down what you said. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>You said, “You can change someone’s life if you just show them you care.”</b><br />
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<b>1. (Empire - out Interstate 132 toward the direction of what was once thought of to be Paradise, until it burned down by the power of the railroad and wheat Nero’s of the Stanislaus day. {Google this: PMZ Agricultural Heritage Killing Machine})</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>2. Jumped in - Usually in the Modesto South Side as well as other areas of gang influence, jumping in means to be severely beaten by several other “gangsters” for permanent initiation into the gang. The price of leaving ever, being that of death.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>3. WWII</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>4. The Modesto Airport District</b><br />
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<b>5. Prescription speed in table form. I.e. Cross Tops, later to come robin eggs and black beauties - speed.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>6. And it was these formats of purities which changed somewhat the alignment of their ruling planets based on ingredients that may or may not have been added to the substance as a “cut” - (an ingredient to increase the drugs weight for sale) with it - but this is an entirely different topic of astrological drug recovery - similar to acupuncture in method and theory, except more “astronomical” from a Western imprinted human mind‘s perspective.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>7. Hope you read the foot note, or you shall not be able to experience the brevity of the sentence that this footnote refers to.</b><br />
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<b>8. PMZ - Petrulakis, Madison and Zagaris - The Overlords of the City of Modesto. What are they in all reality? Answer: Strip Miners.</b><br />
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<b>9. Like so many forgotten septic tanks of 1968 through 1972 as the City of Modesto “sewered up”. KABOOM!!!! {someday - you watch!}</b><br />
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<b>10. If one can actually possess such a thing.</b><br />
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<b>11. <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/36874887/Airport-Presentation-2008-MJC-Sociology">http://www.scribd.com/doc/36874887/Airport-Presentation-2008-MJC-Sociology</a></b><br />
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<b>12. Just in case, since I could not remember anything that I had said.</b><br />
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<b>Copyright 2011 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.</b>ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-46637325433661888132011-01-28T21:51:00.000-08:002016-09-23T23:14:29.690-07:00Gentle Be The Night<div class="MsoNormal">
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On January 25<sup>th</sup> in the afternoon, 3 people were shot in a Modesto Airport District Asian Market. That was a few days before the time of this writing. Spending long hours in the epicenter of the Modesto Airport Business District, I have decided to disclose some of the events and thoughts of the past couple of days. Just in case someone were to forget…</div>
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I inadvertently stole a set of keys last night as I left the Business District for the Residential. Yet another reminder of my state of mind as of late as I felt them inside my black leather pocket while pacing over to the Vietnamese mess hall. An illusion, as it were, perpetrated by a healthy need to run away from runaway thoughts. <o:p></o:p></div>
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With no pertinent song going through my head this evening, I hoped to look up from the antiquated sidewalk beneath my strolling feet to find old man Chino’s car in front of the Vietnamese Refugee Camp. Alas, no car.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Hurray”! I thought, pedantically to myself, as the grape eating fox in an old fable of lore, as my mind took over my very spirit and replaced my present experience for no more than a split second. Enough time, however, to reminisce of another day.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A day I scanned the antiquated sidewalks of the Airport Business District in desperation. A keen eye on the outlook for a prized set of bottle caps for my collection. Royal Crown.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At the corner of Oregon and Benson, there was an antiquated car repair/tow shop, where old men would gather with their beer and hidden pint-whiskey bottles, speaking of what a bastard Nixon was. Some of the old junkies from the area would need a little nip of sugar and would purchase the only soda-pop that was stocked in the store’s vending machine – Royal Crown.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The pewter looking bottle opener, firmly bolted on one side to the front of the machine’s locked steel and glass door was inoperably broken in half. The owner of the shop was usually too drunk to find the bottle opener I had once brought to him. An offering it was, in exchange for his silence regarding my crimes of ditching and hitching the Pacific from Empire. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The junkies would venture to Yosemite with unopened bottles of RC Cola, and have them opened by various people in various places that happened to have bottle openers. Failing that, they would open them somehow from the Pool shop to the Iron Gate. And it was along this fascinating sidewalk path that I had built my colossal and prized bottle cap collection.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But that was more than thirty years ago now. A much more innocent time, when I was ignorant of all of the stress and suffering about me on the streets of the Modesto Airport District. My only concern being one of getting caught having stowed on the Pacific Railroad train and jumping off from Empire Elementary (now “Teel”) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>into the Modesto Airport District.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Such a place in memory, cut out so perfectly for escape, until I can see my friend, cooking for the next day’s fare in the back of the Vietnamese Refugee Camp. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another place to run to, away from those things too painful to remind myself are real for today. Swapping Menthol Kools for Cambodian cigarettes and back again, with experience and discussing proclamations about what is cool and what shall be cool. Rolling out the dough of tomorrow, dough stolen from the Americans.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I watched as the storm troopers descended on all that is now left for us of our extended family. A family that was a vital organ in the body that makes up the Modesto Airport Business District. Traffic everyone shared together as the Airport District has grown and evolved through it’s never ending quest for survival – and at times, even recovery. Again and again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Urged on by others, I boldly jay walked across the street. Proudly holding my Bic lighter in my clenched fist I set at re-lighting the candles, incense and a couple of things I did not recognize back aflame.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Security Guard at the Gospel Mission finally called me by my proper name again, “Mr. Stanford, how are you this evening?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Sad.”, I said.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And then suddenly some lady appeared out of nowhere. One had only to witness her clothes to know that she had probably never been on Yosemite Boulevard before, and had been, like so many others for the past 25 years, deceived by the outer appearance of the Vietnamese Refugee Camp. But we knew how to play our part. Besides, it was American dough – she would never even know the difference.<o:p></o:p></div>
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She did not want to partake of the stolen American dough though – that wasn’t why she was there at all. Just a small cup of Vietnamese “Cup-o-Joe” that within moments she was sobbing into, with her hands shaking out small amounts of the hot liquid, dripping across her fingers as her tears ran down her face, saying all the while, </div>
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“I am so so sorry. This is so senseless. Oh God. I am so, so sorry. I put a flower and a little bear in front of their store….Oh God…..”</div>
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Our Den mother tried her best to comfort her, “It OK now. They in better place now. It OK.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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As myself and my otherwise giggling confidante looked deep into each other’s eyes, he said, “I don’t know. My friend he say he order some for us. It four dollar. we get five pack. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like only one mint cigarette. I don’t know how you smoke those man.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I like the Cambodian ones. Not all the time though”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Me no like either. The mint. One when you here. But that enough for me.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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The sobbing Lady from out of town looked over at us as though we were horse playing in the pews of her own mother’s funeral. So when she finally allowed our Den Mother to wait on other customers, I followed her out to her car.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Excuse me. Um. Excuse me. Hi. My name is Robert Stanford, and I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate someone not from here understanding us. I can tell you understand us. That is very special. I just felt like I should at least say that to you. Thank you. Thank you for caring…”<o:p></o:p></div>
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She looked at me with Betty Davis eyes and said, “What?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Copyright 2011 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-5567007376535947272010-12-30T19:52:00.000-08:002016-09-23T23:19:46.116-07:00Suicide By Behavior - Terry Nicholson 1965 - 2010<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<b>People literally die every day. They have for some time now, but I could not quite tell you the last time in the history of the city of Modesto at least, that there has been a day without death of one cause or another.</b></div>
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<b>Though there have been literally hundreds of days that people may have died, but not anyone that I had any type of connection with socially or otherwise. The days between those days have become fewer days in between as of late however. </b></div>
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<b>A few of these days ago, it was Christmas again in the Modesto Airport District and other areas throughout the city as well. Tevan Nicholson, known to me and several others as Terry, was found mortally injured in a house not far from where we have chatted daily for approximately the past four months now. Long enough to offer up interesting anecdotes and stories regarding our time together, however briefly one may say it had a quality for me that was useful in describing the negative aspects of outreach advocacy. </b></div>
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<b>In other words, Terry was the poster child of how useless and futile my progress has been in affecting lives and returning to another part of the city with methodology that can be counted on as effective in the solution of “poverty problems” for the “rest of the population”.</b></div>
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<b>Terry was quite the challenge – every day – In the early mornings, 7 to 9 am, I could catch Terry sitting on an obscure curb in the Yosemite Jack In The Box parking lot, reading. We would discuss various authors, often trading several names in rapid fire succession, seeking for recognition within each other’s memory. </b></div>
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<b>But after about 9 in the morning, the conversation would begin to change as a mutual friend of ours, Ricky, would rise from his “camp” slumber around 10 in the morning – every day, mind you. That was before the weather began to change to a tepid chill in the nights. For then Ricky and Terry had foregone their camps to reside in the mission. This would mean that they could not stay out until 9 or 10 o’clock at night, as Ricky normally camped at this time, with Terry following, if he had been lucky enough not to be arrested that day for public intoxication.</b></div>
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<b>Both of them were able to take up residence at the mission, however, it was no more than a week at the most, that one of the Black Shirts (a term many of the Mission residents use to describe the staff) banned Terry from the Mission for six months. </b></div>
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<b>It was far later than the 9 Am threshold for Terry. Terry was quite verbally abusive by this time to anyone he thought were not willing to either give him change for a beer, cigarettes or food. This of course was inclusive of everyone, except for “Mr. Stanford”. I had a free pass because I was a “beautiful man” and Terry would drone on and on how I was the only person that ever gave him two dollars. I didn’t have to, but I did. I did that for him. I am a beautiful man. But to everyone else, including our mutual friend, Ricky, it was, “bend over bitch. Let me fuck you up the ass. Shit if you don’t want to just give me fifty cent. Fifty cent. God damn, that ain’t much!”</b></div>
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<b>It was that kind of talk that got him kicked out of the Mission. I did happen to catch the Black Shirt that had banished Terry into the cold, one night in the Vietnam Refuge Donut Salon, parked like a 25 year old RV right next door to the Mission. </b></div>
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<b>Often the Black Shirts roam in, like eugenically rogue Modesto Police officers and order their sixty-five cent donut and eighty-five cent small coffee, making small talk with the frightened refugees behind the counter and saying ad-noseum, “praise God”. “Praise Jesus”. “Glory be unto him”. </b></div>
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<b>It was during one of these “look how much I act like Jesus” diatribes of the Black Shirt, that I caught him off guard by actually making conversation – “Hey, there’s this black guy that you kicked out of the mission last night……”</b></div>
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<b>“Hey, I know you have a heart for these people, but they gotta follow the rules.”</b></div>
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<b>“I understand that, but look, what if I come with him and have dinner every night and stay until he goes to bed – I can keep him calm for you.”</b></div>
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<b>“Sorry bud, no can do. He knows the rules. He broke ‘em. My hands are tied ‘brother’. Have you tried the other shelter at 9<sup>th</sup> and D?”</b></div>
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<b>“Yeah, I’m working on that – I hear they have a breathalyzer though – my guy’s not going to be able to pass that. Look, we’re going to have some freezes pretty soon and I don’t wanna to pick this guy up in a body bag along the river. Can you please, just let me come with him and stay with him until it’s lights out.”</b></div>
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<b>“I gotta go bud. God bless you.” He summed up, extending his gritty slimy hand, like his shit didn’t stink.</b></div>
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<b>“Allright, look”, I said, “ I will let you know about the Red Shield ok, but if I have to, I’ll go to the office during the day. I can’t leave him in the frost.”</b></div>
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<b>I knew of course, how bad Terry got between the hours of nine to nine every day. Drunk. Belligerent and oh so verbally assaulting. Because, it was not more than perhaps a week before my plea to the Black Shirt that I had gone into the Jack In the Box to acquire some tacos for a junky senior citizen sitting in Terry’s morning spot. </b></div>
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<b>But this was before the nights pushed many into the Mission. Several of us would converge at the same spot where Terry and me would discuss literature in the mornings. As I came out of the restaurant, I was consumed by a mother’s force of will to defend Terry from five white teens beating on him with their fists. </b></div>
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<b>The automation of my actions took me almost as much by surprise as my sudden increased strength. So much so, that shortly after freeing Terry from this hate crime, the little Okie red-neck’s returned with their numbers doubled and wielding a machete during my ensuing 911 call.</b></div>
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<b>After the dust settled and I spoke with the police, once again later that evening, one officer said, “Hey your friend got a free pass today, but we had to kick him out of Jack in The Box. He laid down and was going to sleep on the floor, right in front of the counter!”</b></div>
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<b>For the next several days, my routine walks through the Airport Business District was comprised of scenery and reminders – SS symbols and White Power slogans. On telephone poles and crosswalk controls.</b></div>
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<b>A few days after my altercation with the Black Shirt at the Vietnamese Massaged Donut Parlor, Terry boldly came to my work. And as I met him at the door, the first thing I asked him was, “So, what did you just get out of jail again?”</b></div>
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<b>“No man. I’ve been sober for two days!”, he replied with his scrunched up eyebrows launching a celebration of sobriety. I was able to enjoy 3 more days of Terry’s sobriety after that.</b></div>
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<b>Terry never wanted me to video tape him or take his picture, so I cannot show you what he looked like. Though it would be nice if the McClatchy Bee Pravda would take some sympathetic time to provide these things, it would probably not fit their “homeless elimination” agenda.</b></div>
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<b>I could probably fill in the missing pieces that led to Terry’s injuries at the hands of this neo-nazi skin-head – but, even he has little to worry about. </b></div>
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<b>No one really cares about Terry. Not even the false prophet Black Shirt that shrugged his shoulders in the name of God when he condemned Terry to die, if not from the freeze, then by the Nazi disease.</b></div>
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<b>Rest in peace my friend, we will meet again.</b></div>
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<b>In Loving Memory - Terry Nicholson 1965 – 2010</b></div>
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<b>P.S.</b></div>
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<b>Terry, God even loves the vacuum guy. I’ll tell him you said hello! Naw, just kidding!</b></div>
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<b>Copyright 2010 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.</b>ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-68931130844335035942010-09-11T14:21:00.000-07:002016-09-23T23:20:28.728-07:00Recession, Depression and Correction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As one looks about themselves, as if anyone actually would, they see the plight that has been brought upon the working individuals and families.<br />
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It does not matter from which vantage point observations are made. All across America, it is the same. So many people losing everything they have worked for all of their lives to obtain.<br />
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Homes well into foreclosure, record numbers of individuals and families on food stamps and aid for dependent children. Charitable organizations are experiencing demand like never before with funding and donations at all-time lows.<br />
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Like the eerie creaks from within a building, on the verge of collapse, so too, is our socio-economic structure showing the foreboding signs of certain doom A catastrophe that very well may make stern separations between the strong and the weak. A rigid division between the rich and the poor.<br />
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In a desperate attempt to secure Western civilization’s standards to coincide with the expectation of American citizens, the federal government pelts funds on the local level with conditions of demonstrative need, hoping to keep the wolves of discontent away from the gates of the oval office for just another day.<br />
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And in so doing, it would seem, to many a conservative and liberal alike, that a grand conspiracy is afoot. A master plan as it were to harvest what toil is left from the American masses by perpetuating a dependence upon the American Government, from Washington DC to the local level. A direct refusal to allow the natural cycles of free enterprise to reinvent our socio-economic way of life through death and rebirth from its own ashes.<br />
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All counties throughout the United States are being infused with general assistance and food stamp funds. Unemployment, just a year ago was on the verge of insolubility, and now has now been unnaturally extended several times. And local law enforcement agencies across the nation have had a steady infusion of cash – million and millions of dollars funneled to them, causing fake prosecutions, planted evidence and what appears to many to be the granting of prematurely derived federal powers to local officers through spontaneous deputations.<br />
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There is a dependency that has weakened and threatens to completely annihilate the American spirit.<br />
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Already, most Americans today consider the proverbial American dream, nothing more than a cruel hoax.<br />
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Meanwhile, the American people become addicted to the blame game for emotional relief and as a way to preserve what little self-respect they still have left.<br />
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Immigration – both legal and otherwise becomes an immediate prime target. The concepts which become immediately acceptable are mostly comprised of generalizations that encompass all immigrants and for the sake of providing venting comfort, the negative aspects are singled out, embellished to an extreme and redundantly chanted through sensationalistic media and wide spread word of mouth, so that the definition of immigration and only it’s negative assets become common and collective knowledge.<br />
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The same begins to hold true for those that look down upon others that have fallen further down through the socio-economic ranks to a status of intense poverty. Compassion and empathy no longer stands on its own as a naturally occurring social value. <br />
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More and more we see that to be maintained, these values must be propagated by churches, charity groups and local community leaders. As though these groups and leaders were like coaches, pushing an exhausted sports team to finish out a losing game and remain respectfully good sports to the other side, regardless of the point – spread mentality of each individual player.<br />
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Since even before the technological miracles spurned by the tumultuous and now all but forgotten necessities of invention of World War II, contemporary American society still has yet to ask where all their time is going now.<br />
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With a third of everyone’s lives spent sleeping and another third spent with brain wave flattening television viewing, the other third is spent amongst fast food, star bucks, drugs and alcohol and these days, if one is so fortunate, under-paid and overly taxed labor generally for a corporate interest as opposed to private small businesses.<br />
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In the mid 1970’s it was found that many children in the urban areas of California (Bay Area and Los Angeles) believed that agricultural products were manufactured, rather than grown and harvested. This misconception was prevalent in the most disparate areas of the metropolises and occurred despite information that available to them otherwise via the sixty to eighty hours per week of television viewing informing them otherwise (PBS).<br />
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Since the 1970’s the urban areas have grown immensely throughout California, encompassing both North and South and our children born of generations since, have had even less exposure to information programming credited to the advent of redundant VCR/DVD/Tivo recordings and violent video games that glorify brutally criminal violence.<br />
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Diets of the masses that were still in the 1970’s at least partially balanced to adhere somewhat with Governmental recommended daily nutritional allowances have now become saturated with trans- fats, sugars and corn syrup.<br />
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As a rule, American civics and the study of what is arguably America’s most important historical lessons, such as World War II and the Great Depression are hardly even mentioned throughout the course of a students primary American education today. <br />
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American education has become a bureaucracy that has created a “teach to the test” type of an education and as a result, drop out statistics and general populace illiteracy rates have soared to proportions never seen before in contemporary American history.<br />
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All that the American people ask of themselves, their community and their Government today, is nothing more than immediate gratification, verbal reassurances for token ideals that reflect mocked values and stimulus funds aimed at cruel and unusual immigration reform so they might be able to acquire the easiest to be had jobs – food service and hotel/motel labor.<br />
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And for the news and other media on the television radio and major internet sites, there is nothing more than one huge distraction. A preoccupation of events much larger than ourselves and our individual lives despite the paltry taxes we pay, we constantly insist that all our needs be provided for us. <br />
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Our survival skills are now only honed to build a retirement to bed at the end of a look for work day or work day.<br />
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The prophesies set forth by Orwell’s 1984 or Huxley’s Brave New World have already come to pass, though society at large still consider these concepts to be no more than extraordinary literary fiction.<br />
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Both of these works written in a story-like fashion and at a time when the only acceptability of concepts such as these could be had was through the subtle delivery of fictional prose.<br />
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So easy then today, it’s just a story. And even easier now, as such reference to ideology such as this provides comfort from the American Governmental storm as we turn a blind eye to atrocities occurring in our very neighborhoods and business districts all around us, while a handful of greedy autocrats on every local level clamber for United States Federal Stimulus dollars.<br />
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Even now, as our neighbors are taken away from us in shackles, accused of the most heinous of crimes and immoral turpitudes, we dare not lift our gaze in any demonstration of support for the innocence granted by the United States constitution as an inalienable right, lest we ourselves might suffer a similar fate and spend the rest of our lives in a prison, never to breath free air again.<br />
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Our journey’s to imprisonment are being christened by rogue cops, corrupt district attorneys and an ever-increasingly corporate government overseer.<br />
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God help us all, for we certainly seem entirely incapable of making a single stand for our brothers and sisters falling victim to faceless greed.<br />
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Copyright 2010 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-74633835770509220772010-06-19T16:05:00.001-07:002016-09-25T12:46:19.521-07:00Apocalypse of the Common Wealth Private Club<br />
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So now everything seems to be calm with a few strangler issues out there, ripe for speculation, but seemingly impenetrable to ay influences outside the current City of Modesto Mayor, Ridenour and the go along to get along, do nothing - Modesto City Council.<br />
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McClatchy Park is one of the hopeless causes of the day. An experiment as it were to circumvent possible ACLU intervention in their general treatment of the homeless, addicted, mentally ill and alcoholic that reside in the downtown area. <br />
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Like the dumpster diving ordinance, the open container in the park ordinance, and some others that have also been misused and enforced differently from what was promised by their sales pitch promotions put on by the Modesto Police Department, the La Loma Neighborhood Association and yes, even myself. Another tool in the belt of law enforcement to be used for good or ill against the impoverished that occupy many of the parks surrounding the downtown Modesto areas. This one is best called a park privatization ordinance.<br />
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The same instigators of this new park privatization ordinance also bring us via City Hall, the Common Wealth Members Only club. What better way to put lip stick on a pig and thereby beautify the City of Modesto, then to eliminate the “undesirables”?<br />
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Now there is talk of Modesto City Council member, Brad Hawn carrying the torch of Moridian of the La Loma Neighborhood Association and starting an Association of the Graceda Park and College areas of Modesto. A wise move considering that if they could get a newsletter off the ground before November, there would be one less voting base to worry about. Hence come the rumors over the privatization of Graceda park. Just as fresh and vibrant as the same rumors heard from the Moridian camp. If you listen closely, you can hear the wind between their ears howl - “At last, we have a way to get rid of these bums.”<br />
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We have two announced contenders for the upcoming Modesto mayoral race- Council members, Hawn and Marsh. Already it is easy to predict that the Vache Bee is already backing Hawn, since they have changed the stock photo they use of Marsh and have replaced it with a picture of a man that looks like he is about to plunge a steak knife through his carotid just to end the pain of being a Modestan. <br />
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A good choice for the fat, old bigot – Hawn is strong with the development community and as far as the PMZ machine is concerned, Marsh has not been turned to the dark side long enough to be quantified as of yet. <br />
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And it matters. The Bee's endorsements are the strongest, considering that the average voting age of the largest percentage of Modesto residents that will cast a ballot, easily places them, even by AARP standards, as at least on the verge of dementia, therefore, they just cut out the recommendations of the Bee and place it side by side by their ballots. That is how Modesto's fate is decided. Mostly by a whole lot of people that the DMV should take a closer look at.<br />
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But then again, even in Modesto there is the motivational factor of candidate outreach. Marsh excels at that. With the precision and fortitude of a Civil War general, in every campaign, his troops leave no stone unturned when it comes to getting out the vote and getting the voters to not only vote for him, but to lobby others to vote for him.<br />
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What about a third contender? I guess that John Michael Flint, long-time columnist for the Bee knows better now than to speculate if Carmen Sabatino is going to enter the race, since his last piece on the former mayor was the only one of a few hundred pieces that the Bee rejected from him outright. <br />
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That coupled with several unprofessional jabs at Sabatino and the withholding of several letters to the editor in support of his recent supervisory run makes association with the “Target Redux” a wee bit dangerous if you want to score points with the Bee. <br />
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But when all is said and done, you are either a sold out whore or not. So Hawn will definitely have their endorsement and Marsh will not be able to sell out fast enough to get it. Besides, he is already showing weakness over his latest land use voting dilemma. May as well have Denny Jackman enter the race, now that his Shopping Cart Princess has taken her fill of the very local politics. This time around, it will probably be Marsh that will get the endorsement from Jackman.<br />
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After the Shopping Cart Princess steps into the land of milk and honey, I am sure that Jeremiah Williams will play the game just right. At least I will have an anchor on the council the next time I read off the dozen or so new names of victims of gang violence in the Modesto Airport District.<br />
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Nor will we have to worry about the stray whiskey bottles or having to stay late helping Steph sop up the vomit left at the center of the dais..<br />
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Copyright 2010 Robert W. Stanford, all rights reserved.<br />
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Copyright 2010 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-73827902067976367892010-03-09T16:51:00.000-08:002010-03-09T16:54:42.963-08:00Percentages of InterestPercentages of Interest<br />By<br />Robert Stanford<br /><br />Much of what I write is written for a specific audience. A reader that I hold in my mind as I write. Someone that I am speaking with. A generalization of a certain percentage of the people that will read the article that I create. <br /><br />Seemingly going through phases, a certain percentage of these percentages go through my mind as I prepare to write and write on whatever topic I deem is so important to communicate to a certain percentage of the percentages of people that will read it at all.<br /><br />A certain percentage of everyone that reads the title will read further. <br /><br />A certain percentage will read the first paragraph and another certain percentage will read the first two, and so on.<br /><br />Of the total number of people that will initially read the title, further percentages are assured. Such as a certain percentage of people that despise me, know me, follow my work, are investigating me for whatever reason, had been looking for another Robert Stanford, either a WWII pilot or a multi-million dollar con artist, or even perhaps a UK based Real Estate Firm. Or simply found it by accident most random, it could not possibly be called a coincidence.<br /><br />Some of these percentages I am aware of and of course, some I am not. <br /><br />A certain percentage are law enforcement, social service personnel, elected officials, activists, and some are just people that find my writing intriguing, interesting, or utterly ridiculous and fun to read.<br /><br />Of the total number or people that will initially read the title, there may be applied a very crude scale that could demonstrate in generalized terms, the amount that people are aware of who I am and what it is exactly that I do. From wherever people fall on this scale, say a scale of 0 to 100, is from where my image in these people’s minds are formed as though the gauge was at 100, no matter what approximate area of the gauge is an accurate representation of each individuals knowledge of who/what I am.<br /><br />Some of these percentages fall into specific categories in which I can speak with a select demographic – and only to them. Often this does tend to infuriate other audiences I have addressed before, yet their confusion becomes quite evident when my writing to them is basically nothing more than seemingly contrived far side one-liners strung together and broken up in paragraphs in sometimes some rather odd places. My run on sentences suddenly become an irritant to them, when before, when they read what I had specifically written for their percentage category, they were not. The piece you are reading now, however, is intended for a much broader audience. So it will not be as funny.<br /><br />And beyond the target audience, of course, falls other percentage categories of people that read the entire article.<br /><br />This contemplation of interest and the percentages of the whole that are involved in some way, and the way that they may be categorized can be applied to many things that plague our very lives and quality of life itself.<br /><br />For instance, if we were to take the entire population of drug addicts who reside as citizens of the County of Stanislaus (at least 30 days of some type of residence in the county). From this group, several categories can be identified as so probable it would be easy to arrive at a general consensus that they were in fact, facts. <br /><br />Such as a certain percentage would be able to successfully overcome their addiction if they were in an NA (Narcotics Anonymous) program. A percentage would overcome their addiction if they had a sponsor in the program. Further percentages of this selected population could be broken down by success factors, such as the dedication of the sponsor and the branch meetings of the program itself.<br /><br />To actually act upon concepts such as targeting and identifying sections of the population as a whole to recruit into these types of programs would warrant a study and speculation of interest and percentages. An identification of their categories, such as a poll to determine the difficulty of convincing the general populace that this is an effective approach to lessening the levels of drug use in their community – decrease demand and you decrease supply. <br /><br />It’s the law of prohibition. A legal state of affairs that affects every single drug addict residing in the United States today. Percentages of severity could be applied through consideration and practice, which would show, most definitely a pattern of the suffering caused by a specific stigma American society places upon drug addicts as individuals as well as a generalized population – particularly during their consideration of assisting them with their illnesses of drug addiction. So much so that interest in their percentages and corresponding categories are, as a rule, taboo discussions in many communities, including Stanislaus County.<br /><br />Such a large percentage of the community that comprises Stanislaus County are so quick to be cold and judgmental in consideration of the stereotypical image they hold in their mind when they consider the drug addict as an individual. It becomes for them an immediate representation that speaks to them on behalf of all drug addicts that comprise the entire drug addict population. Such a broad stroke they make. And for the greatest percentage of the people that make this stroke, this mental brush leaves in its wake the outline of absent responsibility. A responsibility that was long ago abandoned and is continually abandoned throughout the life of this drug addict individual – the assumption that their grip on reality and enjoyment of freedom of choice is just as strong as that of the individual that has created this spokesperson image.<br /><br />Stigma takes over and drug addicts become their own hated race. The greatest percentage of any drug addict population is constantly faced with their cries for help falling on deaf ears. Banished they are. As if they had forsaken their own souls, they are left to their own devices and every mistake they make under the shadow and fog of their drug affliction becomes a crime because it is assumed that the line that divides right and wrong is just as clear for them as it is for those that are free from addiction.<br /><br />Certainly that would apply to a certain percentage of the drug addict population. But not to all of them. And of those, why do we as a society find ourselves to be so apathetic, insensitive and lazy that we allow these people that can be healed of this disease to suffer so? <br /><br />Perhaps it is because we do not realize that they exist and we allow our mental image of the drug addict spokesperson to cause by its sole image, for us to bask in the warm glow of yielding to apathy – a human tendency to wither back when faced with adversities or their very consideration. A comforting sense that all we can ever possibly do is shrug, roll our eyes and shake our heads, safe within the comfort zone of “knowing” that every drug addict has the freedom to choose and that they choose to be the mental image we have created to appease ourselves. <br /><br />It is what has prompted me to point out and illustrate why would someone choose to wake up in the gutter with a needle sticking out of their arm? Interest and percentages. What percentage of the drug addict population choose to actually do just that? <br /><br />At what point do we dispense with the technicalities of chain-linked events resulting from a decision that was under the duress of drug inducement and look upon these individuals as though they were inflicted by a disease rather than bad morals? Would it perhaps be at the same point that we accept responsibility for our fellow citizens with a healthy respect rather than fear and disgust? Or does it go deeper than that?<br /><br />Are we perhaps afraid that we as non-addicted individuals could suffer the same fate as the mental image we have painted? Are the defining features of this image a result of our subconscious knowing that it may have in fact only been a matter of lots in life that could have lead to ourselves being represented by this image? <br /><br />An image borne of stigma. The stigma of a horrible disease that in most cases can be cured. One of the few diseases in the world that can be cured by a neighbor’s love. At least a certain and definite percentage. <br /><br />Interest and percentages conveniently forgotten by us all through our own design. The design of an image to hold in our minds as irrefutable proof that by cowering in fear and recoiling from the true drug problem, we do not have to fear becoming a part of it, though most certainly, it would be of no real fault of our own. <br /><br />How can it be so much easier to lash out and condemn those that we fear to become? <br /><br />Because when we look at them, we are truly looking at ourselves. Therefore, through no choice of our own, we already are – them.<br /><br />And as drugs continue to destroy the very fabric of our society, at what point will we realize that we do not have to resign ourselves to the oblivion that drug abuse is pushing us toward – we need nothing more than community supported programs and warm extended hands that are outstretched to our neighboring Stanislaus County citizens, despite whatever mental image we have painted to protect ourselves from them.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Copyright 2010 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-90335856324260168742009-08-07T20:46:00.000-07:002009-08-07T20:47:35.381-07:00A Eulogy For Our Dying CommunityMy manager reminded me to go. “You’ve made such a big deal about this – you had better show up yourself!” Nag. I didn’t need to remember, but that’s his job now. He leaves nothing to chance and I love him for it.<br /><br />I went in and sat with the family near the front. I was a bit early so I opened up the humble pamphlet I had been handed by one of the ushers.<br /><br />In Loving Memory of Epifanio Ramirez. Born November 7 1998 Modesto, California.<br /><br />Entered into rest July 31, 2009 Modesto California<br /><br />Service: Friday August 7, 2009 11:30 a.m. United Pentecostal Church Modesto California.<br /><br />Minister Jeremiah Williams, Officiating.<br /><br />Bearers: Jesus Suarez, Michael Lehyan, Timothy Ramirez and Michael Cervantes.<br /><br />Interment St. Stanislaus Cemetery Modesto, California.<br /><br />And on the opposing page, a new picture of Eppie. One I had not seen before. In it’s black and white simple brilliance you knew this was a good kid. A bright kid. You just knew this was not a kid that would follow the pack. This was a kid that would lead one in a positive way. And everyone that was there to listen to the testimony of those who knew and loved him knew this was true.<br /><br />I craned my neck, constantly watching those that filled in. Almost a habit now from other funerals in which I would be threatened by possible retaliation from rival gangs. Not necessary today though, thanks to the Modesto Police Department’s vigilance in the parking lot and later at the burial, we were all safe and protected.<br /><br />By the recognitions that shone across the faces of every single person entering, one could tell that each and every one of them were family and friends of Eppie. And there were some of Eppie’s teachers in attendance. But that was all. <br /><br />Aside from myself and the minister, there was no one else from the community.<br /> <br />I looked up from the pamphlet and set my gaze upon a larger than life photo of Eppie splashed across a screen above the pulpit. In my mind I reminded myself that this was nothing new. Not for me. Nothing special. Not special for me. I had been down this road before. A road paved by funerals spawned of gang violence. <br /><br />Not just in Modesto but in other cities throughout California. Sometimes sent by NAACP branches and sometimes sent by another referral. <br /><br />Family counseling. The guy they send in when the minister can only address the spiritual side. I address the emotional. Always addressed the same way. I am someone to cry on. A memory to record screams with. Pre-recorded screams in my consciousness that I will listen to in the middle of many nights when the TV inadvertently shuts down. <br /><br />I relive the families’ pain through my own nightmares. <br /><br />And I am often a protector. Someone to call the police if necessary and sometimes even to scream at the police when they become intrusive. Not today. That has never been my experience in Modesto.<br /><br />The differences today were far and few between, but still recognizable. <br /><br />The sheer number of people was the first difference. <br /><br />Families coming together that had been distanced for years was another difference and both of these were brought forth by a little boy laying before us in a virgin-white casket.<br /><br />Jeremiah Williams officiated the ceremony with strength and spiritual leadership borne of love only in the way Jeremiah Williams himself could provide it. With the very resonance of his voice he immediately provided comfort to all who heard him. Like anesthetic to a wound we were immediately reassured of the everlasting and secure existence of Eppie.<br /><br />He commanded us to put an end to gang violence. He reasoned with us the senselessness of the lifeless body before us – “Our children are losing their lives! And for What?! A color! A turf! A hood! A hood where they are even behind on the rent!”<br /><br />Preaching to the choir he was. He didn’t need to tell anyone there today that the gang violence must stop. That we must come together and love each other. That was already happening thanks to Eppie himself. Miracles were happening between individuals right before my very eyes.<br /><br />Through my tear stained eyes it was whom I did not see that infuriated me. I did not see any of the City Council. I did not see the La Loma Neighborhood Association. An organization that preaches the betterment of the neighborhood for its residents. Obviously some residents are deemed more worthy of their support than others.<br /><br />Neither did I see my opponents that are running for the City Council seat in the same district that I am. Where is their concern? Perhaps this child fell into what one of them have already categorized as “the other side of the tracks”.<br /><br />Perhaps they were afraid of suffering some of the wrath that I received when I first began to promote the fundraiser to pay for these services and burial. Perhaps they feared that they too would be accused of pandering for the “sympathy vote”.<br /><br />Pretty weak. But very telling of where their priorities lay – only within themselves and what they feel they can or cannot gain to further their glitter conscious reputations.<br /><br />Just like Jeremiah Williams said at one point in the service – “We must talk about these things. We must address this. The killing must stop.”<br /><br />Eppie’s family, friends and teachers – they already have. They had no choice. <br /><br />No one else stepped up. What a shame. What a shame. A little boy in death did more for this family than an entire community would even care to do - simply love them as our neighbors. What a shame that it would have to take something like this. And this wonderful family is still ignored. If not shunned.<br /><br />Shame on all of you that call yourselves community leaders. Where are you when your community needs you most? Where were you today? Do you really think you do not owe your neighbors a mere hour or so of compassion?<br /><br />Going along to get along? And for what? For the same reason our children are dying? A Color? Perhaps your color is the color of money.<br /><br />Eppie’s color is not red or blue, or even green. Virgin White is the color of the child’s casket I saw lowered into the earth today.<br /><br />What color will be the next casket? And the one after that. And the one after that. And the one after that. How many more?<br /><br />I had hoped to see leadership today. All I saw was the price of going along to get along laying inside a little casket. How many more?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Copyright 2009 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-46811007090069618412009-07-08T08:09:00.001-07:002009-07-08T08:09:48.615-07:00A Sad Loss for Modesto Airport DistrictRosario's Mother died within a couple of days of the death of my own Grandmother in 2004. I was just embarking on projects in the Modesto Airport District and the mourning of Rosario's mother and my own Grandmother were going hand in hand at the time. It was because of Rosario that many of my new clients, friends and family were even aware of the hardship I was experiencing in the days following the death of my Grandmother.<br /><br />Rosario was always full of life - never seemed to run out of energy. My first meeting with her younger siblings was quite fantastic - they were such joyful and loving children, just as they are to this day. After my first encounter with the children, it was charming to hear that they did not want to take baths in fear of the little tattoos that I had drawn on their arms of roosters (my nickname in Airport - Pollo) might be washed off.<br /><br />She was a perfect model citizen that would put the children before everything and take them everywhere with her. Many happy and joyful memories were had at Legion park where the kids would swim and run and chase squirrels that they mistook at the time for cats.<br /><br />Rosario was one of the very few that I could rely on to provide for me translations, since at the time I could not speak any Spanish at all in a community where English was quite rare, she assisted me very much in immersing myself in, what to me, was a different culture. <br /><br />I have nothing but fond memories of this wonderful person - as the years went on and the sporadic early evening searches we performed for missing children (who were just down the street the whole time) picnics, many "enchilada" times - many, many memories.<br /><br />I was told last night that a young child in the neighborhood was struck with sadness throughout the day after seeing her picture on a donation can at one of the local "tiendas". His first battle with the acceptance of death of what was a family member.<br /><br />In Airport District and beyond, Rosario will be dearly missed. She had such a bright future ahead of her and the way in which she lived her life was a testament to the human spirit and compassion that should always go with it.<br /><br />In Loving Memory, Airport will never forget.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.modbee.com/local/story/774011.html" target="_blank">http://www.modbee.com/local/story/774011.html</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><center><br /><p><a href="http://www.kcnwebdesign.com/articles.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://kcnwebdesign.com/stanford4modesto/tagline.gif" border="0" alt="" align="middle" /></a></p><br /></center><br /><br /><br />Copyright 2009 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-2224136654934283442009-04-25T13:01:00.000-07:002017-06-13T13:57:45.127-07:00Proposition 36, Drug Court, Drug Diversion & Incarceration<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act, also known as Proposition 36, was passed by 61% of California voters on November 7, 2000.<br />
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This vote permanently changed state law to allow first- and second-time nonviolent, simple drug possession offenders the opportunity to receive substance abuse treatment instead of incarceration.<br />
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Proposition 36 went into effect on July 1, 2001, with $120 million for treatment services allocated annually for five years.<br />
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Proposition 36 allows for an alternative to incarceration by allowing a convicted drug offender to participate in rehabilitation program(s).<br />
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I believe that the offender is more challenged to provide themselves with their drug of self-perceived necessity than they would be if they were incarcerated due to the intense availability of drugs in our jails and prisons.<br />
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However, what warrants investigation into this hypothesis, is it’s actualized seriousness and cause for alarm, that our incarceration system is as crude as the cave man days for certain demographics of the incarcerated general population.<br />
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A spot light on this issue has a high probability of affecting positive change within Stanislaus County’s drug problem.<br />
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Right from the outset, this positive change would promote dialogue and spark many in the communities to contemplate our drug problem and it’s possible solutions. The collective consciousness of our communities would take the path of least resistance and naturally move closer to positive solutions which it would otherwise not have.<br />
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Certainly Proposition 36 is extremely effective for the drug addicted population that has been granted the opportunity of it’s services by the courts.<br />
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Good idea. NOT!! Because, you see, rather than calling it accountability - let’s call it accountabilities.<br />
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Let’s not count it as one accountability as most opponents of Proposition 36 would prefer you to believe, but rather several accountabilities.<br />
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1. The accountability of the offender.<br />
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2. The accountability of the treatment program(s).<br />
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3. The accountability of the courts.<br />
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4. The accountability of friends and family.<br />
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5. The accountability of the community.<br />
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Am I boring you? Are you tiring of this litany?<br />
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No? Maybe it’s starting to impact you that like a thief in the night, there is a part of the Proposition 36 cyclic process now, within our localized society that is missing an important step rendering the process incomplete. Always started, yet seldom finished, making for a low success rate, leaving drug addicts for the most part, on their own to re-offend for multiple, yet accountable reasons.<br />
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Thereby going through the process multiple times without recovery.<br />
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If applied with more discretion, the Proposition 36 cycle would have a better chance of completing itself with a desirable result – a recovered drug addict.<br />
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With the five things that I mentioned above onus is taken by a small percentage of anyone in the community. Kind of like the life boats vs. passenger “classes” of the Titanic tragedy, the largest percentage will be left to fall through the gaping hole of the most necessary piece of the entire cycle. That is accountability. Particularly when only one of the several things I mentioned are considered necessary to be accountable by the very process and attitude of the surrounding community – the drug offender him or herself. Just one of the five. Even that would be ineffective and in my opinion, as I see this cycle start only to continually start and re-start again with most of those that I am in constant contact with. For them, Proposition 36 is nothing more than a treadmill of limbo for the greater part of our drug addicted population.<br />
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One life event at a time. One process at a time. For Proposition 36 offenders this one process is all they are exposed to perpetually. Because of its public perception of effectiveness and accountability to the courts, there is no need to try anything further to assist in the individuals recovery from drug addiction. No accountability, no follow up. Limited if any outreach is the reality of this “good idea”.<br />
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Another similar program, not as extensively used since the advent of Proposition 36 is the California Drug Diversion program.<br />
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This program was sponsored by, among others, then-State Senator George Deukmejian, in order to provide a mechanism for diverting first-offenders from the criminal justice system.<br />
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Under P.C. 1000, individuals charged with various drug possession offenses could have all criminal charges against them dismissed, provided they agreed to participate in a drug education and/or treatment program.<br />
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Supported by liberals and conservatives alike, the drug diversion bill was signed into law by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1972.<br />
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Decades ago, I myself was blessed with this program as an alternative to incarceration. It worked for me, though I was one of three of a larger group of thirty individuals that even graduated under the threat of long – term incarceration.<br />
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I was the only one that got a gold star on my certificate of completion because I attended each and every one of the meetings.<br />
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I loved it. Over the six meetings, of which one only needed to attend four for qualification of the program’s fulfillment, all that was required was that each attendant listened to a lecture about a different classification of drugs each time.<br />
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I was absolutely thrilled to death to actually be asked by the program’s instructor to orate the final sixth lecture on the drug classification of hallucinogenic (marijuana, peyote, LSD and a host of other compounds that I added to the syllabus for the lecture on my own accord.)<br />
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In addition to the gold star on my certificate, all charges against me were dropped and the record of the arrest was sealed. I don’t ever have to inform anyone of the arrest or anything. It is just like it never happened. Well, until now.<br />
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All those that did not graduate were incarcerated, most for several years.<br />
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There was no drug testing involved throughout the entire process.<br />
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One guy was facing 30 years for possession of heroin for sale. Which could have meant that he just happened to have a very large quantity at the time for personal use.<br />
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He was so addicted and wrapped up in that addiction that he couldn’t even attend four out of the six lectures which were necessary to graduate the Drug Diversion program. He couldn’t save himself from spending the rest of his life in prison.<br />
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For me, my arrest and pending potential doom of incarceration were enough for me to quit drugs forever. Of course I was the only one not addicted to anything besides tobacco, but my drugs were of choice, not of self perceived necessity like heroin or meth addiction, like everyone but me that filled this particular Drug Diversion program.<br />
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Proposition 36 would have been just as affective for me, but not for the others. They would just continue to use drugs indefinitely including the other two graduates who did in fact continue to use drugs, even though in this particular instance, they were let go of their charges of drug offenses because they were able to attend four of the six session of the Drug Diversion program.<br />
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I was the only one that graduated out of the Drug Diversion program drug free. No more than a mere 3 percent success rate.<br />
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My experiences from that point on, throughout this present day has taught me that both Proposition 36 and Drug Diversion, as well as long term incarceration are ineffective in solving our drug problem.<br />
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Remember that man I told you about? Don’t think for one minute that if he is still serving and still alive, that he is not still shooting up heroin every day. Because, I can guarantee you he is, unless by some miracle he has been fortunate enough to either successfully complete a drug treatment program or was in the greater percentile to graduate from the Stanislaus County Drug Court.<br />
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For this poor soul, Drug Diversion was so much more devastating to this man’s life than Proposition 36 would ever have been. Though, of course, as I have said repeatedly, neither would have been effective for him to recover from his drug addiction.<br />
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In my ongoing work, I constantly deal with a population that can be classified into five distinct categories here in Stanislaus County:<br />
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1. Those that are in the Proposition 36 cyclic process.<br />
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2. Those that are in drug court.<br />
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3. Those that are facing long term incarceration.<br />
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4. Those that are not currently in the judicial system or a drug treatment program.<br />
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5. Those that are in a drug treatment program by their own accord or by the support/sponsorship of someone or some organization.<br />
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Of these five classifications, the most successful by far is Drug Court.<br />
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Though this statement is skewed by the severity of the fact that a significantly low percentage of Stanislaus County’s population of drug addicted individuals are granted the opportunity of the Drug Court Program. A percentage that has decreased exponentially since the implementation of the severely dysfunctional Proposition 36 process as well as the long term sentences of incarceration passed out like candy by conservative judges acting on misguided values that dictate harsh judicial deliberations for them without consideration of the drug offenders realistic future life – a life that is possible without the use of drugs. All stemming from the denial of the fact that drug addiction as a choice erodes as the addiction fully manifests itself to the point that after a series of bad decisions, it leaves the individual stranded and alone, generally, with no way of winning their battle with addiction. Just like the man I told you about that could not suffer through an hour and a half lecture once a week for no more than four of the six weeks of the Drug Diversion program to save himself from a 30 year period of incarceration.<br />
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I ask you - where is the freedom of choice here?<br />
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Unlike Proposition 36, Drug Court has the majority of its percentage of those five items of accountability that I previously mentioned:<br />
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1. The accountability of the offender.<br />
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2. The accountability of the treatment program(s).<br />
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3. The accountability of the courts.<br />
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4. The accountability of friends and family.<br />
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5. The accountability of the community.<br />
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Incarceration is but only one of several factors that contribute to Drug Court’s amazingly high success rate.<br />
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By insisting on the accountability of more than only one element of those five accountability factors, the success rate is remarkable and practically guaranteed in cases in which the offender truly desires to be free from his or her affliction of drug addiction.<br />
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But the slots available for Drug Court are minimal at best. A very small percentage of the drug addicted population of Stanislaus County are given this opportunity to redeem themselves and save their very own lives from the ravages of hard drugs.<br />
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And most certainly, these opportunities are not curtailed by Proposition 36 sentencing, because the slots are always full with a waiting list. So much so, that Proposition 36 or long term incarceration are not alternative sentencing based on a judges discretionary decision making of availability of all three options (Proposition 36, Drug court and long term incarceration), but rather due to Drug Court’s high expense and ever increasingly limited availability as a direct result in a recent economic downturn. Because of that, most of the drug addicted population of Stanislaus county either continue to use, whether incarcerated or not, or those that are not involved in the Proposition 36 process may seek out recover services on their own or via the motivation provided by church groups, other organizations, or someone like myself.<br />
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Those that enter recovery on their own have an extremely low success rate as well. It is extremely humanly difficult to rely on the strength of one’s own character when his or her very soul is held hostage by a demonic substance which controls their very thoughts.<br />
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Think about it. When was the last time you saw a self-performed exorcism? Perhaps it was the last time you saw someone overcome their addiction to drugs all by themselves without the help from anything outside of themselves. It is rare. Because the only choice they ever made about it were the few choices to do their drug of self perceived necessity the few times it took to reach their eventual point of no return – full addiction. They probably never saw it coming in the first place.<br />
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So there you have it. The three tools used by the Stanislaus County judicial system to treat drug offenders, as well as the two classifications of those that are not currently affected by the county’s Proposition 36 process, Drug Diversion or long term incarceration.<br />
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Respectively, also those that use addictive drugs on a daily basis and are not currently in recovery and those individual that are in recovery. Even divided further through a spectrum of usage of varying times per each individual on a case by case basis. Though so few seem to be interested in the details of a drug addicts horrible life.<br />
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Once of the clearest short term goals that must be realized is the necessity to increase the Drug Court program based on the educated conclusion that it is, by far, the most effective instrument we as the County of Stanislaus have at our disposal to remedy the individual’s involuntary afflictions of drug addiction.<br />
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That of course takes money. But to bring attention to and educate for the most effective weapon in our arsenal that produces the most desired results with our drug offenders is more slots for Drug Court.<br />
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Though I feel that Proposition 36 is a life threatening trap, I begrudgingly accept it’s existence, but not for the majority of Stanislaus County’s drug addicted population.<br />
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Concerted outreach by local drug treatment programs are pathetically affected by the wounds of our current economy, though this is a recent excuse for a long existing history of the same symptoms, which are not derived of apathy, but rather, of limited outreach and expansion to the drug addicted population.<br />
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The mythological lore which has educated us as a society of the capacity of solitary responsibility and accountability being held solely by the drug user him or herself has been an out of reach expectation of the community as whole, due to mass media and the American Governments’ over confidence in anti-drug propaganda which was thought to be able to “win the war on drugs.”<br />
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First we had “Reefer Madness”, and now, since that didn’t work at all, we have the DEA.<br />
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But the damage was far greater than it’s mere ineffectiveness.<br />
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It produced a complex and self-destructive understanding of an a-typical drug addict that came to represent all drug users in the United States as a whole. Most in particular it had this perceptual affect upon those individuals who had never been addicted to drugs themselves, therefore already limited in their understanding of the pain and suffering that this medical affliction causes.<br />
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Leaving with our collective American society’s perception and image, a mass public perception and assumption that drug addicts are not suffering from a toxic medical condition at all, but rather, that every time is the first time that they use their self perceived drug of necessity. That the decision to commit this act is made with a rational mind every single time once the addiction has a hold of them. As though no addiction exists.<br />
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Addiction, for the most part, has since been removed from the equation in this “war on drugs”, all along since those glorious “Reefer Madness” days of yesteryear.<br />
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Drug addiction is a medical emergency. A medical ailment that requires medical attention and treatment. Just like diabetes or Tuberculosis.<br />
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Without the acceptance of this fact, the recovery rates of Stanislaus County’s population of drug addicted individuals will continue to climb and inevitably these people will continue to suffer a horrible life all alone. A life in which, for the most part, they are shunned and despised by the majority of the non-drug using community.<br />
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For every single one of these individuals, there must be an offering of support. Not just by themselves solely as individuals, but by other segments of Stanislaus County as well.<br />
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We must raise the bar for ourselves if we as the County of Stanislaus and its respective citizens are sincere in our desire to affect positive change to our population of the drug addicted.<br />
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Copyright 2009 by Robert Stanford, All rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-43442012386390673642009-04-21T00:15:00.001-07:002009-04-21T00:16:12.504-07:00Pleased To Meet You. Hope You Guess My Name.As I struggle to write this piece, I think of all those that will ever read what I am writing right now.<br /><br />The motivations for reading this are multi-faceted. From search engines to titles, or my personal favorite, those that read it because I wrote it. Whether for good or bad.<br /><br />For whatever the reasons for reading this, I know that statistically, there is a very good chance that if the reader knows about me at all, they only know select slices of what makes up who and what I am, professionally as a community advocate.<br /><br />Often, I feel as though I am wrapped up in words and phrases that pigeon hole me, so that people can readily praise, defend or harangue.<br /><br />Words such as politician. Suddenly the next election becomes the target of feverish slander, “Well, if that’s the way your going to ______ then you can forget about winning the next election.”<br /><br />Words such as activist, “Well, if your going to call yourself an activist, then you had better ___________.”<br /><br />Words such as crackpot, “Your such a joke. Our city would be better off without you. Mr. Stanford, go away.”<br /><br />I could go on for hundreds of pages and each one said or written over and over again, month after month and year after year. However, I believe that all of these things have something in common. These people that say or write these things only know little bits and pieces about me – slices of a whole picture, but not enough slices to know what that picture really is.<br /><br />Of course, that’s not always a bad thing in so many ways.<br /><br />“Mr. Stanford, we need someone like you in Government. Someone that will get all these criminals off the street.”<br /><br />And of course, these same people don’t know that I do not consider undocumented immigrants to be criminals. Nor do I believe that this war on drugs has been anything but a very, very tragic mistake. And for all the same reasons. I have more pieces of the whole picture about these things than others do. But I have personally sought them out. I was “hungry” for them. Hungry to complete a picture.<br /><br />“Mr. Stanford, your going to lock up all the gang bangers and dope pushers.”<br /><br />Once again, that’s only partially true.<br /><br />When I got the Mono Park illegal hypodermic needle giveaway operation which was run by home grown terrorists shut down, many people thought and still think that I am against legitimately regulated and legalized needle exchange. The people that think this do not know that this assumption is invalid. Simply because they missed my articles, blogs, radio and TV appearances.<br /><br />I have been aware of this miss-assumption all along, since I first discovered the illegal needle giveaways. Yet even now, I find myself forever explaining the harm increase. Explaining the mathematical and precise reality of the situation to counter the misguided myth that the constant disbursement of approximately 800 to 1,000 hypodermic needles to junkies in a park ends up being approximately 80 to 85 percent shared needles. Still reducing any possibility of harm reduction as so many assume. Actually causing the opposite affect.<br /><br />Not that this article is concerning the issues of this incident, but it’s a good example of assumption that even I had made concerning my effectiveness of communication this from my platform as – (hold onto your hat) –A Modesto Airport District Activist.<br /><br />And as so much that I assume this title to fit, I must possess two separate capes of two separate colors – red and blue. That’s when the American flag and the Mexicana flag compliment my eyes very well when they are braided together and wrapped around me in the style of Villas artillery belt.<br /><br />The second cape comes into vibrant view when it is necessary to kick up the dust for sidewalks, sewers, water, lights and gutters as well as other positive, yet difficult to achieve neighborhood goals. For then my title changes to blend within the second cape – I suddenly become a Modesto Airport Neighborhood Activist. On another turf.<br /><br />So, let’s review, just for good measure:<br /><br />Flag – American<br />Cape – Red<br />Cause – Crime<br />Title – Modesto Airport District Activist<br />Dumbed Down – Neighborhood Watch In The Ghetto.<br />Super Hero – The Shadow<br /><br />Flag – Mexicana<br />Cape – Blue<br />Cause – Neighborhood Vitalization<br />Title – Modesto Airport Neighborhood Activist<br />Dumbed Down – Happy face/Dockers Time<br />Super Hero – Spider Man<br /><br />If it’s not in the Airport District, it simply becomes community advocate or activist. And I find comfort in what my spidey sense tells me.<br /><br />Whenever I introduce myself at public gatherings to groups of people, I always say, “My name is Robert Stanford. I am a Civil Rights activist. I advocate primarily for the Modesto Airport District.”<br /><br />It’s efficient for me, as much as I would like it to be more understood by my introduction of what I do, I feel that it’s the clearest definition that I can provide. Leaving them to fill in. So many blank spots of the picture all based on what they perceive of civil rights, activism and advocacy. Further, the perceptions are immediately forged merely by their very association with each other in a statement.<br /><br />Since approximately two thirds of the meeting that I attend are done so wearing the red cap, I say the statement as though I were the Shadow.<br /><br />For the remaining third, I am Spider Man wearing the blue cape.<br /><br />No need for a phone booth. I can change in mid sentence when need be to focus and home in on particular items for my own agendas. All of them structured from the foundations of positive applications of method to achieve the goals that will ultimately affect an entire population of present and future resident of Stanislaus County. With a sharp eye dead set on those suffering the most. The Lord’s common sense triage like approach to improving a community on a scale that will set in motion all of the elements necessary to propel the entire county of Stanislaus into a utopia.<br /><br />And from this act, like a true super hero, I shall affect this utopia throughout America and then throughout the world -. My ultimate true aim – Global domination*.<br /><br />But after making the initial statement, “My name is Robert Stanford. I am a Civil Rights activist. I advocate primarily for the Modesto Airport District.”**<br /><br />Many people will be saying to themselves, “But he’s white…”<br /><br />And once again, like a chameleon, I blend in with the apple pie faced redneck draped in the good ole’ red White and Blue. The don’t even know that I speak Spanish more often then English. A virtual myriad of so many things – they have no idea of – no “AWARENESS”.<br /><br />Unless they read about me somewhere, saw me on TV, or maybe heard about me from some friends or “others”.<br /><br />I have come to be aware of the fact that generally, for most people, they will know of one or two issues associated with me. Like a roulette wheel coming to a stop, I can begin to recognize things that they may have been exposed to regarding me, whether entirely true or not.<br /><br />- They heard from Queen La Raza that I took unfair advantage of farm workers, promising them citizenship in exchange for their life savings.<br /><br />- They saw me when I was alone. Out of a quarter million resident, I was the only one to beg the Modesto City Council to not gut the Modesto Police Department.<br /><br />- They read an editorial some years ago in an out of town paper, in which I was portrayed as a profiteer, praying on the Andy Raya and Officer Stevens tragedy by glorifying a cop killer.<br /><br />- They saw me on a blog site empathically telling another user to go screw themselves, getting myself literally banned from the Modesto Bee blogs.<br /><br />Where would I want the memory to come to rest?<br /><br />Right Here – They saw me at my best speaking eloquently and passionately for any cause.<br /><br />I feel if they had witnessed that, I would have reached them on a spiritual level and made a connection. Not for them to vote for me, assist me or even agree with anything I say or do. But to be moved enough by my passion so that at least they would be inspired to pursue goals for our community, whether I agreed with them or not.<br /><br />If someone votes because they don’t want some kind of _______ like me in that position, I have still affected positive change. I have done the job that I originally many, many years ago, set out to accomplish.<br /><br />Since my entry into local Government politics, for the most part, one on one, things go well. However, as I meet people they are given select pieces of the entire picture in the hopes of inspiring interest in these individuals that they may want to see what the overall picture would look like if they had more pieces.<br /><br />So one on one has been a city council campaign for nearly two years now.<br /><br />“Hi! How ya’ doin!? Hey! My name is Robert Stanford! Annnd I am running for Modesto City Council! Yea! We need to apply positive and effective solutions to eradicate gangs and drugs in our community. And this is why you need to vote for me, Robert Stanford for Modesto City Council District Four!”<br /><br />This is much more effective. They don’t really need to know anything about me or what I do. All they need to do is trust me. Because more than likely they will not recognize my name again until they see it on the November 2009 ballot.<br /><br />Pleased to meet you. Hope you can guess my name.<br /><br />The Shadow knows because his spidey sense tells him so.<br /><br />Maybe the next time you see my name, you will stop and ask yourself what it is that I am trying to tell you. Or better yet – ask me!<br /><br />*In a good way!<br />**I know, but just think of how many times I have to endure it!<br /><br />Copyright 2009 by Robert Stanford, All Rights Reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-48748671835218127112009-04-08T16:01:00.001-07:002009-04-08T16:02:04.573-07:00No Child Left BehindThere was a remarkable performance recently. I stumbled upon it strolling an Airport District sidewalk in close proximity to a recent Norteno on Sureno gang hit.<br /><br />The synergy of various people that I would encounter still glistened from the shudders of a tragic event so close to home. An apocalyptic moment for many of us. So slow is the recovery from too much realization. Too much reality. Too much recognition of our own mortality and vulnerability.<br /><br />But this particular individual was a visitor to our neighborhood. A person, whom which when I look upon, beams a beacon that spans across my brain’s processing of name and face recognition.<br /><br />Healthy start – even the very name itself seems to propose what is the best start to everyday?<br /><br />To one’s life?<br /><br />A healthy start.<br /><br />He’s moved up a level now and applies his previous life’s hardships to winning back the lives of youth. Youth once destined for prison and death are now becoming our doctor’s teachers and other benefactors that contribute to our eventual American Utopia. A Utopia we shall proudly call the United States of America.<br /><br />“Hey, what are you doing right now”, asked the dynamic spiritual leader, Jorge Perez.<br /><br />I ended up sitting amongst my clients, neighbors and friends listening to Jorge Perez present to us a single solution emoted through the excitement of hope and understanding that only love and compassion of an entire community could bring about.<br /><br />Very first to grace the stage was the principle of Orville Wright, Heather Shereurn.<br /><br />She touched on the tragedy of the recent homicide. A touch was all that was needed with her open and straight forward acknowledgement. When no punches are pulled, we knew that she saw what we saw.<br /><br />And her melodic and eloquent presentation of our solution was presented just as plainspoken. The family and school relationship was poured within us as the foundation of our very future’s concrete security.<br /><br />Harnessing the ever more cohesive relationship that our community shares a common mission. A mission from God for ourselves individually, as well as for the community as a single, unified whole.<br /><br />Everyone was armed with a radio and headset for the purpose of receiving transmissions in espanol.<br /><br />So when Jorge Perez introduced Arturo Flores, The Superintenden of Modesto City Schools – there was no more need for Ingles.<br /><br />Soft spoken, our chosen one spoke to our hearts as though each one of us were speaking with a warm and trusted family member.<br /><br />He talked of poverty, the fields, the path of Mexicanos and Chicanos. The sacrificial alters of success that we all must place and practice upon with our very own beating hearts – together.<br /><br />As Mr. Arturo Flores spoke, plumes of understanding began to grip us as he applied the solution, once again – the importance of an education.<br /><br />A holy grail that can only be achieved through the dedication of community. He understood through us that there had been a very special import from Mexico with the Airport District’s recent migratory wave.<br /><br />The values and practices of pueblos and ciudads in Mexico had arrived to us intact and in excellent condition.<br /><br />Through forced isolation, like fertilizer for roses, these cultural values of family and unity blossomed into beauty rivaled by the most splendid flora anywhere in the world.<br /><br />Leaving us with the lasting conviction and the very crux of who we are “Si Se Puede.”<br /><br />And then there appeared from out of nowhere, John Ervin.<br /><br />Previously out of reach, untouchable and arms length, to no one other than myself, for me it was another assumptive instantaneous recognition trap dating my musical interests and complex comparisons in not so distant memory without him – a time long before, which absolutely no one would ever be able to make the association without combining the spelling out of three magical letters with an attitude that would say, yes, I am Greatfully Dea-DICA-ted.<br /><br />“Nothin’ left to do, but smile, smile, smile."<br /><br />Not today though. When John Ervin began to speak, the music stopped playing in my mind.<br /><br />There was us and there was John Ervin. Once again we set our gaze on another soldier that understood us. We gazed upon one of us as John Ervin displayed his passion as though we were witnessing the private and super spectacular performance of a Japanese Fan dancer.<br /><br />It was the epitome of the entire performance. So much so that others that spoke will now have no mention from me.<br /><br />If you ever have the good fortune of meeting Mr. John Ervin face to face and you want to enjoy the illustrious smile of his – just tell him that he can never lose what he never had. Those are the magical words John Ervin blessed us with in his presentation of the solution. The guarantee and assurance of our success.<br /><br />That every single child in Airport District graduates.<br /><br />That every single child in Airport District considers college.<br /><br />That we as a community can make this our goal and what’s more – meet that goal.<br /><br />We’re on the right track. It’s all good.<br /><br />Thank you all for believing in us.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Copyright 2009 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5475126109872818361.post-90612625451322985252009-03-16T10:34:00.000-07:002009-03-16T10:40:30.871-07:00Our Mothers' TearsSo here I am once more – not so much defending the slain criminals as much as the slain criminal’s family from the onslaught of short-sighted people, that short-change themselves by not taking the time to look a little bit closer at those they despise so much. Who they were and who they are.<br /><br />It would seem as if none of the parent’s tears are felt or heard by anyone outside of a two to three block radius. Tears not only shed of grief, but also of the ultimate failure – to allow a child to take a wrong path – far beyond their reach and out of their control. Leaving only the parents to blame. As though the child and the parents were somehow the exact same people. That every decision the child makes stems and is directly caused by the parents instead. As though the parent’s are the real criminals and the children were their victims. <br /><br />It’s always the same, in these types of situations, whether the child was or was not “gang affiliated”. The unadulterated heartlessness of some of those with whom I speak outside the emotional comfort of my “ghetto”, still surprises me every - single - time. <br /><br />A writhing feeling twists throughout my soul as I smile and nod, careful to not disagree with those that say, “The apple never falls far from the tree”. <br /><br />Because it is a fight I would not be able to stand. I know, I use to fight back all the time. But not anymore. <br /><br />Now, I just smile, nod and say, “yep…yep…that’s right…it sure doesn’t.” <br /><br />Feeling like a sell out forsaking my people and choked up to the point that I cannot even begin to look for an opening to spread my gospel of hope – my “promotion of understanding” – my plea for community support and involvement. <br />It’s much easier to relax and be myself with the parents. It comes so naturally for me to be able to look into a mother’s eyes and gently reassure her of the harmless fact that her child is surly in heaven. That the good outweighed the bad and that Jesus forgives all of us, no matter what we have done, if we just simply ask him to. <br /><br />Referring to scriptures of the New Testament, I tell a story as though she has never heard it before. <br /><br />I retell the process of how we go to heaven as though she has never had it explained to her before, though she would be hard pressed to remember a single day of church she had missed in years, her reaction to it, is as though she really had never heard it before, because it never meant so much to her as it does right then and there. Truly, a moment of selflessness that immediately proves to me that this was a good parent. <br /><br />As though I was bringing back her forgotten ways. And all the while in a manner that is raw, real and usually in Spanish.<br /><br />And then everything is a little bit better. And real tears flow from both of us. Just like her own child’s blood did not so long before. <br /><br />But, to do otherwise, to me at least, would seem like the real sin. I would never be able to bring myself to say – “It’s good your child’s dead. He was a filthy gang-banger and he got what he deserved!”. Even if I believed that, which I never have, because I know there is always another path – there is always redemption. There is always good choices that can be made – with enough help from the outside world. And that is the problem – there is no help. There are only prisons, other gangsters and death.<br /> <br />Knowing all along that surrounding us outside our area, be it El Campo, South Mo, West Side, or Airport, there are so many people that would immediately take issue with what I was doing, feeling that certainly there is a debt to be paid by this wailing mother. A debt that can only be paid by a useless admission that her own child was evil incarnate and by all rights belongs in the pits of hell and it was all her fault, because she did not care enough, love enough, or discipline enough. <br /><br />And who the hell was I, anyway? Who do I work for that I would be so bold as to reach out in these types of situations? Who am I indeed? A far better question would be - who are they that do not?<br /><br />Of everything that I perform in my advocacy and activism, this is the thing that I hate the most: <br /><br />Shielding the parents and family from the hurling stones of a bigoted and heartless community that seem to always look to place the blame on those most innocent and least able to afford the price of their hatred. A disgusting hatred which is disguised as little more than sterile, out of sight – out of mind solutions, which in actuality, are not even solutions at all, but rather, retaliations. Retaliations to those things which they really do not even take the time to try and contemplate or understand. <br /><br />It’s always the same – you dare not speak in public about anything good regarding a gangster – you don’t share what was right about the “person” you will only find true acceptance by spitting on the criminal and advocating for mass incarceration or extermination – and be sure to say, “it starts with the parents – they are to blame”. <br /><br />Even though the child is dead, the hateful bigots will find a reason to cause as much pain as possible for the family. As though their fowl words are the fuel to some time machine that is going to change the past – or the future. And make this a safer place for all of us. <br /><br />Of course it begins with the parents. But that is such a blanket statement, that it foregoes the majority of parents that did everything they could to raise their child right and then one night, an officer is standing at the door and something so terrible has happened, that their lives and hearts are broken forever. <br /><br />It never had to be like that in the first place. <br /><br />If we do not come together as a community and begin loving and caring for our neighbors, no matter what the colors, language barriers or cultures that stand in our way, we will certainly suffer our own annihilation. Our own literal suicide borne of neglect and disrespect of each other.<br /><br />Can you not see it happening now?<br /><br />Support your local Neighborhood Watch and National Night Out events. Reach out to your neighbors right now and let them know you care about them and that you are watching out for them, their children and their futures. They will in turn do the same for you. I guarantee it.<br /><br />Because they are a part of you and yours eternally. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Copyright 2009 Robert Stanford all rights reserved.ROBERT STANFORDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11815190300323790400noreply@blogger.com0