. . . about the band. . .
Before, during and after the American Legion gig, there were many dances, 'bull roasts', weddings and other affairs to keep us busy. Still, in spite of many requests for more 'current' material, we persisted in our same-old repertoire, rationalizing, being lazy, but having fun, doggedly tightening-up our musical simpatico until the question of marriage was broached.
No, I don't mean a revolutionary, four-way, gay partnership of some kind among the band members. I mean my fiance, and now wife of many, many wonderful years, were planning our wedding. The date was to be October 6, 1979. It was sometime in the spring of '79 and I gave some serious thought to how to approach a musical life combined with married life. Options were to continue in the same vein with the group, make a little spending money, and leave my new wife home alone many weekend nights, or pursue a new band opportunity that may be more challenging, more lucrative or more aesthetically satisfying- but that would still leave the other partner in my new marriage to fend for herself as much, if not more, as staying with the original band would. Fact is, for all my love of music, I enjoyed spending personal time with this person to whom I was committing the rest of my life. I enjoyed it, and still do, so much, that the choice was not terribly difficult, I can honestly say. So I announced my decision to my band-mates well in advance, set a 'last' date target, and after a particularly satisfying Saturday night performance at the legion hall, we said goodbye. There was no animosity, no bad feelings. There was simply honesty. We had a fine time socializing during breaks, as usual, and after it ended, I quit my 'professional' career.
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Thursday, December 15, 2011
You just never know. . .
. . . how things will work out.
We had heard of Bread & Circuses (I love the name: ". . . as an expedient means of pacifying discontent or diverting attention from a source of grievance. Origin: 1910–15; translation of Latin pānis et circēnsēs; from a remark by the Roman satirist Juvenal on the limited desires of the Roman populace. . .") but had not been there. Then, a Groupon or Living Social or something coupon appeared in our email one day. I knew they offered live, local music and was anxious to go. They also have a wonderful outdoor patio where bands play in warmer weather (and cooler weather in a heated tent).
So we took our coupon and went. We were bowled over by the food and the service. Since I knew they frequently feature local musicians I asked if they would be interested in a solo, original pianist. One of the wait staff responded with the stock 'go to our website and there's a form. . . ' which I had already done months prior with futile result. But a nice lady behind the bar overheard our exchange and said, "What kind of music do you play?" and our relationship began.
Business card exchanges, email communication and within three days she offered me two dates. This Saturday is the second of what I hope to be many more.
You just never know.
RAY JOZWIAK
at Bread & Circuses Bistro
Saturday, DECEMBER 17, 2011 @ 8:00PM
“. . . Jozwiak has a broad and deep knowledge of music and one can hear little snippets of this and that running throughout his work, just enough to put you in the mind of a long forgotten favorite before he turns it inside out or upside down. . .”
Joe Hartlaub, Music Reviewer
Bread & Circuses Bistro
27 E. Chesapeake Avenue
Towson, MD 21286
410-337-5282
http://bandcbistro.com/
What do YOU think?
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ANOTHER SHOT
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We had heard of Bread & Circuses (I love the name: ". . . as an expedient means of pacifying discontent or diverting attention from a source of grievance. Origin: 1910–15; translation of Latin pānis et circēnsēs; from a remark by the Roman satirist Juvenal on the limited desires of the Roman populace. . .") but had not been there. Then, a Groupon or Living Social or something coupon appeared in our email one day. I knew they offered live, local music and was anxious to go. They also have a wonderful outdoor patio where bands play in warmer weather (and cooler weather in a heated tent).
So we took our coupon and went. We were bowled over by the food and the service. Since I knew they frequently feature local musicians I asked if they would be interested in a solo, original pianist. One of the wait staff responded with the stock 'go to our website and there's a form. . . ' which I had already done months prior with futile result. But a nice lady behind the bar overheard our exchange and said, "What kind of music do you play?" and our relationship began.
Business card exchanges, email communication and within three days she offered me two dates. This Saturday is the second of what I hope to be many more.
You just never know.
RAY JOZWIAK
at Bread & Circuses Bistro
Saturday, DECEMBER 17, 2011 @ 8:00PM
“. . . Jozwiak has a broad and deep knowledge of music and one can hear little snippets of this and that running throughout his work, just enough to put you in the mind of a long forgotten favorite before he turns it inside out or upside down. . .”
Joe Hartlaub, Music Reviewer
Bread & Circuses Bistro
27 E. Chesapeake Avenue
Towson, MD 21286
410-337-5282
http://bandcbistro.com/
What do YOU think?
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Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Good Work!!. . .
. . . Kudos to the Baltimore City Police for no use of violence.
Kudos to Occupy Baltimore for no use of violence.
So camping is out, but a spokesman for OB said last night
that this movement is about much more than a small piece
of real estate. I for one, am glad to hear it.
---------------------------------------------------
(from WBAL.com)
"City police officers closed downtown streets overnight as officers in riot gear cleared McKeldin Square, the plaza where Occupy Baltimore protesters built an encampment.
Police closed Pratt Street and some surrounding streets just after 3 a.m. About 100 police officers were seen in the area and the Police Department's helicopter was seen flying above.
WBAL reporter Kim Dacey said police surrounded and entered the camp at about 3:30 a.m. City police began dismantling the tents at the downtown encampment at Pratt and Light streets, which had been "occupied" since October by participants of a nationwide movement mimicking Occupy Wall Street in New York City.
City police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told WBAL News that the scene was "extremely peaceful, very, very civil," and that the protesters were being moved to homeless shelters.
As of 5 a.m., Guglielmi said the process is still ongoing and that there would be more information shortly.
After police entered the square, some of the protesters left onto northbound Light Street, where police had also blocked the intersection with Lombard Street.
At 4 a.m., Dacey said some protesters told her that the action was mostly peaceful save for a few unspecified problems. Some of the protesters also said they had expected to get kicked out, but they didn't know it would be early Tuesday, Dacey said.
Unlike in other cities -- including Philadelphia, New York City, and Oakland, Calif. -- there were no significant clashes between the protesters and police reported.
The mayor's office issued the following statement:
"The City of Baltimore is committed to protecting individuals’ right to protest. However, our public parks and green-spaces should not be treated as permanent campgrounds and camping is prohibited. Individuals are free to peaceably assemble and demonstrate within the currently established guidelines. My administration is also committed to providing outreach and assistance to individuals experiencing homelessness.""
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Kudos to Occupy Baltimore for no use of violence.
So camping is out, but a spokesman for OB said last night
that this movement is about much more than a small piece
of real estate. I for one, am glad to hear it.
---------------------------------------------------
(from WBAL.com)
"City police officers closed downtown streets overnight as officers in riot gear cleared McKeldin Square, the plaza where Occupy Baltimore protesters built an encampment.
Police closed Pratt Street and some surrounding streets just after 3 a.m. About 100 police officers were seen in the area and the Police Department's helicopter was seen flying above.
WBAL reporter Kim Dacey said police surrounded and entered the camp at about 3:30 a.m. City police began dismantling the tents at the downtown encampment at Pratt and Light streets, which had been "occupied" since October by participants of a nationwide movement mimicking Occupy Wall Street in New York City.
City police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told WBAL News that the scene was "extremely peaceful, very, very civil," and that the protesters were being moved to homeless shelters.
As of 5 a.m., Guglielmi said the process is still ongoing and that there would be more information shortly.
After police entered the square, some of the protesters left onto northbound Light Street, where police had also blocked the intersection with Lombard Street.
At 4 a.m., Dacey said some protesters told her that the action was mostly peaceful save for a few unspecified problems. Some of the protesters also said they had expected to get kicked out, but they didn't know it would be early Tuesday, Dacey said.
Unlike in other cities -- including Philadelphia, New York City, and Oakland, Calif. -- there were no significant clashes between the protesters and police reported.
The mayor's office issued the following statement:
"The City of Baltimore is committed to protecting individuals’ right to protest. However, our public parks and green-spaces should not be treated as permanent campgrounds and camping is prohibited. Individuals are free to peaceably assemble and demonstrate within the currently established guidelines. My administration is also committed to providing outreach and assistance to individuals experiencing homelessness.""
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Do brains come along with fame? . . .
. . . As if it isn't bad enough that a baseball player will now be paid $25 million a year, we are actually taking the advice of people who are merely qualified to hit a ball with a stick or play a guitar and sing a song.
Let me be clear, I respect talent. True talent, be it athletic, intellectual or artistic, is a gift and a wonder and truly a benefit to humankind. But, would you actually hire one of Ringling Brothers' clowns to do your taxes or ask a Hollywood actor to counsel you on your marriage?
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Let me be clear, I respect talent. True talent, be it athletic, intellectual or artistic, is a gift and a wonder and truly a benefit to humankind. But, would you actually hire one of Ringling Brothers' clowns to do your taxes or ask a Hollywood actor to counsel you on your marriage?
What do YOU think?
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html
Download your
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ANOTHER SHOT
by Ray Jozwiak
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Sunday, December 11, 2011
Twelve more hours. . .
So many things I'd like to do
So many places to see
And I feel like there's never enough
Time for anything else that I
Might have desire to undertake
Something I'd like to pursue
But the world's just spinning around
Keeps me head and foot-bound
Don't know what to do
Give me just
Twelve hours
To add
To my day
Keep all your
Wealth and your
Money
Take your fame and power
Fortune
Just give me
Twelve hours
Twelve hours
Twelve hours
Time isn't cheap
You pay so dearly
I'm trying to make
Every minute count
Penny count
Spending my time seems like all I do
Can't save up for rainy days
Can't invest in an instrument to
Earn satisfaction to draw from when
Far in the future I need to feel
Just what my value has been
There's no interest that's coming or due
Dividends are so precious and few
Don't know what to do
Give me just
Twelve hours
To add
To my day
Keep all your
Wealth and your
Money
Take your fame and power
Fortune
Just give me
Twelve hours
Twelve hours
Twelve hours
Twelve Hours
©2011 Raymond M. Jozwiak
What do YOU think?
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html
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ANOTHER SHOT
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So many places to see
And I feel like there's never enough
Time for anything else that I
Might have desire to undertake
Something I'd like to pursue
But the world's just spinning around
Keeps me head and foot-bound
Don't know what to do
Give me just
Twelve hours
To add
To my day
Keep all your
Wealth and your
Money
Take your fame and power
Fortune
Just give me
Twelve hours
Twelve hours
Twelve hours
Time isn't cheap
You pay so dearly
I'm trying to make
Every minute count
Penny count
Spending my time seems like all I do
Can't save up for rainy days
Can't invest in an instrument to
Earn satisfaction to draw from when
Far in the future I need to feel
Just what my value has been
There's no interest that's coming or due
Dividends are so precious and few
Don't know what to do
Give me just
Twelve hours
To add
To my day
Keep all your
Wealth and your
Money
Take your fame and power
Fortune
Just give me
Twelve hours
Twelve hours
Twelve hours
Twelve Hours
©2011 Raymond M. Jozwiak
What do YOU think?
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satisfaction,
twelve
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Didn't think he was into video. . .
. . . and stuff. . .yeah. . . you know?
(from THE HILL, By Mike Lillis)
". . . Rep. Silvestre Reyes (Texas), a senior Democrat on both the Veterans Affairs and Armed Services committees,said that Rick Perry's new campaign ad "shows the unfortunate underbelly of politics" and exposes Perry as "a man desperate to remain relevant in a crowded Republican field vying for the approval of its Tea Party base."
“Like many politicians nowadays, [Perry] seems to be willing to say and do anything in an effort to score cheap political points," Reyes said in a statement.
"This is an attack on those who can openly serve our country in the United States military, and Perry owes these brave men and women an apology for distastefully using them as a political prop. . . "
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(from THE HILL, By Mike Lillis)
". . . Rep. Silvestre Reyes (Texas), a senior Democrat on both the Veterans Affairs and Armed Services committees,said that Rick Perry's new campaign ad "shows the unfortunate underbelly of politics" and exposes Perry as "a man desperate to remain relevant in a crowded Republican field vying for the approval of its Tea Party base."
“Like many politicians nowadays, [Perry] seems to be willing to say and do anything in an effort to score cheap political points," Reyes said in a statement.
"This is an attack on those who can openly serve our country in the United States military, and Perry owes these brave men and women an apology for distastefully using them as a political prop. . . "
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Labels:
jesus,
president,
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rick perry
Friday, December 9, 2011
It Bears Re-Reading. . .
(Thanks to Hailey Boyle)
What the Media Didn’t Tell Us When Police Swept Through Occupy LA
by Source on December 7, 2011
My Occupy LA Arrest
by Patrick Meighan / blogspot / December 6, 2011
My name is Patrick Meighan, and I’m a husband, a father, a writer on the Fox animated sitcom “Family Guy”, and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica.
I was arrested at about 1 a.m. Wednesday morning with 291 other people at Occupy LA. I was sitting in City Hall Park with a pillow, a blanket, and a copy of Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Being Peace” when 1,400 heavily-armed LAPD officers in paramilitary SWAT gear streamed in. I was in a group of about 50 peaceful protestors who sat Indian-style, arms interlocked, around a tent (the symbolic image of the Occupy movement). The LAPD officers encircled us, weapons drawn, while we chanted “We Are Peaceful” and “We Are Nonviolent” and “Join Us.”
As we sat there, encircled, a separate team of LAPD officers used knives to slice open every personal tent in the park. They forcibly removed anyone sleeping inside, and then yanked out and destroyed any personal property inside those tents, scattering the contents across the park. They then did the same with the communal property of the Occupy LA movement. For example, I watched as the LAPD destroyed a pop-up canopy tent that, until that moment, had been serving as Occupy LA’s First Aid and Wellness tent, in which volunteer health professionals gave free medical care to absolutely anyone who requested it.
As it happens, my family had personally contributed that exact canopy tent to Occupy LA, at a cost of several hundred of my family’s dollars. As I watched, the LAPD sliced that canopy tent to shreds, broke the telescoping poles into pieces and scattered the detritus across the park. Note that these were the objects described in subsequent mainstream press reports as “30 tons of garbage” that was “abandoned” by Occupy LA: personal property forcibly stolen from us, destroyed in front of our eyes and then left for maintenance workers to dispose of while we were sent to prison.
When the LAPD finally began arresting those of us interlocked around the symbolic tent, we were all ordered by the LAPD to unlink from each other (in order to facilitate the arrests). Each seated, nonviolent protester beside me who refused to cooperate by unlinking his arms had the following done to him: an LAPD officer would forcibly extend the protestor’s legs, grab his left foot, twist it all the way around and then stomp his boot on the insole, pinning the protestor’s left foot to the pavement, twisted backwards. Then the LAPD officer would grab the protestor’s right foot and twist it all the way the other direction until the non-violent protestor, in incredible agony, would shriek in pain and unlink from his neighbor.
It was horrible to watch, and apparently designed to terrorize the rest of us. At least I was sufficiently terrorized. I unlinked my arms voluntarily and informed the LAPD officers that I would go peacefully and cooperatively. I stood as instructed, and then I had my arms wrenched behind my back, and an officer hyperextended my wrists into my inner arms. It was super violent, it hurt really really bad, and he was doing it on purpose. When I involuntarily recoiled from the pain, the LAPD officer threw me face-first to the pavement. He had my hands behind my back, so I landed right on my face. The officer dropped with his knee on my back and ground my face into the pavement. It really, really hurt and my face started bleeding and I was very scared. I begged for mercy and I promised that I was honestly not resisting and would not resist.
My hands were then zipcuffed very tightly behind my back, where they turned blue. I am now suffering nerve damage in my right thumb and palm.
I was put on a paddywagon with other nonviolent protestors and taken to a parking garage in Parker Center. They forced us to kneel on the hard pavement of that parking garage for seven straight hours with our hands still tightly zipcuffed behind our backs. Some began to pass out. One man rolled to the ground and vomited for a long, long time before falling unconscious. The LAPD officers watched and did nothing.
At 9 a.m. we were finally taken from the pavement into the station to be processed. The charge was sitting in the park after the police said not to. It’s a misdemeanor. Almost always, for a misdemeanor, the police just give you a ticket and let you go. It costs you a couple hundred dollars. Apparently, that’s what happened with most every other misdemeanor arrest in LA that day.
With us Occupy LA protestors, however, they set bail at $5,000 and booked us into jail. Almost none of the protesters could afford to bail themselves out. I’m lucky and I could afford it, except the LAPD spent all day refusing to actually *accept* the bail they set. If you were an accused murderer or a rapist in LAPD custody that day, you could bail yourself right out and be back on the street, no problem. But if you were a nonviolent Occupy LA protestor with bail money in hand, you were held long into the following morning, with absolutely no access to a lawyer.
I spent most of my day and night crammed into an eight-man jail cell, along with sixteen other Occupy LA protesters. My sleeping spot was on the floor next to the toilet.
Finally, at 2:30 the next morning, after twenty-five hours in custody, I was released on bail. But there were at least 200 Occupy LA protestors who couldn’t afford the bail. The LAPD chose to keep those peaceful, non-violent protesters in prison for two full days… the absolute legal maximum that the LAPD is allowed to detain someone on misdemeanor charges.
As a reminder, Antonio Villaraigosa has referred to all of this as “the LAPD’s finest hour.”
So that’s what happened to the 292 women and men were arrested last Wednesday. Now let’s talk about a man who was not arrested last Wednesday. He is former Citigroup CEO Charles Prince. Under Charles Prince, Citigroup was guilty of massive, coordinated securities fraud.
Citigroup spent years intentionally buying up every bad mortgage loan it could find, creating bad securities out of those bad loans and then selling shares in those bad securities to duped investors. And then they sometimes secretly bet *against* their *own* bad securities to make even more money. For one such bad Citigroup security, Citigroup executives were internally calling it, quote, “a collection of dogshit”. To investors, however, they called it, quote, “an attractive investment rigorously selected by an independent investment adviser”.
This is fraud, and it’s a felony, and the Charles Princes of the world spent several years doing it again and again: knowingly writing bad mortgages, and then packaging them into fraudulent securities which they then sold to suckers and then repeating the process. This is a big part of why your property values went up so fast. But then the bubble burst, and that’s why our economy is now shattered for a generation, and it’s also why your home is now underwater. Or at least mine is.
Anyway, if your retirement fund lost a decade’s-worth of gains overnight, this is why.
If your son’s middle school has added furlough days because the school district can’t afford to keep its doors open for a full school year, this is why.
If your daughter has come out of college with a degree only to discover that there are no jobs for her, this is why.
But back to Charles Prince. For his four years of in charge of massive, repeated fraud at Citigroup, he received fifty-three million dollars in salary and also received another ninety-four million dollars in stock holdings. What Charles Prince has *not* received is a pair of zipcuffs. The nerves in his thumb are fine. No cop has thrown Charles Prince into the pavement, face-first. Each and every peaceful, nonviolent Occupy LA protester arrested last week has has spent more time sleeping on a jail floor than every single Charles Prince on Wall Street, combined.
The more I think about that, the madder I get. What does it say about our country that nonviolent protesters are given the bottom of a police boot while those who steal hundreds of billions, do trillions worth of damage to our economy and shatter our social fabric for a generation are not only spared the zipcuffs but showered with rewards?
In any event, believe it or not, I’m really not angry that I got arrested. I chose to get arrested. And I’m not even angry that the mayor and the LAPD decided to give non-violent protestors like me a little extra shiv in jail (although I’m not especially grateful for it either).
I’m just really angry that every single Charles Prince wasn’t in jail with me.
Thank you for letting me share that anger with you today.
Patrick Meighan
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What the Media Didn’t Tell Us When Police Swept Through Occupy LA
by Source on December 7, 2011
My Occupy LA Arrest
by Patrick Meighan / blogspot / December 6, 2011
My name is Patrick Meighan, and I’m a husband, a father, a writer on the Fox animated sitcom “Family Guy”, and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica.
I was arrested at about 1 a.m. Wednesday morning with 291 other people at Occupy LA. I was sitting in City Hall Park with a pillow, a blanket, and a copy of Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Being Peace” when 1,400 heavily-armed LAPD officers in paramilitary SWAT gear streamed in. I was in a group of about 50 peaceful protestors who sat Indian-style, arms interlocked, around a tent (the symbolic image of the Occupy movement). The LAPD officers encircled us, weapons drawn, while we chanted “We Are Peaceful” and “We Are Nonviolent” and “Join Us.”
As we sat there, encircled, a separate team of LAPD officers used knives to slice open every personal tent in the park. They forcibly removed anyone sleeping inside, and then yanked out and destroyed any personal property inside those tents, scattering the contents across the park. They then did the same with the communal property of the Occupy LA movement. For example, I watched as the LAPD destroyed a pop-up canopy tent that, until that moment, had been serving as Occupy LA’s First Aid and Wellness tent, in which volunteer health professionals gave free medical care to absolutely anyone who requested it.
As it happens, my family had personally contributed that exact canopy tent to Occupy LA, at a cost of several hundred of my family’s dollars. As I watched, the LAPD sliced that canopy tent to shreds, broke the telescoping poles into pieces and scattered the detritus across the park. Note that these were the objects described in subsequent mainstream press reports as “30 tons of garbage” that was “abandoned” by Occupy LA: personal property forcibly stolen from us, destroyed in front of our eyes and then left for maintenance workers to dispose of while we were sent to prison.
When the LAPD finally began arresting those of us interlocked around the symbolic tent, we were all ordered by the LAPD to unlink from each other (in order to facilitate the arrests). Each seated, nonviolent protester beside me who refused to cooperate by unlinking his arms had the following done to him: an LAPD officer would forcibly extend the protestor’s legs, grab his left foot, twist it all the way around and then stomp his boot on the insole, pinning the protestor’s left foot to the pavement, twisted backwards. Then the LAPD officer would grab the protestor’s right foot and twist it all the way the other direction until the non-violent protestor, in incredible agony, would shriek in pain and unlink from his neighbor.
It was horrible to watch, and apparently designed to terrorize the rest of us. At least I was sufficiently terrorized. I unlinked my arms voluntarily and informed the LAPD officers that I would go peacefully and cooperatively. I stood as instructed, and then I had my arms wrenched behind my back, and an officer hyperextended my wrists into my inner arms. It was super violent, it hurt really really bad, and he was doing it on purpose. When I involuntarily recoiled from the pain, the LAPD officer threw me face-first to the pavement. He had my hands behind my back, so I landed right on my face. The officer dropped with his knee on my back and ground my face into the pavement. It really, really hurt and my face started bleeding and I was very scared. I begged for mercy and I promised that I was honestly not resisting and would not resist.
My hands were then zipcuffed very tightly behind my back, where they turned blue. I am now suffering nerve damage in my right thumb and palm.
I was put on a paddywagon with other nonviolent protestors and taken to a parking garage in Parker Center. They forced us to kneel on the hard pavement of that parking garage for seven straight hours with our hands still tightly zipcuffed behind our backs. Some began to pass out. One man rolled to the ground and vomited for a long, long time before falling unconscious. The LAPD officers watched and did nothing.
At 9 a.m. we were finally taken from the pavement into the station to be processed. The charge was sitting in the park after the police said not to. It’s a misdemeanor. Almost always, for a misdemeanor, the police just give you a ticket and let you go. It costs you a couple hundred dollars. Apparently, that’s what happened with most every other misdemeanor arrest in LA that day.
With us Occupy LA protestors, however, they set bail at $5,000 and booked us into jail. Almost none of the protesters could afford to bail themselves out. I’m lucky and I could afford it, except the LAPD spent all day refusing to actually *accept* the bail they set. If you were an accused murderer or a rapist in LAPD custody that day, you could bail yourself right out and be back on the street, no problem. But if you were a nonviolent Occupy LA protestor with bail money in hand, you were held long into the following morning, with absolutely no access to a lawyer.
I spent most of my day and night crammed into an eight-man jail cell, along with sixteen other Occupy LA protesters. My sleeping spot was on the floor next to the toilet.
Finally, at 2:30 the next morning, after twenty-five hours in custody, I was released on bail. But there were at least 200 Occupy LA protestors who couldn’t afford the bail. The LAPD chose to keep those peaceful, non-violent protesters in prison for two full days… the absolute legal maximum that the LAPD is allowed to detain someone on misdemeanor charges.
As a reminder, Antonio Villaraigosa has referred to all of this as “the LAPD’s finest hour.”
So that’s what happened to the 292 women and men were arrested last Wednesday. Now let’s talk about a man who was not arrested last Wednesday. He is former Citigroup CEO Charles Prince. Under Charles Prince, Citigroup was guilty of massive, coordinated securities fraud.
Citigroup spent years intentionally buying up every bad mortgage loan it could find, creating bad securities out of those bad loans and then selling shares in those bad securities to duped investors. And then they sometimes secretly bet *against* their *own* bad securities to make even more money. For one such bad Citigroup security, Citigroup executives were internally calling it, quote, “a collection of dogshit”. To investors, however, they called it, quote, “an attractive investment rigorously selected by an independent investment adviser”.
This is fraud, and it’s a felony, and the Charles Princes of the world spent several years doing it again and again: knowingly writing bad mortgages, and then packaging them into fraudulent securities which they then sold to suckers and then repeating the process. This is a big part of why your property values went up so fast. But then the bubble burst, and that’s why our economy is now shattered for a generation, and it’s also why your home is now underwater. Or at least mine is.
Anyway, if your retirement fund lost a decade’s-worth of gains overnight, this is why.
If your son’s middle school has added furlough days because the school district can’t afford to keep its doors open for a full school year, this is why.
If your daughter has come out of college with a degree only to discover that there are no jobs for her, this is why.
But back to Charles Prince. For his four years of in charge of massive, repeated fraud at Citigroup, he received fifty-three million dollars in salary and also received another ninety-four million dollars in stock holdings. What Charles Prince has *not* received is a pair of zipcuffs. The nerves in his thumb are fine. No cop has thrown Charles Prince into the pavement, face-first. Each and every peaceful, nonviolent Occupy LA protester arrested last week has has spent more time sleeping on a jail floor than every single Charles Prince on Wall Street, combined.
The more I think about that, the madder I get. What does it say about our country that nonviolent protesters are given the bottom of a police boot while those who steal hundreds of billions, do trillions worth of damage to our economy and shatter our social fabric for a generation are not only spared the zipcuffs but showered with rewards?
In any event, believe it or not, I’m really not angry that I got arrested. I chose to get arrested. And I’m not even angry that the mayor and the LAPD decided to give non-violent protestors like me a little extra shiv in jail (although I’m not especially grateful for it either).
I’m just really angry that every single Charles Prince wasn’t in jail with me.
Thank you for letting me share that anger with you today.
Patrick Meighan
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economy,
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occupy wall street,
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