I’m glad to be closing the books on this subject. Now on to more important things.

As I’ve said, notable people are discouraged from editing pieces written about them by others. References from published sources are provided by WP contributors, and I have maintained that the choice of these references are biased, and contravene their own set of rules all the time. These editors cross the boundaries of “Maintaining a neutral point of view”, of “Never claiming ownership of an article”, and “Avoiding conflict of interest.” It is clear that the subject of an article on a living person, or a dead person, lies in the area of “Biographies.” Such was the featured article on my old friend, John Le Mesurier, best known from the “Dad’s Army” British TV series, repeated I believe on BBC in America.

I was accused of manipulation, making threats, advertising, lying, and making vain claims. They tried to expose me by ridicule and insult, and have blocked me from editing, which I’ve been happily doing for three or four years, creating harmless other type articles. I can still, however, express myself on my talk page, where I am linking to this. This is what SchroCat (a pseudonym hiding an identity) said to prove I was guilty of all of the above sins. He published as follows:

Having spent a chunk of my own personal time traipsing up to the British Library because of the ridiculous questioning of whether a respected and proven biographer is reliable or not, I am very happy to say that I found in back issues of the Radio Times the information that at 20:15 on 26 November 1946 Episode 10 of Just William was broadcast on the BBC Light Programme, ending at 20:35. It was subsequently repeated on the same wavelength at 16:30 on 1 December 1946.

Clark, There is no hearsay, so stop trolling. I have provided sufficient information. If you want to see it in black and white, buy the McCann book. Scans are not possible for microfiche records at the BL: I asked and was told that I would have to get it transferred to the rare book section for electronic processing. You want to do that, then you can foot the bill. If you are too parsimonious to do that, then look elsewhere. I have contacted the author to ask him: he has provided an answer. If you also want to hear it directly from him, I suggest you contact him directly. If not, then you will have to [[WP:AGF]]. If that is beyond you, then go to the reliable sources people and ask them to make a decision on the matter. I care not what you want to believe or not believe, your pointless trolling on this matter has gone far and beyond any normal or natural behaviour. – [[User:SchroCat|SchroCat]] ([[User talk:SchroCat|talk]]) 09:03, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I then contacted Graham McCann, the author of the book from which the information came and asked about the connection between Just William and Le Mez. He confirmed to me that “the information came from the BBC’s written archive records and Le Mesurier’s personal files.”

Consequently I am more than happy that what we have in this article is an accurate reflection of what is available in the reliable sources, and that those sources have provided archival information from unimpeachable sources.

Fortunately, I am a member of the Just William Society, deemed by these fellows not to be a reliable source, and one of their volunteer historians by the name of Robert Kirkpatrick went down to the library to find out if Wikipedia was telling the truth, or allowing a lie. I cannot download this to Wikipedia, because I am blocked. So I am downloading it here, on my website, to prove that lies about people are permitted at Wikipedia. He had this to say to me, before supplying proof that lies are to be found on Wikipedia. He said

 Herewith a copy of the page from the Radio Times showing episode 10 of Just William broadcast on 26 November 1946.  As you can see, there is no mention of John le Mesurier.

The episode was repeated on Sunday 1 December 1946  -  cast list wasn’t given.

So, we all agree that this Wikipedia chap is correct, in that there WAS an episode on JW on that date (which was never in doubt anyway), but if he’s saying that John le Mesurier was in it and that Radio Times proves it then he’s 100% in the wrong.

As I said, my own suspicion is that le Mesurier’s biographer got it wrong (after all, we all make mistakes  -  and in any case perhaps it was le Mesurier himself who got mixed up) and that the reference should have been to the live broadcast of the stage play from the Granville Theatre on 23 December 1946.

PS  I should add, for accuracy’s sake, that I wasn’t allowed to photocopy the page from the Radio Times at the British Library, as it was too large (i.e larger than A4).  I could have paid for it to be scanned and copied, but that would have taken 24 hours. So I went to Westminster Reference Library and was able to take the photocopy from their bound volumes of the Radio Times.

I can, of course, assure you that both copies were identical! I hope this helps and you can get your life back!!!!!”

Robert

Here’s the visible scan of the Radio Times entry:

I hope Jimbo Wales acts on this information, and takes steps to free up a notable’s ability to edit freely, alongside other contributors. And there are at least 3 of these lying pseudos who should be banned forever from contributing to what is otherwise a fine encyclopedia.

It was a kind of fancy dress party, inspired and themed by some members of the DOWNTON ABBEY cast who were present and being honored. This is Hollywood, after all. So we “expats” were invited to attend dressed up, if possible, in something suggesting the flapper era of England, circa 1920.

Since the story begins around the time of the S.S.Titanic sinking, and progresses on up into the twenties, there was scope for a wide choice of costume. The only other fancy dress ball I ever attended was as a child when my parents sent me as a choir boy and I won first prize. So I decided to be a man of the cloth, dressed in a cheap RC priest outfit (their robes don’t change an inch), and for good measure took a young friend who came dressed as a prostitute picked up on the way in, and whom I’d brought with me to convert. She was bursting out here and there, torn slip, retro French knickers, suspenders, seamed stockings and all. There we were, arm in arm, and quite a few heads turned.

And so the evening began, with Tin Pan Alley entertainment, tapdancing exhibitions, a lively banjo-led band, and touchy feely dancing. And we know how to enjoy being silly and sexy, as well as serious.

An Irish tourist came running up, fell to his knees, and begged me to hear his confession. He wanted to know where my church was. He was quite serious, if a little drunk on the great spiked Ginger Beer coolers. I told him I was a traveling priest, used a kind of modest curtained pope-mobile, and could come his way on prior notice. He scribbled me his motel address. It was only when I told him to bring his Master Card or cash, that he figured out that I was maybe not what he thought I was. Then I saw a couple of very attractive women sitting in a corner. I asked who they were, and they rather sheepishly confessed they were on the organizing committee, and were — Americans!

I found again many of my old and dear friends, and we duly swapped cards, past attitudes forgotten and forgiven. Attached to my business card is my California Notary card, designed unsubtly to let people know that I am able to 1. tell the truth, 2. keep secrets, and 3. uphold the law. This is Hollywood.

Famous British companies are well represented, Boots, Jaguar, Cunard and all, and I look forward to wandering around this week in search of having a good time while learning more of the business side of it, which in this economy gets to be the point. But as of this week, with the stock market at all time highs and employment improving, there is hope and a renewing spring-like step in the air. Entrepreneurship is budding.

A friend sent me this, call it a guest post. A dissertation on old age, written by a very honored writer and reporter with my old employer, CBC Canada. I pass it on as a service because I couldn’t say it better. This gentleman is 5 years older than I am, but like everybody, I’m headed there and so are you, so be fore-warned! I also take most of the same pills, and have to beware of the inevitable stress that comes with providing this web service. Most of all, I identify completely with his sentiments and observations.

The full-time job of growing old 

By Joe Schlesinger, CBC News

I have a new job. I’ve been a journalist for 65 years. Nowadays, though, my main job is being a patient, seeing doctors and other medical practitioners. Boy, do I ever see doctors!

First, there is my GP, of course. Behind him, an army of specialists: a rheumatologist, a cardiologist, several orthopedists and neurologists, a dermatologist, periodontist, as well as a dentist, an optometrist, audiologist, pharmacist, naturopath and physiotherapist, to say nothing of the trainer who tries to keep mobile what Shakespeare called the “shrunk shank” of old age.

In my case, though, not all that mobile. I’ve worn out two hip  replacements. (Number 3, I’m happy to report, is doing just fine.)

I’ve been held together by slings, stitches and plaster casts,  treated with acupuncture needles, ultrasound devices and had traction devices yanking at my spine and a leg. I also take oodles of pills. Not surprisingly, even as they keep me going these meds can have serious results that are benignly called “side-effects.”

But I put up with them because I know that without some of these medicaments I would not be alive today. Had I been born 30 years earlier I would have been dead at a much earlier age because some of the meds I use had not yet been developed.

Also part of my regime are the old standbys such as the Aspirin pill I take daily to reduce the risk of life-threatening blood clots. Not any Aspirin, mind you, but low-dose baby Aspirin! That dose of baby Aspirin in a way closes the full circle of life as Shakespeare foresaw it some 500 years ago when he wrote about the first and last stages of life in The Seven Ages of Man:

At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms… Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Balderdash! OK, so I have some false teeth and wear eyeglasses. Yup, I’ve needed the care of nurses at times. But I assure you, no later-life mewling or puking from this quarter. Still, it takes patience to be a patient.

For starters, of course, there is the waiting for appointments and for distant dates for operations, and just twiddling your thumbs in doctors’ or hospital waiting rooms. What requires even more patience is coping with the everyday chores of your debilities. Many of the routines of plain living, from putting on your socks in the morning, as your joints protest, to preparing for bed at night can suddenly take a lot of doing.

But I refuse to let any of this affect my taste for life. If anything, I have a greater appreciation of its joys large and small.

Above all, what sustains me is the love of my family. And that makes everything else tolerable and worthwhile.

The rest? Well, I do have occasional memory lapses but Google and other IT crutches fill in the holes. Mainly, I have trouble walking and staying upright. The remedy for that has been clear for thousands of years ever since in Greek mythology the monstrous Sphinx that devoured those who could not answer its riddle challenged Oedipus to name a creature with three legs. His answer — an old man with a cane — won him the throne of Thebes.

These days, we’ve gone beyond canes, we have wheels. For me, a cane is fine for short distances. For longer walks, there is the walker; you can push it along and use it as a seat if you need a rest. It even has a basket to go shopping with.

Somewhere down the road I’ll probably need a wheelchair. I may even get to drive one of those snazzy electric carts I keep seeing barrelling down sidewalks. That and painkillers should keep me going until, one day, the inevitable moment of oblivion comes along.

In the meantime, there is still much to engross the heart and brain. In my case, a loving family, cherished friends and the treasures of nice dinners, music and reading. Those are the elixirs that make life worth living.

But there is one more thing that occupies my mind, and that is keeping up as best I can with the turbulence of the world I’ve inhabited these 85 years. I have spent my whole life as a witness to history.

First, as a boy who, during the Second World War, lost his parents in the Holocaust and was pushed from pillar to post, from country to country, a refugee first from Nazism, then from Communism. That experience led me into journalism and a career of traveling the world and reporting, at times, on its triumphs — such as the fall of the Berlin Wall — though more often on the travails of wars, revolutions and other disasters.

Once upon a time I used to do things like jumping out of a helicopter in Vietnam as it hovered over a landing pad under enemy fire, climbing a sacred mountain in North Korea, crossing the famed Khyber Pass on foot from Pakistan into Afghanistan, and riding an elephant with an army patrol chasing Khmer Rouge troops through rice paddies in Cambodia. (I fell off the elephant, but never mind.)

I can no longer do these things, but, thanks to the internet, I can get around to distant places and events by letting my fingers do the walking. And I do. Whether it’s my old homeland, the Czech Republic, or Chile or China, I feel a need to keep up with what’s happening there.

That need is fed in part by a sense of belonging, a feeling that since I was there at turning points in the history of these places I have a stake in their future. What’s more, I fear that if I let them drop into the memory hole I would diminish myself to a teller of old irrelevant tales. Besides, the mind needs exercising as much the rest of the body does.

One of the best ways to give the brain a thorough workout is to try to unravel the complexities of the politics of countries such as Israel, Iran and Italy.

So I keep on exploring what’s happening in distant parts of the world, often saddened by the turn of events and outraged by outbursts of brutality, but now and then also delighted by the triumphs of the human spirit. I have, in a way, the whole world in my hands, the world of all that is near and dear to me as well as much of what lies far beyond the horizon.

All this thanks to a lot of doctors and all those pills I swallow.

Here I should mention that I love the concept, and admire it in action. They have extraordinary software which takes a while to learn, very specific rules, and on the whole there are built-in safeguards to protect against advocacy. Neutral Point of View, one of their 3 core principles. The others are Verifiability, and No Original Research.

This is all to the good, until it comes up short in their big weakness. How to deal with the BLPs. That is the Biographies of Living Persons. As many of my friends in the industry know, reputations have been shattered, as well as undeservedly exalted, by editors, some of whom are what I call fanboys, and others the exact opposite. Combine that thought with the fact that they actively prevent the target subject from having any hand at all in the creation or editing of the page. I fought long and hard to create my page, and finally I think they got fed up with me, and I got away with it. Here, check it out.

Things had been quiet on this front, until a couple of weeks ago, when a firestorm erupted.

I noticed a featured entry on my old friend, John Le Mesurier, long passed on. The creators of the article linked to many of his co-workers, and it mentioned that he started his radio career with the series Just William in 1946. My name wasn’t mentioned, and I thought, what the heck, I’ll put in my name because I was the first William, and he worked with me, and link it to the article on me. Well, it was immediately deleted, so I put it back, and this started an edit war, a no-no at Wikipedia. Often article talk pages are more interesting than the articles they discuss. The irony is that when I asked the Just William Society to look into the matter, they found that the biographer of the book which was their source was wrong, he never was in the radio show! And I certainly don’t remember him in the broadcast studio either. So their sourcing policy has serious flaws in it anyway.

What began as a storm in a teacup has blown up to be a big issue at the Wikipedia website, and has even drawn in the founder, Jimmy Wales. As I said, it has to do with the fact that they don’t allow celebrities who have their own entries known as “Biographies of Living Persons” to in any way edit their entries. A “Conflict of Interest” rule. So even if they are misquoted, or sourced to an unreliable mention in a newspaper or book, there’s nothing they can do about it.

Does all this matter? I think it does, because Wikipedia is usually, one might say always, at or near the top of search engines. And because it’s royalty free, the press quotes freely from it all the time. I am campaigning for them to change this rule. “Celebrities” and other sentient groups, should be able to edit too. If Wikipedia claims to be democratic, i.e. for “all the people”, then all the people should be able to edit anything anywhere at any time.  And if they continue to ban celebrities? By way of illustration of possible legal outcomes, I made up the following courtroom scenario, and posted it on Jimbo Wales’s user page:

Celebrity vs. Wikipedia, does 1-30 (The does will cover senior editors, founders and 30 users)

CELEBRITY ATTORNEY: My client has been libeled in the pages of Wikipedia in an article written by users who operate under assumed names.

JUDGE: Libeled? Does your client claim privacy privileges which are quite broad?

CELEBRITY ATTORNEY: No your honor, he knows that he is vulnerable to general criticism and accepts that. He is what they call a Notable, and as such becomes part of a category called “Biographies of Living Persons”, and any content may only be changed at the discretion of other users, but not him. That is the crux of this action. He does not accept statements that hold him up to ridicule, scorn, and contempt.

WP ATTORNEY: My client claims immunity as a public website. It merely passes on what is being said elsewhere. All statements are sourced.

JUDGE: Does Wikipedia discriminate against any users?

WP ATTORNEY: Absolutely not. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site, as we proclaim publicly.

JUDGE: Can’t the plaintiff remove the offending language then?

CELEBRITY ATTORNEY: No your honor. Under Wikipedia’s restrictive rules, celebrities cannot change anything in articles detailing their lives, beyond possibly a fact here and there. It contravenes what is known as their Conflict of Interest rule, which is a core principle, and which conflicts with their own rules which my friend just stated.

JUDGE: I see. Then can you state your problem with individual users?

CELEBRITY ATTORNEY: They don’t always provide a source for their unpleasant remarks, and many are the celebrities’ fans, and in this case haters. Often-times untrue statements remain unchallenged.

JUDGE: Then I grant permission for you to bring any such users into court, as I rule they are not exempt.

CELEBRITY ATTORNEY: But how do I find them?

JUDGE: That’s your problem. (raises gavel)

WP ATTORNEY: (Quickly) May I confer with my clients?

(After a short interlude.)

WP ATTORNEY: I think we can settle this, your honor. My clients are willing to change the rule. They will henceforth include the celebrity and notable BLPers as regular users. Of course, they will then have to conform to the same rules as everybody else.

JUDGE: Sounds good to me. I will sign an order to that effect. Case dismissed.

I sued the new owners who’d been waiting in the wings, the Katlemans. Also the real estate agent Melissa Oliver (conflict of interest), and the escrow company. The judge was anxious to grab funds which was easy, because I had no mortgage, and he signed off on it “as is”. There were no inspections that I’m aware of. Amazing how judicial orders can skate over proper procedures. My cases were dismissed, and I was charged the escrow company’s legal expenses for my efforts to get them to reveal the details. Over $12,000, 5 times what I received as my share of this “community property” (again, lol!). So much for real estate transfer laws, a pillar of a man’s rights in a free country.

Were they working in unison? At least I found out what they’d been doing to me under cover of secrecy. Only as a result of my litigation efforts, I got a statement. Later, Mr. Katleman took the front property’s address causing a visit by Malibu Building and Safety to the front guest house only to inspect it, and a deliberate diminution of its value. It was bought by Melissa’s real estate friend at a price less than what I had previously offered to the court .

My home’s address was always 21342 1/2. I was banned from entering the property, subjected to arrest, and in the dead of night Miyuki and I sneaked in in dark clothing, and rescued my diaries and records of my life. I then had a choice, before moving into my trailer to tow it to a trailer park. Burn the place down, become a Chris Dorner, or put a curse on it. I chose the latter. Gold put me in jail anyway, just for 24 hours to disable me before I could start my courtroom defense from the aggressors.

To the new buyers, be aware that the pool, which I dug, has no safety fence, and I did a whole lot of upgrading without permits, and buried huge amounts of trash on the grounds with my backhoe, as well as laying drains into a sewage pit and drain field under the car park. I also built the little studio near the tennis court without permits, also the tennis court and night lights. Demand to see all previous inspection reports if there are any, and insist on new independent inspections. Look for the devil in the details. Notice it’s right next to a huge park, full of small trees and brush, has no shelter from the sun, and sits under a steep slope which used to give me trouble from pelting rain, dust, and small rocks. Full disclosure, right?

I wish Mr. Katleman, my fellow DGA member, well, in his TV career. Not so his pimply lawyer in his legal career.

This has given me occasion to reflect on our life together.

Lynn and I, over the course of a little under 33 years, made a change in the landscape for the life of actors, for the better, I do believe. We never went looking for trouble. It came to us, and instead of burying it, we fought back.

REVIEW

First was a lawsuit against the Gate Theatre in Dublin. We put on a play starring Lynn and Dan O’Herlihy, my first directing job actually. We ran for 3 sold-out weeks (the longest they’d book us), the best box office in their history. Our deal was to split profits, which were excellent. Instead, they took half of our gross receipts. Discovery revealed that the Irish government, the owners, had years before ordered the management to make the theatre available to outside Irish companies for free. We lived locally, hired Irish actors, financed the show, and of course paid all the costs of our production. A 4-wall deal. Why we lost the case is another story, but we left Dublin soon after, leaving an Irish Equity with a smile on its face, for we had broken the Gate’s hold on their previous minimal actor’s salaries. It’s worth mentioning that despite using an Irish attorney, we didn’t get our money back.

Then we headed West, back to my home town of New York, where we were soon greeted with a lawsuit filed against us by U.S. Equity who extorted 5% of my wife’s self-paid salary as dues, from a year’s tour we took across America with our own show, financed by us and directed by me. We had posted Equity bonds at each date, and they refused to return them. Again, we lost, for reasons I won’t go into here. They returned the bonds less 5%. But, in a form of revenge you might say, we made a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, who summoned the leaders of all of the performing unions, and found that Equity alone had been breaking the law for years, penalizing foreign stage performers for daring to peddle their art in America. They had constructed a punitive discriminatory dues structure, in order to discourage them. This time we won. Now foreign actors are treated equally, and have a smile on their faces too, because it has led to a relatively free exchange of actors between America and England and elsewhere. Certainly audiences have applauded this development. We however, were deprived of financial satisfaction because we were outside the Statute of Limitations (3 year rule.) Yul Brynner received hundreds of thousands of dollars which nearly broke the union, but he was very nice, he sent Lynn a bunch of daffodils by way of thanking her.

Next came our famous lawsuit against Lew Wasserman and MCA/Universal, when Lynn was fired for wishing to breastfeed our daughter Annabel at work. Our thoroughly compromised WMA agent didn’t help, nor did our attorneys, and UTV’s press department went to work. Our suit was quietly dismissed by a corrupted judge headed for retirement. I wrote about it in the “Housecalls, what really happened” topic on the left. Expensive yeah, and actor mothers and fathers were eternally grateful for causing all Film and TV companies to provide facilities for employees who were new mothers and their babies. That was the only positive to come out of that case. In the event, they were ordered to reimburse our attorneys’ fees. They didn’t. They’d faxed notice of a hearing to our locked office while we were performing Love Letters up in San Francisco, and avoided payment due to our non-appearance, thanks to their famed “I always win” attorney Gale Title. No transcript was made of the proceedings, so Lew kept all of our attorney fees, and we never knew how he managed to make that happen.

Next, Lynn and I were asked to lead the Players, Edwin Booth’s 1888 gift to actors on Gramercy Park, by our close friends Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon. I’d been a member for many years. The club was in dire straits. No proper books, so we gave them 20 grand to construct a proper set. Then our tough love for them proved to be too much, and we were summarily ejected. They’re still floundering. I see that steps are being taken by insiders for a clean sweep to improve its chances of survival. For my trouble, I’ve been called John Sleeper Clarke.

This gives me pause. Booths = Redgraves, compare! Consider: Separated by about one hundred years, it produces quite startling results. Junius Brutus cf. Sir Michael = Shakespearean actors, patriarchs and family founders, both. John Wilkes cf. Corin (or Vanessa) = fiery political trouble-makers, both. Asia cf. Lynn = good writers, recorders of their family stories, both. John Clarke cf. John Clark (me), married to those same sisters. We are the link by our same name. We are both lawyerly, both comedians, both into management, and as Asia wrote to her brother Edwin “He lives a free going bachelor life and does what he likes.”  Sorry, no comment from me there, and he’s dead! Enough already.

COMPLAINT

To bring us up to date, I am here to say that the tradition is still alive, even though Lynn isn’t. I still choose to live dangerously, sui juris, out of some kind of personality defect, contrariness, orneriness, or just some kind of survival instinct from bad ad litem experiences – it’s not for me to say. But today I filed a Complaint with the Los Angeles Better Business Bureau, and the Los Angeles Department of Consumer Affairs against The Breakdown Services, Ltd. This is only a start, but hopefully it will lead to a satisfactory finish. Their stranglehold on the casting process is a scandal. Read it here:

I am a British born professional actor age 80, and have been a union member in England, Canada and America since 1944 (SAG/AFTRA, US Equity, ACTRA, Canadian Equity, British Equity). I am and have been a U.S. citizen since 1965. I do not use a “manager” or an “agent” because of past conflict of interest problems with them, and the experience of a major lawsuit against the William Morris Agency. I get my own acting jobs, but am effectively prevented from doing so.

I need to avail myself of full casting information from the Breakdowns, aka “Breakdown Services” (hereinafter “BS”), which is a monopoly service employed by all big and small movie and TV production and theatre companies. Scripts and story lines are received by BS from these companies, and from them, BS creates a breakdown of story plots and characters. This information is supplied EXCLUSIVELY to agents and/or managers electronically for money and profit, which is their business practice.

Actors, the subject of these notices, are shut out from seeing all of them!

The owner/founder of BS, Gary Marsh, told his audience at a seminar he gave the evening of March 20, 2013 at the premises where I live at Oakwood, Barham Blvd. Hollywood, to a group of child actors and their mothers that he has lawsuits pending against actors who have bootlegged his information. I have done this in the past. He told me that I could not buy their services at any price, only managers and agents, and between them they set the rules. I asked him if I could receive this information if I became a manager, and he said I could not qualify because I am an actor, and if I “wear 2 hats”, I would still be denied. There were at least 20 witnesses.

I believe that all actors are protected from this kind of discriminatory anti-competitive practice by government law, such as The Sherman Act, of July 2, 1890, ch. 647, 26 S 209, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–7.

Breakdown Services operates and reaches across state lines from coast to coast, and abroad. There is no competitive service anywhere. 

As settlement, I DEMAND

That the Breakdown Services provides this information ONLINE, so that ALL ACTORS across the world have access to it, at NO CHARGE. Any cost or expense should be born by the Breakdown Services, and passed on to the production companies. It is their joint problem. Together, they created it.

This complaint will soon appear online for the inspection and I hope support of actors. No, not their managers, and not their agents, and not the production companies. They’ll hate it. Actors don’t wish to be “protected from themselves” (see Gary Marsh’s Q&A link above) and will care, and, I’m pretty sure, SAG/Aftra and Equity will care too. I hope the brave ones will flock to support the request. This is not to denigrate Breakdown Services, for they do a fine job. We just want them to open up to us, the central sine qua non of their business, and stop insulting our intelligence.

Follow along and let me know you support this complaint, so that regulators are assured that we actors and directors WANT to know what jobs are available, 100% of them, not just for our enablers (managers and agents) to know, if you employ them at all, but ALL of us. Actors have voices off camera too, in our free society. Let them be heard loud and clear.

My Twitter handle is John Clark@johnclarknew. Click on it. I need feedback!

I hope it will not be necessary to file a lawsuit against Breakdown Services, because I don’t like lawyers either. And this would need one.

Nikke Finke broke this news to us on March 19:

Last night a federal judge in Seattle ruled that a lawsuit brought by an actress who accused the online film and TV database for posting her birthdate in her bio without her permission will go to trial. U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman denied summary judgment from IMDb on Junie Hoang’s breach of contract claim, meaning the case will go forward to an April 8 trial date. The core claim makes the central issue of the case whether the site enables age discrimination in the entertainment biz with its policy of posting ages on individuals’ web pages.

In the original lawsuit filed in October 2011, Huang claimed she attempted to increase her exposure on the website in 2008 by subscribing via credit card to IMDb Pro. She changed her name and didn’t reveal her age when providing information for her profile. Soon after joining, her age appeared on the site, revealing info she claims harms her chances of landing film roles. Huang claimed the site performed record searches using her credit card information to obtain her age and did not remove the information when she requested it. Amazon called the suit “frivolous.” But then-separate unions SAG and AFTRA backed Huang’s action saying that when actual ages are posted “they become known to casting personnel, the 10+ year age range that many [actors] can portray suddenly shrinks and so do their opportunities to work”.

As a start, IMDb doesn’t offer webpages for subscribers to fill. It gives information deemed to be reliable, that’s all. And it gives it to everybody, producers, performers and craft professionals, either for free or a for a small fee at the IMDb Pro website.

This actress spoofed her name, and didn’t wish to reveal her age when providing her information. If she’d been selected for a Wikipedia “biography of living people” profile, you can bet they’d have her nailed down with accuracy, including her birth name and age. I have this to say, as if there were no more important things to think about.

Junie, there IS no privacy any more. Get used to it. When all’s said and done, the truth won’t go away, and lies will. Your age, your health, the nature of your sickness, your height, your weight, the natural color of your hair, your sexuality, your use of body enhancements, your clothes, your underwear, your income, your debts, your criminal history, your driving history, your court records, your credit history, your FICO score, your marriages, your lovers, your citizenship, your parents, your ancestors, your acting credits, your car, your home, your children, and why you died. Nobody’s kidding anyone any more. Consider, the more we’re different, the more we’re the same. Set me up or bail me out is today’s cry. Only one thing matters in the end. SPELL MY NAME RIGHT.

Then I decided to have a little fun.

I’ve been an IMDb Pro subscriber for years, where I’m John Clark (II), and have my own credits, contacts, pictures and clips displayed. They’re great people, and perform a useful service. They list just about everything knowable about a person, an agent, a manager, and a production company, with their phone numbers and addresses. Also film and tv reviews, and my favorites are from users, especially under the “hated it” category, (always, to me, more interesting.) You can indeed send in corrections, and they are always verified by them. So I sent this to IMDb:

Some people think I’m 80, over the hill, weigh 300 lbs and can barely see, let alone walk. Actually, I am 45, Greek, of royal birth, and an Olympic athlete with a black belt in Judo. I can speak 14 languages, and make love multiple times without a break if the scene calls for it. I have worked 12 times for Spielberg (I’m his favorite), mostly doing my own stunts. I need work. Here’s my number, in case CAA doesn’t return the call.

IMDb ignored me and hasn’t made this correction! H-e-e-l-p! Should I sue?

Today, she informed her readers that the managers were at it again, pleading their cause before a federal judge, but were thrown out. Here, she can speak for herself:

Personal managers took it on the chin Tuesday in U.S. District Court when Judge Dean Pregerson wouldn’t touch California’s Talent Agencies Act. Instead the judge threw out an outrageously broad lawsuit filed by the National Conference of Personal Managers seeking to overturn the state’s ban on managers “procuring” employment. That provision has effectively allowed clients  to void their management contracts and not pay commissions even if the managers obtained a job for them. (Managers are unlicensed whereas talent agents must be licensed by the state to procure employment.) Pregerson rejected the managers’ claim that California has created “involuntary servitude” for them. “Not being compensated for work performed does not inevitably make that work involuntary servitude,” the judge ruled. “Plaintiff’s members have choices.” He also rejected claims that the Talent Agencies Act violated the Commerce Clause, the Contracts Clause and the First Amendment.

Well, that got my pulse going and my blood-pressure pointing north. A lot of managers made comments outlining ideas for future strategy, and I just HAD to chime in with my voice and MY comment:

John Clark says:

ACTOR HERE! Spoiler alert – rant ahead – listen up.
 We actors are entrepreneurs by instinct and training and dreaming. When we’re not working, we work out, honing our craft, and wait for the phone to ring. And wait and wait and wait. 
So, in frustration, we pick up the phone and call a casting director about a project we heard about, maybe from a writer friend, and a part we think we’re right for. She/he won’t take the call. We call the packager.  Same thing.
 We call Breakdown Services to ask for a reasonably priced subscription to their researched data-base of parts, characters, and jobs available day by day. They won’t sell to us.
 We’re SHUT OUT of OUR industry!


Remove all of us actors? What will be left is NOTHING…NOTHING…NOTHING.


Remove all of these agents and managers, then what’s left? Why, the world of entertainment and fantasy fulfillment for paying audiences happily humming away.


I’m eighty years old. I’ve been a part of our industry since I was a famous child star in England before the end of World War 2, and quite famous since (for all the wrong reasons.) I won’t be around much longer.
 And I say F**K Y*U to agents and managers for preventing me from making direct contact with my goals. [I used the actual words, which Nikke allows and my webmaster doesn't.]


I pass this advice to the next generation of actors. “Get in touch with your own self, and make sure there are no degrees of separation between you, your soul, your spirit, your sense of creativity, your business sense, and any roadblocks in and to your ability to GET WORK!

”
Thank you judge, thank you SAG/AFTRA/EQUITY, and thank you Government for controlling the agencies by licensing them, and rejecting the “managers” of actors’ lives. If these “personal managers” really want to “represent” their clients, then they should marry them, and go all the way.
 And that is my rant for the day.”

There was an immediate response.

Comment by Huh? — Thursday March 7, 2013 @ 2:22pm PST 

To which I said

If you had half of a brain, you’d have made sure that the client’s checks, contractually, were made payable to you, subtract your commission, and then net it off to the client. But then you’d be a fiduciary, subject to the laws of fraud, and actors are smart enough to see that, and won’t let you do it. Which makes YOU an insecure, ranting miserable ex-hairdresser manager. Boo hoo.

• Comment by John Clark — Thursday March 7, 2013 @ 5:33pm PST

(Oh Lord, maybe I should not have said that. Now I’ll NEVER get a manager to represent me, nor an agent for that matter! Or maybe even a haircut .)

We must assume that Dorner’s life has ended. He left quite a trail, and many loose ends, which we now have to pick up and make sense of. I plan to resurrect the record of his days in court, under the watchful eye of, and rejected by, Judge David Yaffe, who has just resigned, bowing to the pressure of the corruption exposed by 70 year old Richard Fine, whom he consigned to 18 months of solitary confinement in Men’s Jail, and was released last year. In a way, Yaffe started this whole thing.

We owe the following profound description and overview of what went down to Darwin Adikia, who posted it at CNN.com. It is very much worth reading, and shows how we are all involved, like it or not, by what we do, and by what we don’t do.

And so it ended in bloodshed and flames on the eighth day since Christopher J. Dorner allegedly embarked on a revenge killing spree, targeting LAPD personnel and their families. It was a predictable ending and many regular people had chimed in to say as much. Very few really believed that surviving long enough to see a court room was a plausible scenario for Mr. Dorner. But for many it became wishful thinking for a handful of days. And now the mop-up begins and for the family of the dead deputy the world has just become a much darker place.

What really transpired near Big Bear Lake, CA, may never be known but it will certainly be fodder for folklore and political opportunism. The spin is about to begin in earnest, although how to spin this one in any one direction is a real head-scratcher. One thing is virtually certain — there wasn’t just one set of charred remains in that burnt out cabin. Along with Dorner’s there were also the charred remains of the Potyomkin village that was the new and improved public image of the police. In the eyes of many, that too went up in smoke and the stench still hangs over us.

The LAPD will be dealing with the fallout of the Dorner case for a very long time, thanks to the surreal statements by its chief and an appalling lack of professionalism and restraint by some of its officers. A reputation can take decades of painstaking efforts to build by many but can be shattered in moments by a few. Whatever gains the department has made in community relations since Ramparts and Rodney King, these have now been severely undermined yet again. How can the rank and file be expected to exercise professionalism and restraint when the leadership does not? LAPD Chief Charlie Beck called Dorner a “trained assassin”, just a couple of couple of days after he told us “we trained him”. If you connect Chief Beck’s dots, evidently LAPD is in the business of training assassins? How splendid for the citizens of Los Angeles and the millions who visit the city! Beck didn’t stop there however. “This is an act — and make no mistake about it — of domestic terrorism,” he said. He stopped short of calling it a “Jihad” against the LAPD or the American people. Domestic terrorism? Really? A man that you had previously told us is out to get revenge against the LAPD and the LAPD only? A man who was never known to have articulated a gripe against America as a whole, its policies or way of life, and who has stated no intentions of harming anyone other than a specific group of people in an opaque organization with a blood-stained record that he believes treated him unjustly? A man who has stated absolutely nothing about politics or religion as a motivation for his grievances and actions? If this is the new criteria for labeling someone a “terrorist”, then Chief Beck, you are going to need a lot more space than Camp Gitmo to warehouse the millions of Americans that would fall under your definition. Or perhaps skip straight to the crematoriums.

It is illuminating how many Americans thought that he was laying the foundation for justifying to the public the application of President Obama’s infamous drone doctrine abroad within the borders of the United States. This is precisely what numerous news organizations were reporting — Christopher J. Dorner, a decorated veteran of the United States Navy, became the first known human target for airborne drones on U.S. soil. Their use, reported MSN, was confirmed by Customs and Border Patrol spokesman Ralph DeSio, who revealed the government’s fear that Dorner will make a dash for the Mexican border. That is some distinction! He was of course NOT the first known American citizen to be targeted and executed by drone strikes. Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were killed by a missile strike in Yemen on Sept. 30, 2011, while al-Awlaki’s son, Abdulrahman, was killed in the country just weeks later on October 14, 2011. He was 16 years old. Again, he was SIXTEEN YEARS OLD. He was born in Denver, CO. During his presidential campaign, Republican Rep. Ron Paul criticized the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, saying: “Al-Awlaki was born here, he is an American citizen. He was never tried or charged for any crimes. No one knows if he killed anybody. … But if the American people accept this blindly and casually that we now have an accepted practice of the president assassinating people who he thinks are bad guys, I think it’s sad.

If this story has proven ANYTHING in a fairly definitive way it is that despite an overwhelmingly negative portrayal of the suspect by the authorities and the media, much of the public remained more than a little skeptical. Even as the flames consumed the cabin that Dorner was holed up in, echoes of Waco, TX and other dreadful episodes in the history of American law enforcement spread over the Internet like wildfire. That in itself says volumes. Whatever the truths in this case are, these are symptoms of a very troubled and divided society and these symptoms go hand in hand with a long line of other symptoms, including the recent events in Newtown. Too many regular Americans found it hard to swallow that this was a story about some guy named Chris Dorner, a killer of four. Even before Dorner burned to death in a cabin surrounded by cops, with no fire engines anywhere near the scene, this story had already become much bigger than any one man could have ever contemplated. It had become a story about how many Americans, maybe a majority or maybe a meaningful minority, have become skeptical or outright distrusting of the authorities that are ostensibly there to protect us. Too many regular folks have come to view the ruling caste as a necessary evil, while some view it as just plain evil. These are not symptoms of a healthy nation that the President contemplated in his State of the Union Address.

The Christopher J. Dorner saga has twisted the Rubik’s cube of American public opinion, revealing different angles of the recent Newtown events and the waves of public opinion and policy response that followed, and it is forcing millions of Americans to finally confront a set of issues that they were heretofore blissfully happy to ignore. Is what our leaders are doing outside of our borders using our tax dollars, including sometimes killing American citizens without an indictment, an arrest, or a trial by their peers, now becoming an American import? This operation was unprecedented in many ways in terms of its scope and the multitude of facts that had to be “managed”. Not surprisingly, total control was elusive and from the beginning facts began to slip out, leading many to scratch their heads. We may have become a complacent nation, too lazy and unwilling to exercise our fundamental rights much of the time, but even our latte-sipping-reality-TV-watching “culture” has its limits. We haven’t entirely lost or ability to lift our heads out of our cocoons and say “Hey, we weren’t born yesterday. What the hell is going on here?!?” Not for nothing, but in the vast majority of published pictures and videos, Christopher J. Dorner had the appearance of the nicest, warmest, most gregarious and well adjusted person — PRECISELY the kind of person that you could possibly want to show up at your door if you had to call 911. How on earth did he get from THAT to THIS?!?

Appearances can be wildly misleading, of course, and you can’t judge a book by its cover. O.J. Simpson had a great smile too. But in a country where African American suspects are usually delivered to the public a-la photos like that of Willie Horton, this was really quite surprising. Even astounding. Christopher J. Dorner was no Willie Horton and he sure as hell was no Adam Lanza. The horrific nature of the Newtown story made it easy for many to embrace the official version of the lone-wolf Adam Lanza, with virtually no scrutiny of mainstream media’s narrative. We were told that we know next to nothing about Lanza because there was nothing to know. That he was essentially an off-the-grid recluse. And many accepted this. Despite conflicting reports and a plethora of oddities, including a newsreel showing the police retrieving a long gun from the trunk of a car, whereas we were told that Lanza used a long gun in the slayings inside the school just before he committed suicide, the grieving public largely embraced the official story. To question it was taboo. When James Tracy, a communications professor at Florida Atlantic University, suggested in a blog post that the Sandy Hook school massacre may not have happened as reported and may have been part of a plot by the Obama administration to promote gun control, for a while it looked as if he may literally be crucified. Now, a month and a half later, we still know next to nothing about what happened in Newtown and who Adam Lanza was. Remarkably, aside from a few old grainy photos of Lanza, his mother Nancy, and his father Peter, our journalistic muckrakers have come up with nothing to document and reveal what the accused mass killer had done with his life in the twenty years that he reportedly spent on earth or in the twenty minutes that changed America. One might think we are talking about a ghost. Christopher Dorner was a very different proposition. A whole lot is known about him before he suddenly became a “murderer” and a “terrorist” and it just doesn’t add up very well. Any way you cut it, this story is a hideous construct and an unflattering reflection of our society.

It would be interesting to get more detail about his Navy service. From the bits and pieces that have been reported thus far, it would seem that he served well, was honorably discharged, and that at least some part of his Navy service overlapped with his employment and/or legal battle with the LAPD. If Dorner was really such a bad apple for so many years and “could not play well with others” within a structured military hierarchy, you would think that this would have been reflected in his Navy service record. Yet, he was honorably discharged barely more than a week ago and to date we have not seen or heard any credible evidence of any red flags during his Navy years.
Here is a summary of his service record released by the Navy just days ago:
Service Dates/Assignments: Arrived – Detached
- Various Reserve Units: 1 Dec 2009 – 21 Jan 2010
- Navy Reserve NAS Fallon, NV: 7 Mar 2009 – 30 Nov 2009
- *30 May 2007 – 6 Mar 2009: Gap of time where Dorner’s military assignment is undisclosed in information released by the U.S. Navy
- Navy Mobilization Processing Site (NMPS) San Diego, CA: 23 Apr 2007 – 29 May 2007
- Coastal Riverine Group Two Det Bahrain: 3 Nov 2006 – 23 Apr 2007
- Coastal Riverine Group One, San Diego, CA: 10 Jul 2006 – 31 Oct 2006
- Navy Mobilization Processing Site (NMPS) San Diego, CA: 6 Jul 2006 – 10 Jul 2006
- *29 Feb 2006 – 5 July 2006: Gap of time where Dorner’s military assignment is undisclosed in information released by the U.S. Navy
- Mobile Inshore Undersea Warfare Unit: 23 Jun 2004 – 28 Feb 2006
- Navy Personnel Command: 16 Jun 2004 – 22 Jun 2004
- Various Aviation Training Units: 4 Jul 2002 – 15 Jun 2004
Awards and Decorations
- National Defense Service Medal
- Iraq Campaign Medal
- Global War on Terrorism Service Medal
- Sea Service Deployment Medal
- Navy Marine Corps Overseas Service Ribbon
- Armed Forces Reserve Medal w/ “M” Device
- Rifle Marksman Ribbon
- Pistol Expert Medal
Even if every single accusation against him turns out to be true, we would be remiss to not scrutinize how a man gets on a path like this, given where he had been. Not because of Dorner but because of us. Because there are probably millions of Americans somewhere on the same path that Dorner was on ten years ago and we owe it to them and to us to ensure that they have a better outcome. What happened with Dorner does not honor America, it does not enrich the legacy that we will leave to our children.

The LAPD had “mistakenly” shot at three civilians, wounding two. We were told that Dorner ambushed two unsuspecting officers in a car, but in light of the LAPD’s apparent propensity to shoot first and ask questions later, we were left to wonder whether this was indeed what transpired. And now, another shooting and more deaths and we may never know what really transpired on that mountain. For the past few days, if you are a large black man in LA, it was far from clear whether you’d be better off running into Dorner or uniformed LAPD cops looking for Dorner? And here too things had gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. The Hollywood Gossip web site reported on how at least some Los Angelinos were dealing with this very question — a photo of a rotund African American man with a t-shirt that read “NOT CHRIS DORNER. PLEASE DO NOT SHOOT” and a photo of a pick-up truck bearing a sign that read “DON’T SHOOT! NOT DORNER. THANK YOU.” There were no reports of anyone wearing t-shirts or sporting signs that read “NOT LAPD. DON’T SHOOT. THANK YOU”.

This real life drama was eerily similar to Clint Eastwood’s fictional plot in “The Gauntlet” and the Al Pacino reality-based drama “Serpico”. There are also striking parallels with Sylvester Stallone’s fictional protagonist in “First Blood”. We rooted for John J. Rambo, a veteran Green Beret, because we saw him as an every-man hero betrayed by the corrupt establishment. We knew the cops were lying. We knew they were the killers and we wanted him to survive and to bring the war to them. Why? Because Stallone’s Rambo tapped into our insecurities about those who are supposed to protect us. They should be listening and trying to take this in and reflect. They are raising their children in this country too. They do not want to be “those guys”. And the great numbers of good and decent men and women who strap on a badge and a gun every day to serve their communities do not want “those guys” to define the narrative and the public image of the lot.

We wish we could readily believe the official version of the Dorner incident, but one has to consider the source. The same source that gave us Rodney King, among others. We kind of know that police agencies lie routinely and that once they commit to a lie, they keep digging and digging until the truth is either buried or the hole caves in on them. A vivid more recent example of proven cold-blooded murder and subsequent cover-up conspiracy by active duty police is the Danziger Bridge incident in Louisiana. We wish we could be confident that the cops are SEARCHING for Dorner and intending to APPREHEND him. But there didn’t seem to even be a pretense of a search, certainly not at the outset. It was billed as a “manhunt” and generally you hunt something in order to kill it. It’s 2013 and we were treated to a slow-motion televised lynching by fire. The police and some other nameless and faceless men with badges are the judge, the jury and the executioner. If there are doubts as to their motives or intentions, just ask the three civilians the LAPD had already fired on. The officers’ “probable cause”, according to LAPD Chief Beck, is that they were “on edge”.

Did any thinking person really believe that the end-game here was to apprehend Dorner and give him a trial? Was there even a serious doubt that given the choice of getting him dead or alive the cops would spare him? The lynching took place just as many had expected and the networks were thrilled to bring it live to your living rooms. Make no mistake — the LAPD is acutely aware of the fact that public opinion can reach a flash point, just like it did during the Rodney King riots, just like it did during Watts. It has been nearly twenty one years since the Rodney King riots, and for all the talk about reform in the LAPD, it would be a fool’s errand to proclaim that community relations today do not bear the scars of that era and many more recent scars. We haven’t seen anything on that scale in the United States in a while, but we have been treated to numerous televised images of austerity riots in Southern Europe, Western Continental Europe, and London. It’s disturbing and it’s ugly. No-one wants to see such a flash point reached here in the US again. No-one.
That said, however, even if we accept that the LAPD has the best of intentions here, the way it’s leadership has handled the PR aspect of this reminds one of the saying “The road to hell is paved with best intentions”. Instead of sticking to “just the facts”, the department right out off the gate embarked on a clumsy smear campaign of conjecture and spin. This, however, raised more questions and doubts than it has answered. In addition to the careless use of words like “trained assassin” and “domestic terrorist”, the department announced a $1 million reward. But it wasn’t until this afternoon, February 12, 2013, that the LAPD even put up information about Christopher Dorner on its home page. Instead, the LAPD’s home page featured at least three photos of the mustachioed Chief Beck and an advertisement for a 2013 “Calender”. The LAPD’s Top 10 Most Wanted page on its Web site STILL doesn’t feature Dorner. And the “Recent Additions” link on the department’s site’s Most Wanted page leads to a “Page Not Found”. What the department did put up on its Web site is a .PDF wanted poster. It doesn’t really tell one anything about Dorner that hasn’t already been covered in the press. It does state in bold red letters that Dorner is “CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS” and that “Officers should use extreme caution when apprehending suspect Dorner”. Remarkably, the wanted poster, approved by Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger, did not provide any contact information for the LAPD, nor does it offer any instruction to civilians on how to proceed should they spot Mr. Dorner (or “Suspect Dorner”). The poster made no mention of the $1 million reward either. The LA Times was more generous with information (including a contact phone number for tips). It reported that the LA city council had added $100,000 to the $1 million previously announced, and stated that “County supervisors in Los Angeles and Riverside counties are expected to follow suit, raising the total reward to $1.3 million.” Interestingly, only one person on the current FBI Top 10 Most Wanted List has a $1 million bounty. The other nine have only $100,000 each. Evidently, Christopher Dorner was worth more in terms of bounty than nine out of the ten top most wanted criminals on the FBI’s list. ABC News reported that “the LAPD said at a news conference Tuesday morning that it is looking into more than 1,000 tips from the public.” Is that a lot? Or was the public at large not exactly rushing to get involved? Maybe it’s not really for the public. Mercury News reported that “TV’s Dog the Bounty Hunter predicts the $1 million reward will bring out the pros”. There you go — reality TV. It is, after all, LA. Chapman theorizes that since Dorner has not killed a new victim in the last week he may be testing LAPD, says Mercury Times. “It’s like a cooling off period, like he knows they’ll guard his guys for a while but will ease off with the 24/7 surveillance,” Chapman said. “As a cop he’ll probably wait now and make another move when he believes the LAPD is getting more lax.”

So, where has the media coverage been in all this? We were told that Dorner sent a CD or a DVD to Anderson Cooper at CNN. We were told that it was “chilling” but never shown what was on the disc. What could it have been that it “chilled” Mr. Cooper? While one cannot be sure, it is fairly safe to assume that it wasn’t a La Toya Jackson album. What was on it? You’d think that a man going on a suicide mission, right or wrong, would put whatever he considered to be the most important vindicating evidence on a CD to CNN. How someone in a news organization came up with the red herring of “Imagine a More Open America.” is a real head-scratcher. Who has ever heard of this “common abbreviation” before? Who in America has EVER texted “OMG, LOL, LMFAO, IMOA… BRB”?!? The writing on the coin covering OBVIOUSLY says 1 M.O.A. (separated by commas), which is a shooting acronym for “Minutes of Angle” or “Minutes of Arc”. Wikipedia will tell you that “1 MOA subtends approximately one inch at 100 yards, a traditional distance on target ranges.” The guy sends you a two inch coin with bullet holes in it and you think it’s a symbol for “Imagine a More Open America”? Really?

And where were Dorner’s friends, neighbors, brothers, sisters, LAPD partner, his military unit buddies, his commanders, basketball buddies, etc? He was a United States Navy officer after all. We heard some unflattering comments from an ex-girlfriend, but come on, how objective and reliable will ANYONE’s ex be? This guy is in his mid-30s and has led a pretty public life. How come we know only what the LAPD and other nameless and faceless government men are telling us? We know that he went to college and played football. Where are you, his teammates? Some are speaking out but their voices seem to not pass the screens of certain venerable news organizations. His former coach at Southern Utah University, Aaron Alford, said: “You know, I met him when I became a coach at Southern Utah University. That was 1999 and 2000. And in those two years, you know, the things you obviously are seeing on television and hearing in the news, don’t — obviously don’t fit. They’re ludicrous in that manner, just to think that he’s gone to this level of violence and anger. But he was a good kid. You never heard anything negative. He stayed out of trouble. He had good grades. You know, we talked quite often while I was there, and you know, there was nothing to speculate that he would have this kind of issue.” James Usera, now an Oregon attorney, played football with Dorner at Southern Utah University in the late 1990s and they became friends off the field. Usera told the media: “Just absolute befuddlement and shock when I learned about it this morning, and trying to piece things together and in being asked questions about what I know about Mr. Dorner, my experiences with him, and I try and think, was there any indication of this and, you know, there just isn’t… My experience with Mr. Dorner was overwhelmingly positive. I never saw any indications in him that he was violent or particularly aggressive, certainly nothing that would suggest to me that he could commit the crimes with which he’s been accused.” Where were the others?
We’ve learned that more than ten years ago Dorner was featured in an Enid News & Eagle article, about two men returning a bank bag containing nearly $8,000 in cash and checks to an area church. Dorner told the News & Eagle he was raised in La Palma, Calif., by his mother. Is she still alive? Where is she as her son is the subject of a “manhunt” using military drones? He said he wanted to fly SH-60 helicopters in the Navy, according to the News & Eagle story. About returning the money, Dorner said: “I didn’t work for it, so it’s not mine. And, it was for the church. It’s not so much the integrity, but it was someone else’s money. I would hope someone would do that for me.”

Where were the black civil rights leaders and celebrities before the Big Bear Lake bonfire? Where were you, Jesse Jackson? You showed signs of life a few days ago when your son accepted a plea bargain. Where are you, Al Sharpton? Where are you, Chris Rock? We know you’re alive because you were mumbling something to Congress about gun control a few days ago. Where are you Samuel L. Jackson, Denzel Washington, Will Smith, Jamie Foxx? How come none of you were out there saying “Hey, Chris Dorner, whatever you have done, you deserve a trial. Call my office. Let’s arrange a peaceful surrender in front of television cameras so at least you won’t be shot down in a revenge killing.”? To his credit, Charlie Sheen has stepped up… sort of. In a brief taped video message aired on celebrity website TMZ, Sheen said: “Christopher Dorner, this is Charlie Sheen. You mention me in your manifesto so thank you for your kind words. I’m urging you to call me and let’s figure out together how to end this thing. Call me. I look forward to talking to you.” Of course, had the “trained assassin” and “domestic terrorist” Christopher Dorner snagged Charlie Sheen, he would have had at his disposal a weapon of mass self-destruction.

Where was California Senator Dianne Feinstein? The most aggressive advocate of sweeping changes to American gun laws who stated on the record that she would, if she could, take all guns away from American civilians. The same Senator Dianne Feinstein who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee and as such, according to The Atlantic ” bears more responsibility than anyone in America for ensuring that Congress conducts vigilant oversight of President Obama’s targeted killing program.” The same Senator Dianne Feinstein who is at this moment the center of a controversy after having severely understated civilian casualties from drone attacks at the Senate confirmation hearings for John Brennan’s appointment to head the CIA. Well, Christopher J. Dorner was, among other things, one of your constituents, Senator. Just days ago you were showcasing “assault-style” weapons before Congress, telling the American public that only the military and the police should have these weapons. That American civilians do not need them and should not have them. Now officials in your state have told us that a “trained assassin” and a “domestic terrorist”, trained in the arts of warfare by the LAPD and the United States Navy, is armed to the teeth and was out there somewhere, evading capture for over a week despite one of the most intensive “manhunts” in this nation’s history. A “manhunt” that for the first time ever is using military drones to hunt a civilian on American soil. So, this horribly dangerous and well-armed killing machine was out there, you couldn’t catch him for over a week, you declared him to be of grave danger to us, regular Americans… BUT you think that we absolutely SHOULD NOT have any weapons in our homes that would give us any sort of chance of protecting our homes and families if your mythical antagonist, an accused “murderer”, “terrorist” and “trained assassin”, were to target us next? Would you be terribly offended if someone suggested that if everything that has been alleged about Dorner is true and if thousands of law enforcement officers armed to the teeth and using drones cannot catch him day after day, perhaps this is a really good example of why Americans SHOULD arm themselves with the most potent weapons available? Your “murderer”, “domestic terrorist”, and “trained assassin” happened to be six feet tall and weigh 270 pounds. And more than likely had access to ballistic body armor. But you don’t want anyone to have a magazine that can hold more than ten rounds and your esteemed colleague Andrew Cuomo, the Governor of New York, has already rammed through an unconstitutional law that limits magazine capacity in New York to just seven rounds. Do you really think that this is sufficient to stop a 270 pound terminator that Dorner was made out to be? Would it shock you if the folks at your dinner table asked you to pass a high capacity magazine?

Where were you, America’s first bi-racial President? When on July 16, 2009, your friend Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was arrested at his Cambridge, Massachusetts home by a local police officer responding to a 9-1-1 caller’s report of men breaking and entering the residence, you chimed in Gates’ defense. You told the Chicago Sun-Times, asked President Barack Obama “Recently, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge. What does that incident say to you? And what does it say about race relations in America?” Obama replied, “Now, I’ve – I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.” This isn’t to say that you should have sprung to Dorner’s defense. But this certainly is to say that when local law enforcement seems to run amok, shooting innocent civilians at random and throwing around words like “domestic terrorism”, and when drones are deployed on American soil in police operations, you have a responsibility to not be missing in action. Unless of course you are skeet shooting at Camp David, in which case we totally understand. Charlie Sheen has it covered. His dad used to play the President on TV.

Maybe Dorner was every bit as bad as the LAPD says and guilty on all accounts. We wanted to see this proved in court. We didn’t want a lynching posse on a private vendetta. We didn’t want the authorities to insult what little remains of our collective intelligence by expecting us to blindly accept the official version of this incident, the invocation of the word “terrorist”, the historical precedent of using drones on American soil, the shootings of innocent civilians by LAPD officers who have thus far not suffered any publicly known consequences. You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but please don’t assume that you can fool all of the people all of the time. LAPD Chief Beck announced on Saturday that the LAPD would re-examine its proceedings against Dorner. The review is “not to appease a murderer,” but “to reassure the public that their police department is transparent and fair in all things we do,” he said. Well Chief, having an organization with a long and sordid history re-investigate itself on allegations of corruption, racism, and character assassination, is hardly reassuring. It’s actually as pointless as it is absurd. Do you REALLY think that when eventually the LAPD says that having re-examined accusations leveled against it, it really REALLY is not guilty, this will boost its credibility? Far too many Americans already believe that the LAPD is the biggest organized crime franchise in California, if not the nation. If there is an investigation to be had here, surely it must be conducted by the Justice Department and the FBI. As for Christopher J. Dorner, the outcome was sadly predictable. Maybe he was guilty of everything that he was accused of, maybe not — we may never know the full story.

But they say a person dies twice. The first time is when his final breath leaves his body. The second time is when his name is spoken for the last time. This holds equally for very good men and for very bad men, for the saints and the Hitlers. Whoever he was and whatever he was, Christopher J. Dorner will live long past the moment when his final breath left his body and his impact on how we perceive our society and those who govern us will be discussed and debated for a very long time to come. We do ourselves and our children a terrible disservice if we all just collectively yawn, roll over, and go back to sleep.