Dr.J's HouseCalls

Update: Case 2009056649 CR Continued Until February 23

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:53:00 +0000

A number of folks have asked for updates on the cyber-stalking case.

Bubba has decided not to press charges over the threatening e-mails he received. I was disappointed, but his reasoning (that in a physical confrontation between the two of them, no one would see "Fec" as a credible threat) made sense.

I was a bit frustrated last week with the Randolph County Clerk of Court’s office. Prior to “the Stench’s” first appearance in court last week (on Monday, the 14th), I had not heard word one out of the DA. No update was posted online immediately afterwards. Moreover, when I called the clerk’s office on the 16th, I was told they could not find the case in the computer (not exactly reassuring), and to call back in a few days

I’ve avoided “pinging” Vie de Malchance since this mess began, but I did go back last week (and very briefly a few minutes ago) to see if Martin had said anything about what was going on. All I could find was a vague allusion to some kind of “offer that was made to “cease hostilities” . . . the implication being that I was somehow inclined/desperate to cave to his bully tactics.

Not inclined. Not desperate. I’ve made no “offers” or proposed any “deals” . . . and if the DA’s office has made any overtures it’s without even chatting me up.

Meanwhile, I also got an interesting response to an inquiry I placed a while back with the Greensboro Clerk of Court’s office (which speaks to why I had good reason to be afraid of what this guy is capable of), and will be looking further into that next week while I am home.

I called the Randolph County Clerk’s office back this morning. The Court calendar is still not online, but I was told that the case had been continued until February 23rd.

And that’s fine with me. The hearing falls on scheduled time off.

I was also advised that Martin’s attorney is new Asheboro City Council member, Clark Bell. I had to chuckle. That’s almost poetic.

I thought I might save everybody some time here and make it very clear where I’m coming from:

Jeff Martin broke the law. North Carolina General Statute 14-196.3 to be exact.

He's confessed online and on TV. I didn't accept the role of co-star in his "dueling blogging crazies" act, so that's been kind of a bust.

Martin knew that what he was doing (as himself, as opposed his blogging alter-ego, "Fec") would instill fear, and he did it with the clear intent to harass and embarrass/humiliate . . . to intimidate a professional woman (whose voice he could not control/squelch by hurling insults on the blogs) into silence.

Despite his protestations to the contrary, Martin has spent quite some time on Housecalls . . . and he knew full well that a threat to call “the authorities” and report that I am “crazy” carried real weight as a threat to my livelihood . . . as Medical Boards & hospitals have destroyed physicians deemed “disruptive” with far less ammunition.

And right now, as someone who has accused two “non-profit” hospital executives of multiple felonies (crimes which have yet to be referred to the proper authorities for investigation and prosecution by the very DA's office that is prosecuting this case) . . . as someone who is seriously considering suing the North Carolina Medical Board for gross negligence . . . I am currently North Carolina’s poster-child for openly disruptive physicians.

I was frightened enough that night to contact the Medical Board and let them know what was going on (we will address how that has recently affected my thinking about a lot of things in Housecalls' next post).

When he could not scare me into dropping charges, "Fec" then decided to "get mean" on his blog. And, oh boy, that was a whole lot of fun.

It might surprise some of you to know that what I'm doing on this blog is kind of unpopular with a good number of "the right people" in Asheboro. Fec found himself a whole bunch of new "friends" . . . the kind who don't sign their names.

I'm done with a lot of things. So I’ve decided to speak directly to Martin here:

You’re right. You screwed up. And this time, you’ve going to have to man up.

I don’t care about what was on the blogs before you sent those e-mails. I’m a big girl and after years of "the big Cone", I’ve more-than-proven I can hang (some of my thickest skin is scar tissue from your barbs). But EVERY NASTY/LIBELOUS post you’ve put up that so much as refers to me since sending those e-mails on November 13th is an extension and manifestation of your threats.

Threats are NOT protected speech. Libel is NOT protected speech. You don't have the remotest clue what "the real story" is.

Those posts will come down, and an apology will go up.

And that apology will not just be to me. It will be to David Hoggard and Bubba . . . who’ve also been on the receiving end of your disturbing/warped bile in their Inboxes. It will be to Dr. Joe Guarino . . . for the vile/despicable things you’ve said about him online. It will be to Mike Baron . . . a good and decent man who was "green" before "green" was cool, and who is anything but a “petulant child”.

It will be to your wife’s paying customers (you know, the “fat girls” who've put good money in your pocket), and your own.

And it will be to the blogging community as a whole . . . because with this latest stunt, you crossed EVERY line of civility, lowered every standard of dialogue, and brought shame to anyone who ever engaged in this ether.

In fact, it wasn't blogging at all - for all of the smoke you've tried to blow.

And I am NOT going to let you get away with passing it off as blogging . . . or satire.

I saw talent and I saw pain, and I tried really hard to understand you, and to be your friend. But my definition of what a friend is - and yours - are clearly two very different things.

And/so until these things happen, the Randolph County DA’s office need not bother approaching me about any plea or “deal” on your behalf.

I'm not interested. I'll see you in Court.

While you're at it, please give my regards to Mr. Bell. For in defending the cyber-stalker of Asheboro's long-time medical pariah (the one who was driven out of her own hometown for saving a life), one of Asheboro’s newest City Council members will join a long line of Randolph County well-nameds and/or politicos who’ve passively or actively taken their best shot at taking Dr. Mary Johnson down.

You're so not the guy to do it.

And once again, let this all stand as fair warning to any young professional (be it a doctor or nurse - or a parent simply wanting good/conscientious care for their children) who would consider re-locating to Asheboro.

This town eats its young and spits them out.

A Heavy Heart

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:05:00 +0000

Ed Hyder is a local character who holds a very special place in my heart.

I was very sorry to hear that his wife, Beckie, passed away yesterday.

Words are inadequate in times such as these - especially when it happens during the holiday season. I send love and condolences across the ether to my good friend and his family during this very difficult time.

Oh What A Wonderful Child

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 02:25:00 +0000

This Christmas the Johnson household has something that it's not had in a very long time . . .

. . . a cognizant child. She's not a baby this year. She's turning into an actual human. Babies do that, you know.

Aunt Mary spent the morning at Walmart (horrors!) sorting through all kinds of brightly-colored, theoretically-unbreakable, supposedly-educational Fisher-Price products. The Grandmas have all the really girly-stuff covered, so Aunt Mary went with less gender-specific toys. Planes (a nod to Daddy) and trains (to honor the Granddaddy she will never know) were part of the huge pile of poly-vinyl things that got wrapped . . . along with a medical kit for baby geniuses.

Which she is.

And if she's really smart, she won't go into medicine.

The Christmas gift that Aunt Mary wants most is to see the child dance. You see, this little girl is endowed with a natural rhythm that her tall/lumbering/clumsy Aunt never, ever possessed. Since she was a wee baby, she has been entranced by music. She wiggles and gyrates when things come on TV or the radio, and it is hysterical to watch.

With that in mind, Aunt Mary dug deeply into her Christmas CD collection and pulled out an oldie-but-goodie that she used to listen to a lot during a Christmas season several years ago, while on the graveyard shift in Memphis . . . when "Miss Martha" (the no-nonsense unit secretary who looked and acted just like "Mammy" from Gone With the Wind . . . and who took very good care of a lonely white girl far from home) would crank up the Christmas spirit just inside the ambulance bay doors.

The song is "Jesus, What a Wonderful Child" by Mariah Carey.

For some odd reason, the end of this arrangement reminds me of Animal House.

I cannot wait to pop it in my brother's sound system and see what his child does.

Still A Huge Fan Of Greg Gabbard . . .

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:13:00 +0000

. . . and the guys & gals at Lake Norman Bath. The show (which I had not checked in with lately) is just getting better and better. It was good for several, much-needed laughs out loud.

Snow Down East

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 01:51:00 +0000

I opened my apartment door just now to find the eastern North Carolina countryside covered in a very fine layer of snow . . . it appears to be of the hominy variety.

Very pretty.

Doing My Part For Healthcare Reform

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:28:00 +0000

A punishment for e-mailing the White House . . . and admonishing the CLUELESS Obama administration for its abject failure to reform things that really need reforming before the Congress hands even more control of medicine over to the government . . . I now periodically get unwanted e-mails from some cheer-leading chick named Nancy-Ann DeParle, the Director of the White House Office of Health Reform.

The e-mail actually went to SPAM (along with Bev's Perdue's latest self-serve). But in the process of cleaing out my web-mail files today, I pulled it up.

Like the Clintons and Edwardses before them, the Obamas do not consider the opinions of anyone who might tell them that their village is actually on fire.

I'm supposed to be thrilled that healthcare "reform" is being debated and negotiated primarily over the weekends . . . and that Senators/their votes can be so easily bought and sold.

Merry Christmas. But not everyone is thrilled with this particular Christmas present. Here's a comment (also in my Ibox) from a thread I subscribed to a while back at Kevin MD's:

There is no bottom to the irresponsibility of these Democrats. The de-professionalization of physicians has been going on for some time and this legislation will complete that process as it packages health care as a commodity. I am at a loss to understand how anyone can demand the services, skill and training of another as their right and entitlement while someone(s) else pays the bill at below market rates?? Consider what its worth to you and then ask that question again in 8-10 years when the full impact of this legislation, along with probably numerous unintended consequences, is in full bloom.

I am looking for mass retirement of physicians over 50 once this legislation goes into effect including that of my wife.

I am feeling this guy's pain - because I'm almost where his wife is at. Everybody (particularly patients and hospitals) takes a great deal for granted and wants the best for nothing (I've gotten a particularly big dose of that over the last few weeks). And this so-called "reform" is really just a massive expansion of the failed social policies of the last 50 years . . . without addressing any of the reasons why these policies failed . . . or doing anything to fix much of what is wrong from a "provider's" (I HATE that word) standpoint.

Ooo-rah.

Nobody in Washington really cares about the working middle class . . . or about the doctors (particularly the primary-care doctors - a good many of them very-hard-working middle class) providing this care. Healthcare "reform" is all and only about the dance partners known as Power and Entitlement. It's a dangerous dance that's going to sink this country.

And I'm more and more convinced that there's nothing to be done about it.

As I've indicated before, for several months, I've had a timeline on what I was going to put up with - and how much longer I was going to put up with it. The following is the text of a letter that will be sent via certified mail to Robert Morrison, CEO of Randolph Hospital, next week.

The letter would have gone out sooner, but quite frankly (despite the popular belief of some bloggers) I do have a life and a fairly important/stressful job (one that actually does include saving little lives), and I am now resolved that Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin are only going to be on my radar as the un-convicted felons that they are. If very important people in Asheboro and Raleigh and Washington want to continue to look the other way and/or shield these two liars and cheats from the consequences of their actions, that is shortly going to be a big problem for them:

19 December, 2009

Mr. Morrison,

Please provide a list of ALL of the members of Randolph Hospital’s and Randolph Medical Associates’ Boards of Directors, . . as well as Randolph Hospital’s Corporate Membership . . . listed by year from 1995 to the current year (2009).

Randolph Hospital is a “non-profit” institution. This information is PUBLIC RECORD (much like the information you once knowingly lied about/withheld in Court), and should be provided in a timely fashion.

As I am updating files for an upcoming project, I also require complete hard-copies of both Randolph Hospital’s and Randolph Medical Associates’ IRS 990 forms for the last three fiscal years . . as well as copies of the IRS 990 reports for the next fiscal year (for both RH and RMA) as soon as they become available.

All of the above can be mailed to my home address.

Thank you for your attention to this matter,

Mary H. Johnson, M.D., FAAP

I am resolved to do my part for healthcare reform . . . real reform. More will be posted on the upcoming project as I feel like sharing.

The Gates County Train Man

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:32:00 +0000

Yesterday, uber-disgusted by CNN's "economic recovery express" rail-roading through Asheboro and sucking up to the very mill-town engineers who steered our little train off the tracks . . . and more-than-a-little-emotionally-burned-out by a tough week at work . . . I needed very badly to get out-of-town (but not too far out-of-town because I was still on-call).

Chatting up the nurses and regaling them with Christmas stories of my train-nut of a Father, they told me of a pseudo-local attraction that I simply had to see.

It is the "Gates County Train Man". His name is Richard Pearce, and he has a little three-room "house" on his property where, every Christmas, he sets up THE MOTHER of all model-train exhibits. He's been doing it for nearly thirty years. The nurses told me it was absolutely magical.

I got directions to this wonderful place in the middle-of-fricking-nowhere, and set out yesterday afternoon after finishing up at the hospital to find it in the daylight (knowing it would not be open until 6 PM, but being afraid to venture out into that particular part of the northeastern-North-Carolina-countryside-where-even-invading-space-aliens-don't-go in the dark).

A couple of wrongs turns into dead ends and swamps (and three phone calls) later (when I found a spot that wasn't "dead"), I found the place and resolved to go back yesterday evening.

It looked strangely familiar.

Last night, promptly at six PM, along with some locals who were there to see this years' show, I was at Mr. Pearce's doorstep. And when I opened the door, I KNEW I had been there before . . .

. . . with my Daddy. A very long time ago.

Words cannot do the display justice. It brought tears to my eyes (as I struggled to regain my composure, an elderly lady came up and silently/knowingly patted me on the back). Let's just say it was (indeed) a magical trip into my past . . . a time when antique Lionel trains wailed and smoked under our Christmas tree . . .

. . . and Asheboro really was my hometown.

My Message: It's About Simple Right And Wrong

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:51:00 +0000

This post should have been up this morning. But it was a fairly stressful week at work, and for the better part of two days, I've been fighting off a moderately-severe (trigeminal) neuralgia attack. Because of the way I make my living, I choose not to take certain medications that would blunt the wit or dull the senses. When an attack hits, lots of high-dose Motrin (with a Prevacid chaser) and cat-napping-in-total-darkness are involved. Fortunately, it's been a light call weekend. Alas, even after the blinding/pounding pain subsides, its echo can remain for days.

Speaking of stress, I can't wait to see what tomorrow does for my fifth cranial nerve.

The neuralgia is (I think) one of the reasons my NCBCBS premiums are so high (as brain-surgery could be on my list of things to do in the distant future). It's why I took note of the announcement that Bob Greczyn, CEO of North Carolina's "non-profit" monster Blue Cross Blue Shield is retiring in February.

As I slave to pay my premiums, I wonder what kind of extra $pecial goodie$ will be tucked into Greczyn's parachute?

It's kind of galling to see "non-profit" fat cats stroll into the sunset, their butter-and-cream-for-life ensured, given what I went through at the hands of two very-well-paid local "non-profit" hospital executives . . . one of whom is showing off his newly-renovated uber-home on Dave's Mountain as part of Asheboro's Holiday Tour of Homes.

For just $15, you can see what your tax dollars help pay for. Bob & Peggy Morrison do not mind being forcibly annexed. Having done very well for themselves in the charity $ector, they can afford the extra taxes . . . and the expensive "natural" Christmas decorations.

This post actually began as this post. I ultimately decided that it was best to dissect my frustration with local journalists (and bloggers) from the message, as one detracts from the other.

Between catnaps, and while composing this post, I've also been following two threads . . . one at Mike Baron's and one at Joe Guarino's. I'm very weary of (and disgusted by) the diversionary tactics of certain GSO bloggers . . . and even when my neuralgia isn't flaring, I'm afraid my exasperation shows.

The determined hypocrisy of citizen-journalists who have not walked their talk is tired, and it's old, and a lot more people are seeing through it than who used to. I'm very grateful for that.

Folks who've called and e-mailed in order to offer encouragement tell me that it's especially important in this era of healthcare "reform" (which really only amounts to more of the same stale/failed policies of the last 50 years), and economic hardship secondary to corporate malfeasance and poor oversight (a reality which I lived far longer than most), to keep hammering home my message.

Lately, I've done a lot of thinking about what that message is . . . because I do think several people in this blogosphere have been "missing something" for a long time. And I think that the fact they've been so deliberate in the missing of it for so long speaks for itself.

My eleven-year battle with Randolph Hospital is ALL about simple right and wrong . . . and how YOU would have expected our systems of government and medical/legal oversight to have worked had it been YOU or one of your friends/loved ones in my shoes - or your baby literally dying on a warmer.

On a related note, I heard that CNN's chief business correspondent, Ali Velshi, was in Asheboro today - doing a feature on how people in small (dare I say dying?) towns are a celebrating the holidays in a tough economy. From the article:

Residents are invited to join Velshi and a local team of financial experts (a real estate agent, mortgage banker, financial planner and others) for help in developing a realistic financial plan to get them on their own road to recovery. Velshi will report on the process and the lessons learned on Monday.

I wonder if those "experts" are the same local experts who helped steer Asheboro into its current predicament in the first place? And I wonder if anyone will steer Mr. Velshi to this blog . . . where he can read all about how very badly a small mill town treated a home-grown Pediatrician who was recruited back home to serve her community with state and Federal tax dollars?

And if Velshi does read this blog, will he/his "experts" have the guts to tell Asheboro's powers-that-be, "You really screwed up guys. And you're screwing up even more now by letting this ugly thing hang out there on the Internet like a cancer on your face."

I've digressed. I'd like to sum up my message now. Again, it's about simple right and wrong.

(1) It's NOT okay for the taxpayers to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to recruit physicians to a community, only to have those physicians drummed out of town by people whose only motive is greed and market share.

(2) It's NOT okay for hospitals - especially "non-profit" ones - to threaten doctors with termination for doing their jobs . . . to put them in the position of choosing between their job and a patient's life.

(3) It's NOT okay for hospitals - especially "non-profit" ones - to fire doctors for putting patients first.

(4) It's NOT okay for doctors to be targeted for financial/professional destruction for blowing the whistle on bad care. And it's not okay for their fellow physicians to look the other way while it's happening.

(5) It's NOT okay for hospitals (especially "non-profit" ones), their officers or agents to lie to patients/taxpayers about what happened to their doctors.

(6) It's NOT okay for hospitals - especially "non-profit" ones - to use tax dollars to finance SLAPP suits as an intimidation tactic against doctors (or nurses) for telling the truth to oversight and regulatory bodies.

(7) It's NOT okay for government service programs to leave their doctors totally swinging in the wind when hospitals/practice do not live up to their contractual obligations or retaliate against them for doing their duty . . . to have no hotline to help when one-of-their own needs it.

(8) It's NOT okay for regulatory bodies . . . be they the Medical Board or the State Bar or DHHS or JCAHO . . . to wink and nod and play favorites . . . to pretend that problems do not exist and do nothing about them.

(9) It's NOT okay for "non-profit" hospital executives to lie under Oath in Court proceedings or negotiate deals in bad faith. It's not okay for their lawyers to get away with helping them do it under the guise of "aggressive advocacy".

(10) It's NOT okay for the Boards of Directors of "non-profit" hospitals to rubber-stamp the actions of their executives no matter what . . . to offer no mechanism of due process to physicians . . . to reward lying and cheating on the part of their executives with fat salaries, benefits and parachutes.

(11) It's NOT okay for law enforcement agencies and district attorneys to pander to the powerful . . . to block legitimate investigations of "non-profit" malfeasance . . . to ignore the pleas of ordinary citizens for help . . . to act as if someone wronged does not exist.

(12) It's NOT okay for the North Carolina Attorney General and Legislature to sit on their tails and do nothing when they KNOW that there are gaping black holes in the legal system for good people to fall through . . . be they innocents wrongly accused, or victims of white-collar crime kept from getting their cases where they need to go.

(13) It's NOT okay for journalists to play favorites and pander to their advertisers . . . to worship at the altar of economic development at all costs.

(14) It's not okay for politicians to talk out of both sides of their mouths . . . to pontificate on ethics and accountability and "reform" publicly, while privately carrying on the status quo.

(15) And while I'm at it, it's not okay for one blogger to try to intimidate another blogger (in this case, an opinionated professional woman who has already been to hell and back) into silence with threats and insults hurled into her Inbox . . . not to mention a series of vile, libel-ridden posts poorly disguised as "satire".

The intimidation tactics did not work when Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin did it eleven years ago.

And it's not going to work now.

It's about simple right and wrong, people. I will close with something I said to blogger-king/citizen journalist Edward Cone (of THE Cones) at Mike Baron's "DamScam" blog:

The Piedmont's "gold" is not its "infrastructure" or it's location. The Piedmont's REAL gold is its people - good people - particularly people like Mike Baron and Mary Johnson who were treated like DIRT by the powers-that-be because they did the right thing.

You wanna fix the area's prospects, you fix that FIRST. And if the powers-that-be don't start SOON caring about simple right and wrong, then YES, population and development WILL remain stagnant.

And it will DESERVE to be so.

Afternoon Update: Let's just say I've taken some calls. WFMY-2 has a video story up on CNN doing it story on Asheboro. As I suspected, instead of bringing fresh experts in, all of the "usual suspects" . . . "right people" who've composed Asheboro's leadership "infrastructure" for years and years are featured front & center . . . Keith Crisco . . . assorted town council members . . . I think I even saw Bob Morrison.

And I have news for Mr. Rubin (the producer of the CNN piece). A lot of young people . . . young professionals (particularly young medical professionals) . . . have come to Asheboro over the last 15-20 years believing in its "potential" and "promise" . . . and wanting to build their lives here. But we were NOTHING . . . NOBODIES . . . to the very "important" people Rubin and Velshi are interviewing now . . . people who left right and wrong at the door while they led the town chartered on Christmas Day 1796 to the admirable position of being named number 4 on Forbes' list of dying towns in America this time last year.

But hey, as we fire up the 2009 Christmas economic recovery express, let's keep giving these people ALL of the air play. They've earned it.

Cue Bob Morrison's "estate" on Asheboro's Tour of Homes.

The Story Behind The Tree You Can See From Space

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 13:51:00 +0000

The Raleigh N&R has a nice article up on the story behind the crabpot Christmas tree I bought this past weekend. People are apparently making the best of some hard economic realities.

It reminds me of the story behind the "Christmas Cross" of a few years back.

Of course, as per usual, the N&R's Front Pew crowd had to take a beautiful notion and make something ugly out of that.

The Polar Express . . .

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 01:37:00 +0000

. . . was on TV tonight.

It was released in late 2004 and was the last movie I saw with Pops, the train nut. He loved the scenes featuring the train, but found the faces of the kids disconcerting.

"One thing about trains. It doesn't matter where they're going. It's deciding to get on."

I like to BELIEVE every Christmas, that Pops is out there somewhere, riding that train.

"Sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we cannot see."

The Spirit Of Ethan Feinsilver Lives On: In One Of His Students, And In The Tactics Of Bloggers

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:44:00 +0000

There's an oldie-but-goodie on the Housecalls' sidebar, entitled "Burned Citizen Journalism". It was penned in April 2006, a little over a year after I jumped into the Greensboro blogosphere . . . and just as the "Wray-fray" was really catching fire.

If memory serves, I believe the post earned me my first "You're a wack-job," from a local character going by the moniker of "Fecund Stench". It took a while, but I forgave him for that.

Of course, as it turns out, I wasn't such a "wack-job" after all.

And, as of 11/13/2009, when he crossed a very clear line he shouldn't have, Mr. Stench (aka, Jeff Martin) and I are DONE. It wasn't for lack of trying to understand "Fec", appreciate his gift and contributions/potential as a blogger, and be a friend.

A number of people have e-mailed me or called over the last few days . . . especially since I put up this post . . . and have offered encouraging words. They've told me to ignore the naysayers in the Greensboro blogosphere (all of whom clearly have their motives) and stay on point . . . to keep hammering "the message" home.

I'm actually working on a post on what that "message" is for tomorrow.

But that's tomorrow.

The modus operandi of the naysayers is classic - and has been for years. A post or comment goes up dissing me or my story. Several people chime in - in a derogatory, distortive, dismissive, often very cruel fashion. Eventually, I can take no more poking and put up a response . . . usually a long one . . . because I am addressing several "points", coming from several different directions, made by those doing the ganging-up (around here, we call it a "coning"). Then, quite predictably, the ad hominems begin. I'm "crazy" or "hysterical" or "bitter", I "need help", or can't accept "reality" and should "move on". "There's something about Mary", you see, that just isn't right.

High-minded citizen-journalists who have NEVER interviewed me or even looked at the evidence (when you go to work for a newspaper, Roch, we'll talk), then parse/dissect every word I post.

Yet they've NEVER ONCE posed an objective question to the "non-profit" executives I accuse - of some fairly serious offenses . . . executives of a local public charity who've never had the courage to address those charges in ANY kind of forum - private or public.

Instead, these executives hide behind their powerful friends (newspaper editors, law enforcement, politicians) who've buried the case.

Yet somehow, I'm the one who has no credibility (???).

I've been here in the ether almost five years and it never changes. That's because Mary Johnson's message . . . one that doesn't exactly reflect well on the professions (journalism/law), or the political philosophies (Dr. Johnson's troubles having started during the Clinton administration - doing her turn in Hillary's "village"), or the important friends, or the family names of the bloggers doing the dissing . . . must be marginalized and blunted.

And the way you do that, is NOT by examining the message or the evidence . . . or even asking an objective question of the hospital executives I accuse. It's by calling me "crazy" and telling me to "shut up".

Mike Baron has faced similar problems trying to get his word out on the "SCAM" (a fairly accurately term, all things considered) worked on a largely ignorant/unsuspecting public that was/is the Randleman Dam.

Indeed, an mean-spirited blog-pummel of Mike is what started "the spectacle" that ended with Jeff Martin hurling 27 nasty/threatening/disturbing e-mails into my Inbox on a Friday night one month ago.

And I'm sorry folks, that's NOT blogging anymore. That's cyber-stalking.

(I've been in the news. Big whup. It's not for the reason I want to be there. So I'll pass on the interviews if you don't mind.)

At any rate, this morning, there was a comment in the Inbox on the "Burned Citizen Journalism" thread. And it was as if the ghost of Ethan Feinsilver, whose own fecund stench still lingers in Randolph County, had followed Jacob Marley out of the pit.

And here is what it said (it's in blue because it's just so "progressive"):

Dude, Ethan Feinsilver is my Journalism Teacher....and hes a really nice guy. Personally, I dont think he did anything wrong...he was just being a good reporter and trying to make an interesting article. Its not his fault that the guy who happened to teach had psychological problems that ended to his death. I feel bad, of course, but I just dont know if its really fair to say he was some hungry monster.

The comment had all of the characteristics that I despise . . . for reasons that do hit very close to home (and I know there are people out there in this blogosphere right now who've taken great pride in stomping on that nerve as if it merits some kind of sick/warped badge of honor).

And/so I put the comment up and responded:

The inane drivel that people will sometimes post on a blog simply amazes me.

(1) I am not a "dude", I am a dudette. In fact, I'm Dr. Dudette to any so-called journalist who would drop a comment like that.

(2) I might give your opinion more credence if you signed your name. I assume you will do so with any future articles you write.

(3) It amazes me how Mr. Feinsilver never speaks for himself. Others must do his dirty work for him - be it his former editors or his students. And this IS dirty work.

(4) It frightens me that Ethan Feinsilver is teaching journalism. Of course, if he is, it's most likely in North Carolina. (And I'm wondering what juicy tidbits we might pick up if we audited his class?)

(5) Good reporters don't have to "make" anything. Good reporters report the facts without coloring them. It's a lost art.

(6) Good newspapers allow the subjects of their news stories to present their point of view. As for "fair", Jack Perdue could not even get a letter-to-the-Editor published.

(7) It is the mark of a SNIVELING COWARD to pass off the crystal clear results of Mr. Feinsilver's cruel work as some kind of character flaw or psychological problem on Jack Perdue's part.

"Dude", you're talking to a home-girl who knows something of the players and was here when it happened, and who feels very lucky your "teacher" didn't latch on to her story to distort and marginalize (of course, we now have Ed Cone for that).

Jack Perdue was a good, decent, and very strong man who was methodically and determinedly hammered to death by a reporter trying to make a name for himself . . . working for a race-baiting newspaper whose despicable MO is to latch on to a bone - no matter how fetid or rotten - and never let go.

I will assume you're here for extra credit. But don't come to this blog defending the "reporter" who I will believe to-my-dying-day killed a good man with bad words.

Grow up and hatch some principles before you comment here again.

Maybe the response is a little harsh . . . perhaps even a little shrewish. But, as I told someone else last night (who suggested that I might have had a story done by now by a nationally-known columnist, "if he decided that you did not a have neo-con republican mind-set"), I've reached the limits of my tolerance for all of the sorry excuses journalists have/make for not investigating very relevant/very important stories right under their stuck-up noses.

I responded to that one too:

That just pisses me off. My story has great merit, no matter what ***** thinks of my politics.

It more-than-demonstrates that even in the wake of the Duke-Nifong debacle, NOTHING has really changed in terms of DA's and justice in North Carolina.

***** said he cared about it before - when a black hooker/lap dancer/whatever falsely accused three rich, white fat-cat frat boys of rape (and I'd bet you very good money that their families were of the "neo-con Republican" variety).

A small-town-girl-who-made-good came home to serve her hometown/community hospital (despite being mauled there as a child) and was treated like dirt. What that hospital did to her was UNETHICAL and ILLEGAL on so many levels. Yet she can't get to past a crooked/pandering DA to the North Carolina Attorney General . . . in order to take down the over-paid, over-rated scum-bag white-collars who did her dirty.

***** either cares about that or he doesn't. It's not about politics and it shouldn't be. I am what I am. I make NO apologies, and I'm NOT changing for anyone.

I'm done "auditioning" for reporters . . . no matter who they are.

In that sense, I have moved on.

It has, in fact, always been my policy here in the blogopshere (indeed everywhere) to return kindness and consideration with kindness and consideration. There are any number of people in my personal and professional orbits who can tell you that once you get past the crusty, tough girl act that I'm very good at, I have a very soft, warm and generous (often gullible) and chronically-broken heart.

But you don't get to walk all over me - or maliciously poke me with sticks. For I give as good as I get. Sometimes better.

Moreover, I do NOT back down when I have been wronged. Pops taught his girl never to run from a fight. So did my Mama - as much as the steeliest-of-Steel-Magnolias might be loathe to admit it.

I wish blogs had been more of a fixture when Jack Perdue went through his ordeal (of course if that had been so, I might not be here now).

I'd like to think that I would not have just swallowed Ethan Feinsilver's party line . . . that I would have been one of Jack's champions . . .

. . . one of his friends.

And/so, taking the advice of my friends, tomorrow I resume FOCUS on the message.

A Silver Elf Under The Crabby Blue Tree

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 02:42:00 +0000

I don't usually put up Christmas decorations while on assignment. Christmas is for home.

But I'm starting to get attached to this place and this crowd (as this assignment has been on-going for a well over a year-and-a-half).

I am a connoisseur of the unusual, and I am partial to blue Christmases. While browsing in the local Ace Hardware store, I came across something called a "CrabPot" Christmas Tree . . . something uniquely "Down Eastern" North Carolina . . . and I bought the 4-foot white-light version with 300 lights. The size of the tree was a practical decision. When folded, it fits in the backseat of the car.

To this, I added a 200-light string of regular blue mini-lights as well as two strings of blue and white LED snow-flakes. I put it upstairs in the apartment where I'm staying - where I can shut the door (TJ has already tried to climb the thing) and leave the blinds up at night.

And you can see the (very pretty) crabby tree from space. It reminds me of Graceland.

And it will go very nicely with the vintage, never-opened knee-hugging elf in silver lame' I just bought on E-Bay.

Very cool.

Okay, now I'm really back on break.

Update

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 01:10:00 +0000

As I noted in a comment at Dale's, I called the Randolph County District Attorney's office today to find out what exactly would happen on December 14th with regards to the cyber-stalking case. I have no plans to drop the charges. I cannot be in Court on Monday as I am on-call down-East.

I was told (by a very nice young lady - given past experience, it was very refreshing to be spoken to/treated as if I were an actual human being), that a first appearance is simply about assigning counsel and entering a plea. If the plea is not-guilty, the case will be continued . . . with the next appearance possibly not being until February as the Court docket is fairly full now.

A subpoena will be issued to me (most likely served over the phone), and away we will go.

On a related note (hat tip to Dr. Guarino), Mike Baron has posted a stong rebuttal to Ed Cone's recent smoke-blowing on the Randleman Dam (not unrelated to this case) at Word Up. Mr. Cone and some of his friends have been working overtime (see the update at the bottom of the post) to discredit the original targets of Jeff Martin's bile . . . before he started hurling threatening/disturbing e-mails into my Inbox.

Mike's post is a thing of beauty.

Resuming blogging break now.

Dr. Mary Johnson vs. Randolph Hospital (And The Corrupt North Carolina Justice System): Eleven Years In 2110 Words

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:11:00 +0000

In the wake of filing charges against Jeff Martin (aka "Fecund Stench") for cyber-stalking, Housecalls has a number of first-time readers.

Friends/other bloggers have suggested that I ignore some of "the usual suspects", cut through some of the smoke and mirrors, and take advantage of the increased traffic. And/so I’m offering up the "back-story" to the "blog-war" . . . the story that brought me to the blogosphere in 2005.

As most long-time readers know, after several years of talking to Garland Yates' hand, I came to the blogosphere on the invitation of a journalist - John Robinson of the GSO News & Record. The paper had teamed up with prominent bloggers in the Greensboro area and together they were promoting a concept called "citizen journalism".

But alas, in Greensboro, citizen journalism only works if you serve the deep-blue, progressive agenda of the "big-gun" citizen journalists.

I don't worship at that particular altar.

I've been here almost five years. While I've been here, I've jumped through all the hoops and played all the games and fought all the fights and even tried to be a friend to a man that I obviously shouldn't have. And, for the sin of trying to get someone to care about the awful things that were done to a Pediatrician in public service to her hometown, I've been called every name in the book. I'm "mentally-ill" because I've fought so hard and refused to give up.

Some here have said that I should "shut up" about what happened to me . . . that the blogosphere doesn't "owe" me anything. But I think that if the blogosphere actually IS what it says it IS (don't ya just love that word?), it kinda does. In this era of healthcare reform, where doctors . . . especially primary care doctors . . . are being pushed into tiny corners and stomped all over, if you want someone to care about the patient and do right by them (as I did - and got fired/sued for doing), you have to start caring about the doctor.

Because if you don't, you're not going to have any doctors left.

I've NEVER asked for anything but HELP in making the law do what it says it will do. Meanwhile, there are some in this blogopshere who will press money into the palm of a man who very clearly broke the law . . . because he has the God-given right to act like a sick/warped jerk.

This story is not mean-spirited satire, and it cannot be told in 140 words. On the other hand, I'm not Jerry Bledsoe, so I'll try to keep as short and sweet as I can. So if your attention span is short . . . if you can only wrap your brain cells around a sound bite . . . if you need a fix of "mean" . . . if you've heard it all before and think you know it all already . . . if Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Edwards and Barack Obama are the only healthcare "experts" you care to listen to (nevermind that they're lawyers) . . . or you simply don't care . . . don't bother.

There are other places you can go and people you can read.

Start the word count:

In January 1998, while in public service to both the National Health Service Corps and N.C. Office of Rural Health - by virtue of being the founding Pediatrician of Randolph Medical Associates (the “non-profit”controlled-affiliate of Randolph Hospital - in my hometown of Asheboro), I was threatened with termination by then-RMA Director, Mike Bridges . . . essentially told to “shut-up or else” about problems at the hospital & practice.

At the time, I was Chair of the hospital’s Perinatal Committee and, in addition to staffing a full-time office, was providing 24-7 Pediatric critical care back-up for all of the doctors in town who wanted or asked for it.

The hospital had broken a number of the promises it made at recruitment, and practice management left much to be desired.

Bridges' threats were structured around the complaint of a “VIP parent” in Asheboro . . .who had demanded a treatment that was not necessary and I had refused to approve/provide. The practice director made no effort whatsoever to properly medically vet the complaint. It only mattered that the VIP was angry and her complaint suited his purposes - his main objective being to muzzle me.

Nothing in my peer review files - at the practice - or the hospital remotely justified Bridges' actions.

Two nights later, with that threat hanging over my head, and at the request of the nursing staff, I intervened in a neonatal case where a then-Cone-Hospital-owned Family Practitioner was grossly mismanaging a critically-ill infant.

When I arrived, the baby was very close to crashing/coding.

By ALL accounts, I saved the child’s life.

I reported the incident to hospital peer review the next morning. I did not ask for Mr. Bridge's permission to do so. I also consulted a lawyer because the incident more-than-proved his conditions of employment were medically/professionally intolerable. And without a retraction of the threats, I was not going to talk to Bridges without a third-party/representative present.

Two weeks after that, I was fired “without cause” . . . banned from the office after five days despite the facts that (1) my RMA employment contract required a six-month notice, and (2) my NHSC agreement explicitly stated my practice in the area to which I had been recruited could not be interferred with in any way. The terms of my “notice” (deceptively passed off by Board members as a “severance package”) essentially side-lined and muzzled me in a window-less box for six months.

In that time my practice was destroyed /absorbed by RMA.

The parents of my patients were deliberately lied to and misled.

My hospital privileges were not affected by RMA’s actions (there was no cause), but again, the exclusive terms of RMA"s “notice” and the cancellation of my malpractice insurance prohibited my practice at the hospital. Executives were telling anyone who would listen that I was "free" to start my own practice, but it was a lie.

This is a big point: At NO time during this time (or at any other time) - was I afforded any kind of “due process” hearing by either the RMA or Randolph Hospital Board of Directors/Executive Committees. They simply slurped up what hospital executives fed them.

Some of them are really mad that I'm out here in the blogosphere calling them on it now - sullying their good names (it's my understanding that some of them are rallying behind "Mr. Stench" as if he's a hero.) Like I care. They did not give one thought to mine.

When my “notice” was up, I reported the doctor involved in the nursery case (what is categorized as a JCAHO “sentinel event”) to the North Carolina Medical Board. After a six-month investigation, the Medical Board took no public action against the Family Practitioner (he received what amounted to a behind-the-scenes slap-on-the-hand), and did nothing to help me (they have no authority over hospitals).

In short the Medical Board considers it a "duty" for its licensees to report medical badness, but does not protect them when they do.

In 1999, a year after I was fired, all attempts to resolve the situation having rebuffed by hospital executives, I sued Randolph Medical Associates.

The lawsuit was not reported in our local newspapers.

Later that summer, responding to a request for feedback from Washington, I also reported what happened to Bill Clinton's USDHHS Secretary, Donna Shalala. The complaint was copied to the NC Office of Rural Health (NCDHHS), the North Carolina Medical Board, and the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Hospital Organizations (JCAHO).

I actually met with JCAHO representatives twice - during two separate Randolph Hospital accreditation surveys. JCAHO did NOTHING to address the sentinel event I reported, and advised me that they had no mechanism in place to protect medical whistle-blowers . . . or deal with dishonest/corrupt administrative practices.

They still don’t. In fact, it’s currently very fashionable to label medical whistle-blowers as “disruptive”.

In 2000, Randolph Hospital counter-sued me for “libel” based on excepts from the Shalala complaint. The legal tactic actually has a name. It is called a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) lawsuit. It is designed to intimidate the defendant into silence.

It did not work.

The hospital's lawsuit was front-page news in the local newspapers. Everyone in my hometown (including my horrified parents) got to read that I was a liar.

In 2001, the day before my case against RMA was scheduled to go to trial, both cases were settled in my favor for a sum of $125,000 (less than one-year‘s salary to cover six years of loss).
During negotiations, hospital lawyers argued that that the practice/hospital was “almost bankrupt”.

My attorney (Steven Schmidly, of recent alcohol referendum fame) advised me that the sum was not taxable.

It was.

I was also told that the judge wanted the case resolved "or else". Pretty much locked in a conference room for most of two days, exhausted, emotionally drained, all but bankrupt myself after three years of litigation, told my opponents couldn't afford their just deserts, and promised “cooperation” by hospital executives in getting another practice off the ground, I accepted the deal.

In stark contrast to they way David Renfro had covered the filing of the hospital's "libel" lawsuit (i.e. "inflict maximun damage on Mary Johnson"), the settlement of the lawsuits in my favor was reported as a second-page “short-take” in the Courier Tribune.

Afterwards, cooperation in terms of getting another viable practice off the ground was not forth-coming. The executives I had beaten in Court resumed their obfuscative ways.

In 2003, after reviewing the case files, I discovered that Randolph Hospital senior executives, Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin, had lied repeated under Oath in discovery responses - stating that their financial records and doctors/administrative salaries were “confidential”.

But the information they knowingly withheld is actually public record (recorded on IRS 990 returns), and must be produced upon the request of any taxpayer. At the time their answers were filed with the Court, this information was also published on the Internet at a site called Guidstar.com.

Their lawyers, "experts" on defending "non-profits' had to have known this.

The information on those returns, very relevant to my damages claim, made it clear that the hospital/practice was far from “bankrupt”.

What Mr. Morrison and Mr. Eblin did constitutes perjury, contempt and fraud under N.C. General Statute.

Perjury has no statute of limitations.

Moreover, a "non-profit" officer/executive repeatedly lying under Oath and negotiating a settlement on the lies also falls under the definition of bad faith and is cause for termination under the North Carolina Nonprofit Corporation Act.

Yet Mr. Morrison and Mr. Eblin remain employed, and have gotten very large raises over the years. Indeed, I believe Mr. Morrison's newly-renovated uber-home is on the Asheboro Christmas home-tour this year. I'd list the address, but I don't treat my enemies the way Jeff Martin treats his "friends".

When Randolph Hospital's lawyer was confronted with this information , he invited me to sue again. I was not inclinded to return to a Court that had been so corrupted the first time.

Instead, as Randolph Hospital is a “non-profit” institution, I reported the crime to the Randolph County District Attorney’s office . . . well before the statute of limitations on civil fraud expired.

The DA, Garland Yates, refused to meet with me to discuss the complaint.

His ADA, King Dozier, told me that the matter would be referred to the SBI, but several weeks later, when I made inquiries, the SBI informed me that the investigation was killed before it could even start by Mr. Yates.

They were not going to investigate if Yates would not prosecute.

I re-drafted and re-flied the complaint in 2005. I also consulted the Randolph County Sheriff’s Department and the Asheboro Police Department, and pleaded for an investigation . . . or a referral to the SBI/Attorney General.

Still, the DA's office would not even speak to me.

I also filed complaints against both the hospital lawyers (for suborning perjury) and my own (gross negligence) with the North Carolina State Bar. The complaints were blown off.

Despite the fact that Randolph Hospital is a “non-profit” institution and a good portion of its funding (grants and certificates-of-need and such) is channeled through NCDHHS . . . and the NC Attorney General is quite literally NCDHHS’s lawyer . . . Roy Cooper’s office had thus far that is has no jurisdiction in the case.

Incredibly, the argument seems to be that NO REGULATORY BODY has any direct jurisdiction over the affairs of non-profit hospitals in North Carolina - and even if they do, they don't care. And even after the Mike Nifong debacle, ordinary citizens have no recourse if a District Attorney wants to be a stone wall and will not do the right thing.

And I am sorry, that just does not fly.

In summary, (1) I was never afforded ANY KIND of due process by the Randolph Hospital or its Board of Directors (2) my civil case was settled under false pretenses and in bad faith, and (3) as a former public servant, my criminal/felony case against two “non-profit” executives has NEVER been properly investigated by the state.

It is as if none of this ever happened and I do not exist. Every door has been slammed in my face.

The Asheboro Pediatrics website debuted in 2004 (it has not been updated or modified in several years).

This blog, Dr. J’s Housecalls, debuted in 2005 . . . with regular posting beginning in 2006.

In this era of healthcare reform, and despite all of the issues this one case touches upon (healthcare fraud and abuse, administrative corruption, poor oversight of non-profits by Boards of Directors and regulatory bodies, bad-faith peer review, tort reform, targeting medical whistle-blowers for destruction by labeling them “disruptive”) at no time have our local newspapers . . . or prominent bloggers . . . deemed the story worthy of the attention of an investigative journalist.

And I just don't understand that (or maybe I do), for if ever there was a case that demonstrated the fundamental failure of government-run medicine to oversee anything or accomplish ANY of its goals, this one is it. Giving the government MORE to do will NOT work.

The bold-faced lies of Randolph Hospital executives, Robert Morrison and Steven Eblin cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars, a hometown Pediatric practice that I worked like a dog to build (in short, my dream) and years of my life.

According to some, I'm supposed to get over it and move on.

But I cannot do that. If the case does not see some kind of forward movement by Christmas of this year, I am planning to pursue legal action against the N.C. Medical Board, NC and/or USDHHS, and JCAHO (for gross regulatory negligence) next year.

The premise of that lawsuit will be very simple . . . if the state is going to require duties of doctors . . . if you really want them to do right by patients . . . you must protect them. The state of North Carolina doesn't.

Ironically the same DA’s office that has blown off my case against Randolph Hospital since 2003 - and has thus far refused to refer it where it needs to go for a proper investigation, will be handling the cyber-stalking case against Jeff Martin.

I'm not supposed to be concerned about that.

I trust that this narrative (as short and concise as I can make the story due to its complexity) helps outsiders/new readers understand why I’m just a little torqued-off, and not-at-all inclined to let Randolph Hospital or its executives off the hook.

I also trust I have not sounded like a “lunatic”, “wack-job” or “booger-eating moron”.

There it is. In 2110 words. I'm quite sure some of the blogging "big guns" in Greensboro will snicker and spit. But you know what? I don't care what they think anymore. I've climbed out of their box and it's rather liberating.

And/so the break begins. If there are any updates to the cyber-stalking case they will be posted.

Comments are closed.

Afternoon Update:

Got a nice "comment" on this post from a good friend in the Inbox this afternoon . . . responding to the argument that I should drop all efforts to hold Randolph Hospital accountable.

Yes, a case can be made that it is past history, and that you should move on. But . . . on the other hand, I will say that your situation was a bit more out of the ordinary, and that you were made to suffer far deeper, and grossly unfair consequences as a result of you doing what you felt was the honorable thing to do.

For what my vote is worth, you can keep on writing about it. You've earned it. An injustice was done, and it hasn't been atoned for. It may never be a wrong that is righted, but at least your actions will always cause them some measure of discomfort. People such as those depend on their victims caving in and disappearing.

And, Mary Helen Johnson doesn't do disappearing acts does she?

Wednesday Afternoon (12/9) update: Ed Cone/Word-Up (who has a vested interest in playing the "Fec" business down) has a post up on this post. And I've weighed in. I'm going back on blogging-break and back to work. The boys can talk amongst themselves.

I'm sure someone will "wish me well" (again). The thing about wishing is that it doesn't make it so.

Blue Balls

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:14:00 +0000

I'm two posts away from that blogging break I want to take. This one has been sitting in my drafts - it was delayed because of "the spectacle".

On the weekend before last, the LDRP (Labor/Delivery/Recovery/Postpartum) nurses at the hospital where I'm currently working put up the unit Christmas tree.

I arrived late that Saturday morning for nursery rounds and was able to view the completely decorated tree.

It had two very large bows at the top . . . one pink and one light blue . . . white lights . . . and pink & silver balls.

Pink and silver?

"Hummmmmm . . .", I said to no one in particular. "This tree is missing something very important."

The nurses on-duty were perplexed. Some of them came closer to look over the tree. They had no idea what I was talking about.

" Think about it ladies. Look at the balls. This tree has no blue balls.", I said. Much laughter and hilarity ensued.

I went so far as to get an order form, and write out an "order" for the unit managers to get some blue balls on that tree before I got back from break.

And/so, when I arrived back this morning, there were blue balls on the tree. It was quite beautiful and lended the tree the proper "balance" it needed (at least in my opinion). The nurses were all very proud of themselves. I was stopped several times in the hall, by a variety of staffers, and asked if my "order" had been filled.

Apparently, it was the talk of the hospital.

Of course, it wouldn't be the first time I was the topic of conversation on a hospital ward.

A Study In Contrasts: The Inbox And The Mailbox - And How They Reflect On The State Of Local Blogging And Journalism

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:11:00 +0000

This post has been updated (see below).

Thursday was a good day . . . spent with family visiting from Virginia. Continuing what has become a bit of a tradition, we drove down to Charlotte and toured the Billy Graham Library. We then came back through Winston-Salem, and went to the Moravian Candle Tea (something I've done almost every year since I was a small child).

Mama then insisted that I back-track through my old stomping grounds so that my Aunt & Uncle could see the gigantic star on top of Baptist Hospital . . . as well as the uber-Christmas decorations on the roof of the Hardee's across the Interstate from Brenner's - placed there as a "gift" for the children hospitalized there over the holidays.

For our family this year, it's an especially poignant gesture.

It was lovely to see these venues/things through the eyes of loved ones experiencing them for the first time.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. I arrived home to find this comment in my Inbox (it was not published), courtesy of one of the readers at a site called "Fark.com":

Welcome to the internet, I see you are new here.

You do realize you just got yourself a national following of people who will do what ever this guy did, +10, right?

Of course, the logical question to ask is, "WHY would that be so?". Why would sane, supposedly responsible, civic-minded adults behave that way?

Actually, I did realize this was a risk before I contacted the police, but some things just do not get to stand. I have not visited the site, but I'm told Mr. Martin has (friends are copying/saving his posts as he will get no more "pings" from me) . . . and "the Stench" is clearly DElighted at the comments being posted . . . which apparently include "dead baby" jokes (how very charming) and my home address . . . the very same one he typed into every header of the 27 e-mails he sent.

It seems "the Justice League" at "Fark" is taking his lead. Meanwhile, Martin might have "screwed up" when he got "mean", but he's for sure not the least bit sorry about it. Nor is he discouraging others from doing the same thing.

In fact, he wants your money for his defense fund. He wants this to drag out (so be it). It's all about his free speech. Even when it's not.

This is the kind of behavior that Ed Cone and Roch Smith, Jr. and Sam Spagnola rationalize . . . and in rationalizing, condone. Despite all the blather about "civility" in the blogosphere, they think the lady deserves it . . . because she hasn't sat back like a meek little lamb and taken the garbage they've dished out over the years lying down (I'm hardly "new" to the Internet) . . . and because she stood up to a local blogging bully that some of the gentlemen in our local blogosphere haven't and wouldn't DARE . . . as they themselves were/are afraid of what Jeff Martin has done to Mary Johnson being done to them.

Like I said before, some things speak for themselves.

A friend of mine picked up a hard copy of the "Yes Weekly" article today (the one the Stench's wife apparently liked so much) and felt compelled to call me as soon as he had finished reading it. After making a few choice observations about Martin's photo, he had this to say, "Mary, if this sick clown gets an entire page of local newsprint for acting like a (insert explicatives) and threatening a woman . . . while you've yet to get word one from anybody on your story-of-woe after YEARS of begging and pleading for help . . . it doesn't say much for the state of journalism in North Carolina."

Yep.

Other friends have pointed out that, in the coverage of the story, reporters have posted links to Martin's, but not to Housecalls. Of course, there's nothing new about that either.

Something was in my mailbox when I got home late Thursday night. It was the Christmas card I get every year . . . from the parents of the child whose life I intervened to save in that life's first few hours. It's always just a photo featuring the (now) young lady and wishing me a Merry Christmas. There really doesn't need to be anything else.

There are eleven cards in the photo album now.

And it's the reason I'm in the blogosphere. Because no physician - not even a "nobody" Pediatrician - should have to go through what I've been through for doing the right thing by patient-not-even-my-own one night in the middle of the night eleven years ago at Randolph Hospital in Asheboro, North Carolina.

Back to the cyber-stalking complaint (which I will NOT withdraw - especially after the ugly show "the Stench" has put on), Jeff Martin has confessed to the crime he committed in a half-dozen ways in several different venues. He certaintly fits the cyber-stalker profile in that he did it all in order to "break" me and make me feel "vulnerable".

The case will almost certainly get a continuance not because of his blogging (or his lawyer's) prowess, but because first appearances usually do get continued . . . especially when the victim of the crime cannot be in Court.

Observers-in-the-know reassure me that despite my contentious history with the Randolph County DA's office, it is very doubtful that Garland Yates will just "drop" the complaint (as, no doubt, several local bloggers who've not exactly led by stellar example would prefer). There's not a lot of wiggle-room in the statute. Jeff Martin annoyed, terrified and harassed another blogger (someone he says was his "friend") with threats and insults hurled into her Inbox. Indeed, the abuse continues even now on his blog - as he mocks and spits in the face of the law he fractured. I'm not sure what "strategy" his lawyer plans to use to defend that - but it should make for some colorful smoke. And, as Mr. Martin himself has admitted, it's not his first dance with a magistrate (and it may not be his last - but that's up to someone else). Too many people are watching now (cyberstalking is also a Federal crime), and despite what Jeff Martin would like for you to believe, not everyone in Asheboro (or the Greensboro blogosphere for that matter) hates Mary Johnson.

Of course, that's an oldie-but-goodie right out of Randolph's playbook too.

Martin has had a great deal of "fun" with his fifteen minutes on his own blog . . . "fun" that I have a really hard time believing any lawyer anywhere (even from Asheboro) would want to defend.

In short, Mr. Martin is hanging himself, and I think I'm going to let him.

And/so excepting updates in the case, references to "the Stench" here on Housecalls will cease. In fact, I'm going to take a break for a few days. I went for two weeks waiting on Randolph County law enforcement to act (alas, despite the nature of the crime, the conditions of Mr. Martin's release did not include a muzzle), and I had to get some stuff out of my system.

But I'm not doing interviews and I'm not getting sucked into squabbles on the blogs. It only feeds the monster.

In this era of healthcare reform (conducted, it seems, entirely on weekends), if new readers want to learn more about a REAL news story . . . a story our local news outlets have totally ignored (in service to Asheboro's good-ole-boys and Greensboro's cabals), I suggest that they start with the sidebar here at Housecalls . . . where they can read all about how government/non-profit-administrated medicine really works to screw-over good doctors and their patients.

If a real reporter wants to talk about any of that, I could be persuaded to do an interview.

And if that's not enough scandal for them, they can pop right on over to Mike Baron's website and get a whole nuther perspective on the (Randleman) "DamScam".

Who knew there was so much news in Randolph county?

Perhaps someone should wake up the Courier Tribune.

Late PM Update: I've been on the road all evening. It seems not all of the Randolph County "nobodies" are swallowing the Greensboro "somebody's" legal arguments:

(It) seems some bloggers want to advance the notion that "electronic communication intended to harass, etc." can be extended to any reply to a blog, or any statements within a blog.

Those types of communication fall under our rights to free speech. There are reasonable limits to free speech, like the proverbial yelling of fire in a crowded theater. Another type of speech that is prohibited is outlined in most restraining orders.

The statue on cyberstalking is not intended nor written to prevent the normal flow of communications, even that which we may find annoying, or even statements we totally disagree with.

I believe that in the case of a Greensboro blogger charged with cyberstalking a Randolph County blogger, the questioning of the scope and breath of the cyberstalking law is only being questioned because of the unpopularity of the alleged victim to some of the better-known-bloggers in Greensboro, and has nothing to do with fear that the law will be applied outside of its original scope or may limit ordinary and common speech.

One blogger calls himself a satirist, but I find him to just be a flippant smart-ass . . . that doesn't make him any more guilty of a crime than being an acid-tongued crusader makes one not a victim.

One must put our feelings of the litigants aside and judge the case solely on the merits of the evidence.

Dale, as usual, is spot-on. The "big guns" in Greensboro (whose hobby is despising me for repeatedly wacking them as hypocrites and paper tigers) know full well that their favorite "Stench" is not being charged for what's on his blog (although arguably, everynastything he's posted since sending the 27 e-mails is an extension/evolution of his threats - now clearly intended to intimidate me into dropping the charges) . . .

. . . intimidation tactics having always worked so well with me as a persuasive tool before. Just ask the boys who run Randolph Hospital.

Jeff Martin is being charged for what he hurled into my Inbox (as Jeff Martin - not "Fecund Stench") over the course of a very frightening hour four Friday nights ago.

And this time, he cannot hide behind the "I'm just a poor, misunderstood satirist," excuse.

That one lands harder than a dead flying monkey.

Monday AM Update:

Got an e-mail from another GSO blogger - someone I've not been on the best of terms with in the past. He thinks that what Fec did was wrong and he needs to be called on it . . . but that he also agrees with Spag on "most every point" (please see the first comment in the thread of this post). Instead of responding in an e-mail, I thought I'd post a response here:

Very respectfully, people like "Fec" think they can get away with what they do because of what others have done and said to one-another in the blogs (not-to-mention what Martin has gotten away with in the past - because people are terrified of what he might say about them on his blog). But "satire" is not a blanket excuse for all manner of ugliness when you are writing about PRIVATE citizens . . . or your so-called "friends". It does NOT protect libel. It does NOT justify hurling "nasty, hurtful and more than a little scary" threatening e-mails at someone in a manner that, in every way, fits the profile of (and the statutes governing) a cyber-stalker.

Indeed, as I have pointed out previously, GSO blogger-king Ed Cone (who I hear is now dissing "DamScam" himself . . . the mighty Cone having ignored Mike/his story for YEARS) is likely more-than-a-little nervous about all of this because he himself has bombarded my Inbox uninvited, and kept coming even after I repeatedly asked him to STOP. Ed wasn't charged because (1) I wasn't aware of the statute and (2) he did not communicate a threat.

I would submit that there are ways to express your opinion without crushing the souls/hopes/dreams of others. But there are several folks - "big guns" in this blogosphere who simply cannot do that. They push people into corners . . . and marginalize them when they disagree . . . they bait and then gang/up excoriate them when they fight/bite back. They hurl all manner of vicious slur (right this very second, "mouth-breathers", "sister-diddlers" and "batshit crazy" come to mind).

They selectively delete comments and ban . . .. so any whining about "free speech" now falls pretty flat with me. And a good bit of what they do is politically-motivated . . . deep blue progressives behaving like Neanderthals.

That mirror so many of them want to aim in my direction works both ways.

As "annoying" as I may be when I get pulled into that kind of thing, perhaps you/others should start looking at the role you-all have played in this all along . . . from Fec's unchallenged reign of terror . . . to Dr. Mary Johnson's evolution from newbie-fill-with-hope to angry, deeply-battle-scarred uber-cynic.

The "what-who-me?" act is getting old.

There's a reason "Blogsboro" is "dead".

My argument has always been that justice must be for everyone. Fec's threats carried very real weight because last year I watched the N.C. State Bar viciously go after Rachel Hunter (and please understand I don't share all of her political notions) for something so boldly un-Constitutional as to be absurd. It was an ugly, state-government-sponsored attack on free speech if there ever was one, yet NOT A PEEP was heard out of anyone in the Greensboro blogosphere (except me) . . . it was "okay" for the Bar to do what it did because you-all HATED Rachel.

What we got was determined silence. The Bar did its Star-Chamber act unchallenged, and Rachel lost a job.

I expect all the Elizabeth Edwards-loving progressives in the GSO blogosphere were happy-happy-happy!

The very clear message getting sent now is that it's okay for Jeff Martin to behave so sickly/despicably and then play the clown/victim (I don't think he's decided yet what he's going to be) . . . because Ed/Roch/Spag HATE. It's that simple.

Spag was out-of-line. His legal position (at least when it comes to my case) very clearly is that justice isn't for everyone - that people lie every day in Court and we must simply accept government/non-profit corruption. Since I took a HUGE hit in that department (Sam/the rest keep bringing up the notion that it's all about money, but I don't imagine any of them work for free) . . . and I think Spag's "give it up" philosophy is the reason this country is in the mess it's in . . . I just do not agree with or respect that.

And/so I will fight the notion that nothing can be done to my last breath.

This is a watershed moment in the blogosphere. It is going to mold and shape dialogue from now on in one fashion or another. It can be "Fec's" ugly, mean-spirited way, or it can be a way that really does promote and foster civility . . . that brings more people in . . . gives them a voice . . .

. . . and makes them believe again in what blogging can/should be . . .

. . . what I was told it was when I came here.

Monday Afternoon Update:

I just forwarded a malicious e-mail/file identifed by my computer security system to the Randolph County Sheriff's Department.

I said I was going to take a break for several days. But Sam had to have his say and I let him.

If I am made aware of any updates in the case, I will post them. Comments on this post are now closed.

Collateral Benefits

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:08:00 +0000

With Fec-the-Clown doing his 60-Minutes "bad-boy" impersonations on TV, and several prominent GSO bloggers trying to advance their "the lady deserved it" legal theory (not apparently grasping how it looks, or the message it sends, or how far they've fallen in the eyes of other local bloggers who have had enough of the nasty ad-hominems and bait and switch games), for better or worse, traffic is up here at Housecalls.

As I fend off the anonymous (very cranky) "Farks", my friends keep telling me to hang in . . . that I'm doing the right thing . . . that if some of these people really wanted "civility" in the blogosphere, standing up to this particular bully is a no-brainer.

One of the friends, a (former) "fat girl" customer of "the Stench's" wife . . . someone whose business "the Stench" slurred in one of his "mean" after-the-emails posts . . . graciously shrugged it off saying, "Yeah, well, that's show-business. And in show-business, even bad publicity can be used for good."

One blogger, who shall not be named, sent me this:

"What has really turned me off is the fact that none of the bloggers of a more liberal persuasion, the same ones who scream "sexist!" to anyone who isn't for on-demand abortions, have no issues with the sexist nature of Martin's threats. I see it and I know the others do as well."

Yes, well, I've been threatened before. I didn't back down then either. In fact, I did what ALL of these prominent progressive thinkers would have wanted . . . no, even demanded and expected me to do . . . if the child involved had been theirs.

These GSO blogging "big guns" say they want more transparency and accountability in medicine, but when Dr. Mary Johnson came to them for help five years ago . . . when, after having done the "David vs. Goliath" legal thing for several years prior, she brought them a literal pile of problems that doctors face . . . problems that have been determinedly ignored in the state & Federal regulatory, law enforcement and legislative arenas . . . the enlightened and progressive residents of "Blogsboro" treated her like dirt.

No, MUCH WORSE than dirt.

Dr. Mary was a "wack-job", a "lunatic", a "booger-eating moron". She was "crazy" or a "malignant narcissist" because she could not/would not just "get over it" and "move on". It became local sport to poke and insult and "cone" her.

Even now, in all of the high-minded & glorious talk about healthcare reform, it's all and only about fulfilling the every whim of those with their hands out . . . not making the job easier for those of us who do the work . . . who are on the front-lines/in the trenches with our hands full and our hearts getting heavier by the day.

Dr. Mary got an earful about the failures of government-run healthcare (and Social Security) when her (60 and 70 year-old) Aunts & Uncles came down to North Carolina for a visit this week.

But Dr. Mary didn't need the lecture. She's never drank the deep-blue Koolaid (mostly because of what she's through at the hands of the Clintons and the Edwardes and the Hunts and the Blacks and the Rands and the Coopers and the Sleazeleys). And that's the reason she had to be marginalized and destroyed in the Greensboro blogosphere.

It's actually the same game plan that the guys in Asheboro used. But I bet that now, those Randolph Hospital Board members who dived under their desks are wishing they had not listened quite so much to Bob & Steve . . . and had sat down with Mary Johnson (even just once) eleven years ago . . . and treated the lady doctor like a human being.

Another blogger had this to say yesterday:

The blogosphere has failed Dr. Johnson and we have gotten way off topic with the personal animosity.

I thank God for the angels in my Inbox.

And on that brighter note, I got home a few nights ago to find this unsolicited e-mail in my Inbox . . .

I came across your name and your blog and I just have to wonder and ask . . .

Did you attend UNC-G in the early 80's, majoring in biology, chemistry, and (I think it was) Latin? Or something like that. And do you remember reciting the opening monologue of Star Trek ("Space, the final frontier...") in Dr. Bate's microbiology class with some crazy chick? If so, I'm the chick. If not, I'm still the chick, but you're not my former partner in crime and I apologize. Just shake your head at this email, laugh, and go on.

If I've come across that Mary Johnson that drank beer from an IV bottle with me while watching the final MASH episode, drop me a line!

Needless to say, I won't be pressing charges. And I dropped a line;)

We're getting together over Christmas. I shall introduce my old friend from college to my even older friends from high school (the Yas).

Moral of the story: Embrace adversity. Something good usually comes of it.

Powerful Evidence: No And Yes.

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:54:00 +0000

I was waiting for one of Jeff Martin's defenders to bring this old comment up on Allen Johnson's blog last year . . . when "Fec the Terrible" declared "war" on Greensboro.

And they did. At Cone's (of course). Moreover, only excerpts from my comments on the thread at Allen's were used.

So Allen. You/the N&R staff knew this "threat" was bogus. You knew it was Fec being Fec (albeit way over-the-top . . . but he's been way over-the-top before). Yet you reported it as "news".

Allen it wasn't any kind of real "threat" and you KNOW it.

You/the N&R are sending the clear message that the ONLY way for an ordinary sap to get attention is to pull a Fec (no offense to Fec because he is gifted writer and brilliant satirist - you know that too but that scares you).

Again Allen, the ONLY "threat" was an imaginary one. If the reporters at the N&R didn't know it, the "bloggers" most certainly did.

Spag, being Spag, think's it's might be "powerful" evidence in terms of the Randolph County DA blowing-off the 27 threatening e-mails Martin sent me. We cannot take "Fec" seriously. Ever.

And Mary "deserved" it.

I responded in the thread at Cone's.

Joining in. And I was waiting for it.

Goolopoly, once again, the difference between Robbie Perkins and I is that he is a public figure. And it is the very reason Martin was not arrested when "Fec" went after him on VdM. Mr. Perkins knew that pressing charges wouldn't go anywhere - and bring him a firestorm of press that he didn't need/want.

So did the newspaper that is now painting poor, pitiful, picked-upon Fec as the "victim" of a "woman scorned".

Moreover, the whole bit was playing to Fec's online persona - the one that "rules Greensboro in the absence of effective government".

In stark contrast, hurling 27 threatening e-mails into Asheboro-resident/private citizen's, Mary Johnson's Inbox is not playing to that persona.

Not even close.

Jeff Martin crossed very clear lines defined by law. He went to extreme lengths to stop my free speech . . . to intimidate and embarrass and humiliate . . . to shut me up. But some of you are arguing he's a victim?

When I opened these e-mails and read what was in them, I was TERRIFIED. I know that there are people who would make light of that here - and think it's funny or my just deserts for being the assertive, opinionated, red-state "wack-job" that I am. But the "I know where you live" bit (another person lives in/sits my home) . . . coupled with a very clear threat to cause trouble with the authorities/my licensing board (I've already been on the end of one bogus six-month investigation by the Board - basically for the sin of cutting-off an angry drug seeking teenager - something I blogged about in the thread of on of the Housecalls' posts on this subject), was something I took very seriously - to the point of notifying the Medical Board that they might get a "complaint" from an angry man in the midst of a keyboard meltdown that I've never seen as a patient.

It's my livelihood that he threatened (and, in fact, still endangers) people. And he's using the lowest/oldest/dirtiest trick in the book ("she's crazy"). Most of the very people "defending" Martin here have previously self-righteously ranted and raved when that sort of thing was done to others (well, except when it was Rachel Hunter).

The very clear message you're sending here is that "we don't like Mary, so it's okay".

Yes, Martin is a gifted writer and can be a brilliant satirist (when he's not spewing four-letter words). A lot of writers are just a little bit (or even a lot) manic.

But this "child-of-a-borderline" clearly needs to get back into anger-management therapy. And his personal history (which, I was quickly reminded includes physical assault against someone else who made him angry . . . a situation I actually once was concerned enough about to discuss with his wife while shopping in her store) gave me very good cause to be afraid of what he could/might do.

As long as Fec kept his act on the blogs, it was "Fec" and "free speech" (which I will defend to my last breath) and we've all put up with it . . . rationalized it . . . enabled it . . . even played along. "Fec" was the community character. And in that sense, all of us are just a little bit responsible for the way things have turned out.

It's not just the N&R sending the messages now.

You people are adults. You have wives and children and mothers and sisters. I wish some of you would start really thinking and acting like it.

Going back to Housecalls now.

As for our local blogger-king journalist, Edward Cone (miffed over this), and the lovingly "brusque" reception he and his co-horts in this precious blogosphere have given me over the last nearly five years, I'm going to excerpt something from Dale's blog (to refresh Spag's memory, Dale's a "nobody" from backwoods, hick-filled Randolph County):

" . . . unlike the folks from Greensboro, I did something else. I ran her links, researched her claims. looked into her sources, and read related articles. Not only did she have a credible complaint, there is a strong likelihood that she is the victim she claims to be."

And there you have it. Edward Cone, "big-gun" blogging journalist from Greensboro . . . one of the original champions of localized "citizen journalism" . . . and scion of the Cone family (a name that happens to adorn one of the hospitals that did me wrong) . . . has NEVER done . . . or even offered to do . . . what Dale did.

Edward Cone has NEVER sent me even one e-mail asking to look at my evidence against Randolph Hospital exectives . . . much less write about it . . . in a local story that is very relevant to what is wrong in healthcare in this state, and what really needs to be reformed.

But our noble hero did post an invitation on his blog (being the blogger-king, he assumed I read it on a regular basis) to interview me about blogging a while back.

And for that he wants a Nobel Blogging Prize. And "peace".

I declined the interview. I'm not here to talk about blogging. Or Jeff Martin for that matter.

I’m in the blogosphere for a reason. I sign my name. I don’t hide behind fake monikers or passwords. I'm not playing games. The "war" I've declared is on a local "non-profit" hospital that did me worse-than-wrong . . . and a warped legal system that turns its back on good people.

I have a whole lot of evidence to back up everything I say.

And I'm weary-to-the-bone of people in this blagosphere who haven't done their homework or exercised due diligence poking me with sticks and expecting me not to bite back . . . and then it somehow becomes my fault that I bite when I am poked.

It's "predictable".

Yeah, well no duh. So is laying the bait.

The Blogfather Has Spoken

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:57:00 +0000

I've been gone all day . . . it was a glorious day spent with family . . . and will be a topic for another post.

When I got home, the Inbox was full . . . largely very supportive. Two nasty/anonymous cranks did attempt to post comments (they were not published - I moderate here people). But it does appear that most people (those of us who have been here a while and hung in no matter what) really do want some real civility in this blogsphere, and they/we are sick and tired of a lot of what has been going on.

Addendum: Still catching up. Dale has a nice post up.

One friend sent me a link to this post at Ed Cone's.

I've perused the thread. Some of the players and their stances are predictable. I do appreciate Jeff Sykes hanging-in in hostile territory to state the obvious. And I think Bubba is going to have more to say shortly.

Meanwhile, Mr. Martin cannot decide what he is. A satirist. A clown. The poor pitiful victim of "a woman scorned" (that was good for a belly-laugh-out-loud). He didn't mean to frighten, but he could get real "mean" real quick on his blog when his target did not back down. He knows he "screwed up", but that hasn't changed his online tune or tactics.

He's obviously not had a serious conversation with a real lawyer yet.

The argument (such as it is) that some of "the usual suspects" at Cone's are making pertaining to "free speech" is disturbing in the extent of its rationalization. Threatening someone's personal safety or livelihood is not protected speech. Libel is not protected speech.

The North Carolina cyber-stalking law, passed by a legislature full of duly-elected-honorables representing you and I, was enacted to establish clear boundaries.

And in this case, "Fecund Stench" does not have any wiggle room. Nobody is trying to "destroy his life" (that sort of thing generally takes a whole lot more than a misdemeanor). He's doing a fine job of that himself. His wife's customers are "fat girls". He is a computer programmer hurling threatening e-mails and malware at bloggers who disagree with him and can defend their positions.

Moreover, given the despicable, determined, politically-motivated, inherently-sexist silence on the part of the very "progressive" people making the "free speech" argument, when the North Carolina State Bar viciously went after former judicial candidate Rachel Hunter for the horrible sin of using the moniker "Madame Justice" on her website (the State Bar making the assumption that the people/voters of North Carolina visiting her site were saps and simpletons lacking even basic reasoning skills), their faux-outrage over Jeff Martin being firmly told where the line is drawn falls way beyond flat and insincere.

But hey (according to Cone and company), Rachel was "batshit crazy", and her free speech offended their delicate, largely deep-blue sensibilities (just as mine has), so anything . . . however un-Constitutional . . . that the North Carolina Bar did to her in order to shut her up was a-okay with this enlightened Greensboro crowd.

After two weeks of silence, Greensboro's fence-sitting "blogfather" finally spoke (and very predictably stayed on the fence):

Jeff was unkind and obnoxious to barrage Mary with hostile emails.

I'm no expert on the law, nor do I know how a case like this is likely to play out in the system.

That said, I don't think the emails should be punishable by law.

Well, of course he doesn't. You see, he's done it himself.

Please note in that thread how many times I asked Ed to STOP e-mailing me.

But you'll also note that I did not press charges against Edward Cone . . . for being annoying or for harassment.

You see, I'm a big girl and I recognized that we were continuing a contentious conversation (as much as I really didn't want to) that started online . . . on the blogs.

Ed was upset that I would not take the e-mails down. But he did not communicate a threat.

And therein, Edward, lies the difference that IS (don't ya just LOVE that word?) punishable by law.

"Vulnerable" To The News & Record Missing The Point And Getting It Wrong (But Hey, That's Nothing New)

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:50:00 +0000

*This post has been updated (see below).

The N&R has a "story" up on the cyberstalking charge against Jeff Martin ("Fecund Stench").

No comments allowed.

And they've already got it wrong.

Actually, I did go "on-the-record" with part of my mostly off-the-record response to an e-mail inquiry by "public-safety reporter" Dioni Wise (she reads my blog - who knew?) . . . right here on Housecalls:

Let me get this straight.

I've been in the blogosphere for four years . . . blogging about being professionally raped/robbed and left for dead by a local non-profit hospital . . . multiple ethics violations and (as yet unprosecuted) felonies . . . pleading for an investigative journalist to take a look . . . and you want to interview me about Jeff Martin?

Moreover, Ms. Wise sent her e-mail BEFORE Mr. Martin was arrested. She did not contact me for comment AFTERWARDS . . . before the N&R posted their "story".

Funny, how the N&R didn't go with the original quote. They'd rather paint the perpetrator of a very clear crime as "the victim".

Next thing you know, they'll be printing "the real story" from James Hinson.

Evening Update:

Just got in for the evening from a family dinner. Warned Mom about the incoming firestorm.

(1) Jordan Green had his story up at Yes weekly. All-in-all a fair job.

“Frankly, someone needs to take Mary Johnson down, and I’m the guy,” pretty much speaks for itself. I would submit that perhaps "the Stench" should not have been "cut loose" by his therapists.

Maybe resuming therapy can be the condition of a plea.

(2) WXII's Bill O'Neil e-mailed this afternoon and asked for an interview (in other words, I WAS reached, I just did not offer "on-the-record" comment). Right now, I'm sticking to the blog and not giving interviews.

I do beg to differ with Martin's back-tracking with WXII. He knew exactly what he was doing. He meant to instill fear. He meant to harass. He meant to intimidate.

It worked. And it's illegal.

And OBTW, the bit Martin is using with non-bloggers . . . about my comments at Vie de Malchance over the last several years justifying his manic jump to cyber-stalking . . . is just, well, a pathetic ruse. A blog is an open forum.

I mean, I wonder what would happened if we counted Spag's comments at Cone's?

Another point. I was, in fact, not banned at Vie de Malchance until I took on "the Stench" in the thread of this despicable post . . . a post that cruelly excoriated a good man with terminal cancer, who like me, came to this blogosphere for help in getting attention cast on a story that has been ignored by the local news media. And when I got banned, I put up a post of my own. It's the way the game is played. Martin knows it. But he's playing to the ignorance of outsiders looking in.

(3) Jeff Sykes has a post up. He also is perturbed with Martin is trying to use my comments on Vie de Malchance over the years as some kind of justification for what he did.

(4) Martin might as well hire Sam Spagnola (who is wrong and does not have all of the information), and get it over with.

Of course, Sam is still smarting. From this. And it shows.

(5) On that note, I should probably mention that I had an interesting/very blunt conversation with an attorney at the North Carolina Attorney General's office this afternoon. It started as yet another brush-off. But the conversation ended, I think, on a more positive note.

As a tax-paying citizen and former public servant totally fed-up with the joke that is government oversight of anything, I am simply not going to take as an acceptable answer that the senior executives of a "non-profit" hospital can walk into a Courtroom, negotiate a damages settlement with someone they wronged on what amounts to a pack of lies, and totally get away with it . . . or that the Attorney General of North Carolina is powerless to act.

Roy Cooper has had plenty of time since the Mike Nifong debacle to entice the North Carolina legislature to fix the holes that good citizens can fall through when dealing with bad DA's. There have to be better checks and balances.

In this case, Garland Yates wouldn't even necessarily be in trouble if he did make the referal he should have made six years ago (I can be forgiving when people do the right thing). But some of the mill town cabal that has kept him in office would. Of course, that's been the problem all along.

NCDHHS supposedly polices hospitals. It doles out grants and funding and certificates of need. And Roy Cooper is NCDHHS's lawyer. Don't tell me he could not make Randolph Hospital dance.

This mess cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars, a practice in my hometown and years of my life. I'm not going to "get over it" or "move on" until what Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin did is addressed.

And I'm very prepared - especially now - in the wake of "Fecund Stench's" cyber-stalking to start suing the regulatory and oversight agencies (like the Medical Board, like NCDHHS, like JCAHO) that have let me swing for eleven years . . . empowering bullies like Martin to work their dark magic. I've wrestled with this decision for a long time. But all doubts are GONE.

Moreover, if the Randolph County District Attorney drops the cyber-stalking charge (as Sam suggests he could), it really does make the "habitual intemperance" argument much easier to make later on.

I'm "a woman scorned" alright . . . but Jeff Martin flatters himself. I'm a woman scorned by the joke that is the North Carolina justice system.

Thursday Morning Update:

In my Inbox this morning, a comment from David Hoggard (posted in the thread here):

Mary,

I've really been gone a long time from following all of the blogs and started looking at this story after I read about it in the N&R and Yes! Weekly yesterday.

Can't believe I totally missed all of this and am so late to such a depressing party.

Martin did the same thing to me - 20 minute blast of a couple of dozen disturbing emails - about two years ago. (A couple of the worst disparaged my wife's physical appearance following cancer).

I just took the event as evidence that Martin is somehow very unbalanced and that I should just forevermore stay the hell away from him - both online and off. And I have.

I think I kept those emails in my archives. When I get time I will search and pull them up and offer them to you for whatever purpose you deem appropriate.

This "fat girl" will be out most of the day. If anyone has updates/links/"intel", feel free to comment/e-mail. I'll catch up tonight.

Case Number 2009056649 CR

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:37:00 +0000

Several folks have asked for an update.

After a relatively quite Thanksgiving covering Pediatric hospital duties for a couple of far-eastern counties, I threw out my lower back very late Sunday evening. Because I was on-call, I could not take the proper pain-killers that might have enabled me to stand up straight.

Maybe that was three.

I spent yesterday morning on-the-road (a good portion of that time spent trying not to scream). As those of you who have thrown out your backs well know, even after a night of medicated slumber, this morning I'm not exactly in the mood to be chatty.

Do you think people, not knowing the back-story (no pun intended) . . . or, in my case, multiple back stories (see the sidebar) . . . might think me "boarish" (or is it "boorish")?

I arrived home yesterday afternoon to find this message in my Inbox:

Dr. Johnson

Mr. Martin was arrested and served with the warrant in Randolph County and his court date was set for December 14th 2009 in courtroom 3B. I do not know what the conditions of release were set at by the magistrate.

Detective Trogdon

I will not be home on the 14th. I will be back down East on-call - courtesy of a schedule that was carved in stone months ago (in short, contrary to popular belief in this blogosphere, I have a life, I'm very good at what I do, and what I do is very important).

Inasmuch as this has failed to move King Dozier in the past, on a first appearance . . . with the victim (yes, victim) of the crime unavailable to testify (although given the evidence posted online, I'm not sure why anyone would need me to testify) . . . I am advised that the case will likely be continued.

Jordan Green, of Yes Weekly, e-mailed last week to ask for an interview. I declined to provide on-the-record commentary to the print media because Mr. Martin had not yet been arrested. I was also more than a little put-out that, with a warrant pending, "Fec", still posting his extortive invective, was allowed to leave town/the state without being processed.

Mr. Green offered up some material (posted under password at Martin's blog) and asked for my response. I gave him some off-the-records pointers and let it go for now. He said that, in the absence of my cooperation, he planned to use commentary from Housecalls. I can only hope he uses whatever he uses in context.

As I wondered how many people had passwords (perhaps this will come out later), I did make a gentle-person's agreement not to pre-empt Mr Green's story by blogging on the "private" material he shared.

I am waiting, very patiently, to see what the local news media and blogosphere do with this story. In short, will they take the high road or the low?

So far, it's been pretty low (not-to-mention "too complicated" for the News & Record).

Mr. Martin has done a whole lot of bloviating on his blog to draw attention away from "the real story" here . . . . and that story is about about a local blogger (colorful character that he may be) making the very ugly leap to cyber-stalking.

It wasn't satire. It's not protected by copyright. It wasn't funny. It wasn't cool.

And I will repeat. I've played the blogging game by all of the rules of Blogsboro's "big guns" . . . "big guns" who, by virtue of their silence while this was going on (based on the bait laid in Martin's posts, I'm thinking because some of them might have played an early part in it), do not seem quite so "big" anymore.

As the e-mails escalated/evolved to nasty/libelous posts, Martin and his new-found friends-with-axes-to-grind have openly (on his blog) snickered and spit at this charge, and have implied that Dr. Mary Johnson (1) deserved it, and (2) will find no champion at the Randolph County Courthouse.

Wink, wink. Nod, nod.

I will say this. After six years of the royal screw with regards to my case against Randolph Hospital executives for perjury, this time, I expect a fair shake from the Randolph County DA's office.

And if I do not get it, there will be Hades to pay.

Moreover, if I had to hazard a guess, Jeff Martin does not have as many friends at the Randolph County courthouse as he thinks he does. No one I know on lawyer's row in Asheboro would want to touch this case with a ten-foot pole . . . even if they hated my guts (and the ones that really hate my guts . . . if they behave ethically . . . wait . . . pause to stop laughing . . . can't touch it).

And I can guarantee you NO ONE in this DA's office is "grateful" that a
"Fecund Stench" opened this can-o-worms for the "banshee" they been trying to keep buried since 2003.

As I told a friend last night, folks can print what they like about this story (some already have). But you see, as one of the "principles" (and as Fec/Cone/Roch/JR have all pointed out before), and as the person who was actually there, I have a blog.

By the way, if you have not already done so, please visit Mike Baron at "DamScam". It's just another timely story that our local newspapers have determinedly ignored while they pandered to the various cabals and agendas that have paid off so well for our community.

I'm sure that, somewhere in the great blue yonder, Jack Perdue is getting a real kick out of this.

Thing Two

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 23:05:00 +0000

Dr. Mary is going to be an Aunt again. Dr. Mary is very happy.

"The Luckiest Son-Of-A-Bitch On The Planet"

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:54:00 +0000

Our family is still processing a medical diagnosis made on one of our very young ones this past week. The AML has been classified as "M7" or Acute Megakayroblastic Leukemia. It is very rare, and it is going to be a real bear to fight.

It goes without saying that we will do everything we can to kick "M7's" evil tail.

But we also got some good news in our other family medical crisis. My "Uncle" Ralph (he's actually Dad's cousin) had an MI (myocardial infarction or "heart attack") at the wheel of his car last week . . . crashed the car and shattered a leg. He survived, and it appears he will be fine.

I am rather fond of "Uncle" Ralph. You could say he is one of the "bad boys" of the family. His favorite hobby at family gatherings/events is to gang up on me (with Dad's younger brother Reid - who is not a whole lot older than I am) and tease me (for any reason they can come up with). It's long been the theory of the women in the family (I've not been the only target) that the teasing is a coping mechanism . . . because our clear intellectual superiority intimidates the men.

I digress. There is more to the story of Ralph's miraculous survival.

But first some background:

Years ago, while he was still in his 40's (if memory serves), my now dearly-departed Pops . . . continuing the long/un-settling tradition of Johnson men with bad hearts . . . began having chest pain. His Father had had several massive heart attacks before he passed away, and on top of that, Pops had a history of rheumatic fever (it's what got him more or less thrown out of the Army after 18 days of boot camp). Dad went to the doctor and did the dance of cardiac enzymes, and in-house observation, and the more-or-less obligatory cardiac catheterization.

After all the studies were done, we were told that Pops was "the luckiest son-of-a-bitch on the planet" (I believe those were the cardiologist's exact words). You see, Pops had a (?congenitally?) malformed AND completely occluded left anterior descending artery. Any other ordinary mortal would have been taken directly from the cath-lab to the operating room for immediate by-pass.

But angels had been sitting on Dad's shoulder (for all that they had to hang on for dear life). Pops' heart had formed collateral vessels around the occlusion. His heart had fixed itself!?! There was no need for surgery.

Dad was placed on meds for blood pressure and cholesterol and really did not give his ticker a whole lot of thought until the day he died - one week short of turning 70 - I believe of a pulmonary embolism brought on by complications of injuries suffered in an auto accident several weeks before he died.

We still joke about Dad's incredible medical luck. But it now seems that Uncle Ralph may have eclipsed Dad's status as the "luckiest son-of-a-bitch on the planet".

You see, as my Uncle Reid explained it to me on the phone, if the MI had happened while our dear, crusty Ralph was at home on the couch watching TV, he would have died right then and there . . . and I would have been trying to figure out how to arrange emergency holiday call-coverage in order to attend the funeral.

But Ralph was at the wheel of his car. And when the Grim Reaper tapped him on the shoulder, his car crashed (it was a single-car accident - no one else was hurt).

And while his leg took a very nasty hit, the "shock" of the crash "jump-started" his heart!?!

A pace-maker has been implanted and doctors prognosticate that, with time and TLC, Uncle Ralph is going to be fine (although rehab is going to be a bear).

I know I keep referencing bears. But that's another tale and another Uncle.

As Reid finished relating the story, I burst out laughing and uttered a few explicatives (ala, "I do not BELIEVE that!!! You are *&^%$#@ kidding me!"). Reid was briefly perplexed by my reaction, but quickly realized I was processing the news/story by relating Ralph's incredible good luck to Dad's.

After having a good chuckle himself (and both of us imagining how Pops might have reacted to his status being usurped), he got very serious again. "We shouldn't laugh, Mary. Bad stuff comes in threes," he said.

"Yeah, Bub. Well go get yourself a check-up," I said. "Because, I think I'm good for three."

Then, I got my Uncle up-to-speed on what he may be shortly to read all about in "Yes Weekly".

My Uncle, the Teamster, was not amused. And his reaction was the same as all of the other non-blogging outsiders looking in on this "spectacle" (who I've discussed the matter with) . . . "He did WHAT? Why isn't this (insert explicative-laden description-of-choice) in jail?"

Thinking to myself, I thought, "Well, Reid, the local cops thought it would be okay for him to have his out-of-state Thanksgiving first. Besides interstate cyber-assault makes the case Federal." But this is what I said:

"I'm okay, Reid. Really," I said. "I'm just patiently waiting on the Randolph County Sheriff's Department to serve up some real 'civility' in the Greensboro blogosphere with their warrant. And look on the bright side. As the truth comes out . . . all of it . . . maybe we'll finally get lucky and finally crack this story (the "real" one about Dr. Mary vs. Randolph Hospital - as opposed to the one about Dr. Mary's cyberstalker) wide open."

It's long overdue.

An Unwanted Guest At The Thanksgiving Table

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:02:00 +0000

It will be a very somber Thanksgiving at the Johnsons' this year. An unwanted guest has taken a seat at our table.

That guest is childhood cancer. Last evening, the barely two-year-old extended family member I referrenced in Tuesday's post was diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML). We adults are still processing it.

I've been practicing Pediatrics for 18 years, and I've seen and dealt with a whole lot of badness in my time, but I'm still not very good at processing stuff like this.

But as bad as we all feel, and as hard as we know this road is going to be, I am thankful that an evil disease that would have rapidly killed this child not-so-very-long ago is treatable, and that she has a more-than-decent chance to be sitting at our table next Thanksgiving.

If you say prayers, please say one for this little girl. And thank you for doing so.

The Spectacle Of It All

MHJMD@triad.rr.com (Dr. Mary Johnson) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:11:00 +0000

It's been quite a week so far.

Apart from what I do for a living (let's just say there's a whole lot of newborn baby pathology in Eastern N.C.), I've got one elderly relative with a shattered leg in a local ICU - after having had an MI at the wheel of his car . . . and one toddler in our extended family at Duke - having just been diagnosed with leukemia (we are waiting on the definitive diagnosis).

The child, an adorable little girl, had actually been seen for her two-year-old check-up within the last week or so - but the doctor did not notice anything amiss (I must add the caveat here to parents that physicians are not psychic . . . if you're worried about something at a check-up, SPEAK UP!). My sister-in-law called me the night before last with a list of symptoms, and asked me what I thought and what to do. As she rattled off the list, an ominous chill ran down my spine. I did not tell her exactly what I thought (it's best not to instill terror if one does not have to), but I told her what to do and to do it very fast.

When I hung up, I felt sick at the other end of the phone. I still feel sick.

Yesterday, the "baby" went back to the doctor. They put her in an ambulance and sent her straight to Duke. As I type this, she is been introduced to the world of bone marrow biopsies and permanent central lines and blood & platelet transfusions and all manner of exotic chemicals being pumped into her tiny body. It's all to save her life . . . a life that hasn't even started yet.

And now, I am crying.

It's very frustrating, because I am working several hours from home (for all of the reasons I blog about) . . . "on-call" for Thanksgiving . . . and cannot be there to support/advise people I love.

The only reason I mention these things before continuing on with this post is to emphasize the point that those of us that sit at these keyboards have private lives and families and stuff going on.

We fordamnedsure don't need cyber-stalkers . . . one of our supposed own . . . dishing out their ugly/mean/sick/warped CRAP on top of all that.

So the reader is going to have to forgive me if I'm just not in the mood to spend what little spare time I do have pounding away at a computer screen for the "entertainment" of others.

But hey, for the moment, I'm going to indulge some of you. Let's move on along to the "spectacle"!

Having made the (inaccurate) assessment that "nobody else" was talking about it online, the GSO blogosphere's resident lawyer, Sam Spagnola, with whom I've had differences before, put up a post entitled "The Fec and Mary Show".

In the interest of the "civil discourse" that everyone in the GSO blogopshere says they care so much about, it was very important for our Sam to offer up his opinion on "the spectacle" (as opposed to maybe waiting for the facts and submitting a legal opinion on the case). By God, it was his Constitutional right! The "participants" did not need to comment but everyone else could. It was also his contention that both "participants" should be banned from commenting on any of the local blogs . . . never mind that one of the "participants" will shortly be taking the Fifth or pleading insanity . . . and the other is just DONE being run-over by this bait-and-switch garbage.

Sometimes Sam is so full of it that I just want to scream.

You can read the post/thread for yourself. Sam is being Sam. He's a lawyer, trained in the "art" of being adversarial, and he doesn't know how to beat a clean retreat when his argument has been shot full of holes.

Today, in particular, I am very tired of Sam. This is my last comment on that post (and it will be my last one there - I could care less about whatever comeback he offers):

Sam, in terms of "annoying characteristics", pots and kettles. You're putting on quite the show here.

Since YOU brought it up (I so do not want to re-hash this with you either): Legal opinions that one does not pay for are usually not worth a whole lot. Most of us cannot afford the learned opinions of the really big guns in your profession (especially after we've already been raped by turkey-buzzards-disguised-as-eagles).

And OBTW, yes, it is my opinion (you can have one - so can I) that you ARE a part of the problem if (like apparently a huge chunk of the legal world), you think that not prosecuting perjury (which has NO statute of limitations) is okay . . . unless it's done to boost the career of some political wannabe in Raleigh or Washington.

I think and hope that the Medical Board & NCAG's office are waking up on this case and will begin work to fix some of the important issues it raises (if you don't mind too terribly much, I'll wait until they're fixed to "move on") . . . but I honestly don't have my hopes up. Legal action will likely be necessary to get the agencies involved to "move".

Unfortunately, as our current economy bears out, we cannot expect oversight agencies to oversee.

As for what happened last week, I know that I'm supposed to just sit around and "just watch" (Hi Ed!, Hi Roch!) when "that SMELL" has one of his manic meltdowns at the computer keyboard. But this time I simply could not do it. Mike Baron, suffering from terminal cancer and just out of the hospital, did NOT, in ANY way, deserve what Jeff Martin dished out on Vie de Malchance. Neither did any of the other "evil booger-eating morons and lunatics" at which Martin spewed his bile.

And, in the wake of that despicable post, spare me the scolding for "baiting" the-character-known-as-Fecund-Stench. I was playing by his rules. "The show" could have stayed over at Vie de Malchance had "that SMELL" not started deleting the comments of those who objected to what he was doing.

As I said in my original post at Housecalls, I was not interested in - or trying to start - a "blog-war". But I am not going to stand by and "just watch" while a good-man-already-down is stomped for sick/warped sport. Some things don't get to float in the ether unchallenged or unanswered.

(UNLESS, OF COURSE, YOU'RE A TWO-FACED, GREEDY, LYING EXECUTIVE AND/OR RUBBER-STAMPING BOARD MEMBER OF "NON-PROFIT" RANDOLPH HOSPITAL . . . OR ONE OF THE LAWYERS IN THIS CASE . . . AND YOU'RE GUILTY AS CHARGED!)

When I'm called out, I'm gonna come out. When "that SMELL" does it . . . or when you do.

So. Don't call me out. STOP. It's a simple word.

And yes, it WAS a spectacle. But we've have a lot of spectacles here in this blogosphere and as far as I know, NONE of them have escalated into one of the participants sending threatening e-mails to other bloggers (more than one person - I'm told you know about this) . . . e-mails that threaten the other bloggers' personal safety and/or livelihood . . . e-mails that play nasty head games.

And that wasn't the end of it. As far as I am concerned, every horrible/LIBELOUS post referring to me that was put up at VdM since Jeff Martin made his threats is an extension of the crime . . . Jeff actually carrying through on his threats . . . trying to do me harm.

You're still determined to rationalize the notion that I somehow "deserved" this. I don't know what planet you live on to equate what ALL of us do in our blogging (at one time or another) with cyber-stalking.

I really don't.

I agree with you. This IS a milestone AND newsworthy (for all that the standard-bearers of "citizen-journalism" at the GSO News & Record are masking their desire to keep the lid on this UGLY can-of-worms under the guise of the story being "too complicated"). And that's mostly because I had the presence of mind to blog what was happening as it happened . . . which led to Jeff Martin CONFESSING to the crime online.

You've been fishing, so here you go: I am informed that warrants were issued last Thursday in the case (the jurisdiction is the home address typed into "that SMELL's" e-mail header . . . an address in Randolph County). I did not have to "swear out" anything - a magistrate found probable cause.

But Jeff Martin, apparently knowing full well what was coming, left town. So the warrants will be sent to Greensboro for the GPD to handle.

I'm not wild about the jurisdiction being Randolph County. Tell me, Spag, do you think I will get a fair shake there?

The other blogger involved is in a different jurisdiction and I cannot/will not speak to what will happen there.

I know you're very happy now. You've got "the scoop".

Maybe you can run with it in a fashion different than you have been.

Wednesday Morning Update: The head-games continue . . . in comments posted to this blog. The information I have on "123 . . . 123" has been forwarded to the Randolph County Sheriff's Department.

It's not a dance, Jeff.

More Wednesday Morning Sam: I really wasn't planning on going back, but Sam is still trying to make the case that I somehow deserved what happened two Friday nights ago (and what is still going on) . . . that "baiting" our poor "SMELL" in the blogs somehow justifies threats and sick head games.

And I'm sorry, at this point, it's like telling a girl who was wearing a short skirt that she deserved to be raped. Sam's bloviating ain't playing with Dr. Mary.

My retort:

I really didn't plan to come back, but like I said, some things don't get to just stand in the ether.

You are not so hard to predict either Sam.

And now you're just being a sexist pig. How many times have I watched you and Roch or Ed or Bubba or any of the rest of our lot lay the bait in these blogs and say horrible/nasty things to one another?

Let me ask you this, when any of YOU boys did it, would "Give it your best shot" mean that any of you could start threatening one another's personal safety or livelihoods in e-mails?

YOU are the one who keeps rehashing our differences over my case. You keep trying to justify what Jeff Martin did (by referrring back to the way I've defended my positions - often after "a great many other people" laid the bait) and you just can't make that connection.

But you have a God-given right to have an opinion on the spectacle!

You cannot have it both ways. Perjury is a crime or it isn't. If someone victimized by the act (especially when it's done by people who work for public or "non-profit" institutions) wants to prosecute, they should have avenues to do so. That's been my argument all along - a fairly simple one. All the doors have been slammed in my face and it has been your position that it's okay - that I need to accept the injustice and move on. I'm sorry it tires you so much. But then again, you did not take the hit.

Perhaps I do need to take a course on English as a second language - because a lot of people in this blogosphere seem to be talking out of both sides of their mouth.

Comments on this post are closed.

Sorry folks. This part of the show is over. I've bled enough.