Old FURIOUS nads! by The One True b!X

Given the approach of this Friday’s rally in support of the Oregon Historical Society Research Library, take a look back at the results of my own use of the Library’s resources. First, there’s Revisiting the Great Light Way, in which I pulled together everything I’d learned about the illuminated arches which once crisscrossed intersections along SW Third in downtown Portland. Second, there’s my backgrounder on The Finger (scroll to the bottom), a zine published during World War II by Swan Island shipyard workers, which I’d discovered at a local bookstore.

Details on the full package for sale are here on Craigslist, since the Craigslister seeking one didn’t want mine.

Apparently tonight the government seized Washington Mutual and then sold it off to JPMorgan Chase.

Shareholders and some bondholders will be wiped out. WaMu deposits are guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation up to the $100,000 per account limit. Customers of Seattle-based WaMu are unlikely to be affected.

Apparently, it is the largest bank failure in United States history. I swear this has absolutely nothing to do with me quitting my job over a workplace health dispute. According to Bloomberg quting the Office of Thrift Supervision, WaMu “had ‘insufficient liquidity’ and was in an ‘unsound’ condition”.

Technically, according to the WSJ, because it was seized and then immediately emergency sold to JPMorgan, it perhaps can’t be considered an outright bank “failure”, since apparently the “transaction isn’t expected to impact the agency’s national deposit-insurance fund”.

Then again, maybe that’s just WSJ’s bias showing and not wanting to use the word “failure”, as most other reports seem, in fact, to be doing.

What do you think is the greatest threat that we, as a race, are facing? Organized religion polluting our minds as it pretends to deliver morality and spiritual salvaton. It’s spreading the most malevolent mind virus of all. I hope our race can one day outgrow this primitive notion.

If you ruled the world, what would you change? I’d stop states and governments from mixing governance and religion. This is a lethal cocktail that keeps billions in misery. Religion must be a very private affair that should never be a spectator sport.

Yes, I’ve ended the months-long hiatus into which this site has been vanished. But don’t get excited, overly. It remains undetermined just how much I intend to do here now that I’ve brought everything back up into the light. One thing is definite: I’ve disabled comments site-wide. No time for the hassle.

As a preliminary follow-up to the previous post on the matter indicating that the missing funds from Denver’s 2007 CSTS event suddenly had been repaid, the global CSTS website has published a statement from the head of the Mile High Browncoats. It is reprinted here in full, with a comment or two after it.

I am pleased to report that all missing funds from Denver CSTS 2007 have been paid to Equality Now by Jeremy Vinding. Amanda Sullivan of Equality Now has received a confirmation of a payment in the amount of $2500 as of this morning. This includes funds for our original estimate of $1900 plus an additional $600 funded by Jeremy personally. Please know that the additional funds were given voluntarily and were not demanded or even expected.

Over the past year Jeremy Vinding has had several health problems and these struggles impeded the immediate payment of the EN funds as well as his ability to communicate with the necessary parties. At no point were the funds used by Jeremy to pay any bills or debt; they have been secured in his account this entire time. Representatives from both EN and CSTS Global have been working tirelessly with me over the past several months to find a way to get in touch with Jeremy to determine the status of the funds. While it can be easy to assume the worst, we wanted to find proof of what happened to the funds, and retrieve them as soon as possible. Family assistance over almost that entire span of the investigation had alluded to medical issues, yet nothing was verifiable until now. Issues of this severity - missing funds and failing health - each hold an intense sensitivity that require the utmost care in their handling and demand both ethical and professional considerations that could not be forced forward. We desperately wanted to avoid speculation, because the repercussions of posting conjecture can bring on worse than legal trouble. It can wrongly accuse someone that is innocent of the “suggested” crimes.

We are grateful for the hard work of those involved in bringing this matter to a favorable resolution and thank you for your patience and understanding of the delicate information regarding this case.

While I’m not beyond believing such a scenario, this still fails to meet the basic level of information required in a matter such as this, where funds were raised and went missing for a full year without most people’s knowledge.

If the above is true, then it is possible for it to be verified. There is, somewhere, a paper trail both of the actual funds raised in 2007, and of the purported situation. In other words, a statement doesn’t satisfy — evidence is what satisfies.

The reality is that CSTS needs to be an organization of rules, not of people. “Trust us, this is what we found” isn’t sufficient for the purposes of credibility.

As it stands, we have (on the one hand) a chain of circumstantial evidence that we can actually examine which presents peculiar coincidences of timing when it comes to the movement of money and the comings and goings of people. And then we have (on the other hand) a “trust us, this is what we found” statement that doesn’t provide any evidence, circumstantial or otherwise.

Should that evidence exist, in some form, and it is produced, and it demonstrates that indeed $1,900 had been sitting around “secured” for an entire year in an account untouched during a prolonged medical issue, then I will post here what, at that point, will be the necessary and responsible thing for me to post.

In other words, if the balance of evidence proves that my suspicions in fact were wrong, I will say so, publicly and directly.

But for CSTS to be a valid and credible organization (or, if you will, network of local organizations), people’s word isn’t enough. Words need to be backed up with proof, else the next time there’s a controversy that results from an actual problem, no one will have any basis to do anything other than just accept people at their word.

Organizations do not run on people’s word. They run on verifiability. If this is verifiable, you’ll see me back here the moment that happens.

Addendum: As usual, most of the public discussion is taking place over on WHEDONesque.

Or, rather, the pages are beginning to show up on their official site, despite not yet updating the programming page to reflect this fact. See my PIE SPOILERS!!! post for the details.