My Daily Struggles

LL.M. in International Trade Law: American University Acceptance

2012-01-27T13:12:00.000-05:00

May 16, 1983

Mr. Gary Freedman
1324 Locust Street
Apartment #415
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19107

Dear Mr. Freedman:

I am pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to the Law School's LL.M. degree program in International Law for the Fall 1983 semester. My colleagues and I are confidant that you will add greatly to the quality and diversity of graduate students in this program.

Registration will be held on Thursday, August 25, from 9:30 am to 5:00 pm in room 102 of the Myers Law School building on the American University campus. Classes begin on Monday, August 29, 1983. I look forward to your joining us this fall. If I may be of assistance in the mean time, please do not hesitate to contact me at (202) 686-2606.

Sincerely,

/s/

Robert K. Goldman
Director
Graduate International
Studies Program

RKG:jb

LL.M. in Taxation -- Acceptance to Villanova Law School Program

2012-01-27T13:01:00.000-05:00

Villanova University
Villanova, Pennsylvania 19085

School of Law

December 9, 1982

Gary Freedman, Esquire
1324 Locust Street Apt. 415
Philadelphia, PA 19107

Dear Mr. Freedman:

Congratulations on your acceptance to the Villanova Graduate Tax Program beginning with the Spring, 1983 semester. If you wish to hold a seat, please complete the enclosed form and return it with your deposit fee.

I will notify you under separate cover about the pre-registration procedures. Final registration will be held the first night of classes. You should be prepared to pay tuition in full at that time.

I look forward to seeing you in January.

Sincerely,

Don W. Llewellyn
Director of the
Graduate Tax Program

DWL/hcs
Enclosure

Letter to James L. Kestell, Esq.

2012-01-27T12:47:00.001-05:00

April 20, 1993
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC 20008

Mr. James L. Kestell
1101 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC

RE: McNeil v. Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld

Dear Mr. Kestell:

Enclosed are copies of pleadings in Freedman v. Akin Gump, filed with DOHR:

(1) Akin Gump's Response to Interrogatories and Document Request (I include only the Response to Particulars: all of Akin Gump's attachments are included as attachments to my Reply); and

(2) My Reply to Akin Gump's Response.

I also include a copy of a letter submitted to DOHR detailing the events on the day of my termination, including the actions of my supervisor, Chris Robertson.

Note that Akin Gump's failure to adequately investigate my allegations of harassment against Chris Robertson, and management's failure to investigate the retaliatory nature of Chris Robertson's actions following my charge of harassment, may allow you to add a count of Negligent Retention in McNeil v. Akin Gump.

Also, Chris Robertson's retaliation following my charge of harassment (specifically the numerous intentionally false statements in her memo to Dennis Race dated October 25, 1991) may constitute the tort of Intentional Interference with Contract in my case. (I understand that DC recognizes language in employment manuals as establishing an implied contract right.)

Finally, with respect to Akin Gump's Response, note the absurd statement on the first age: "Later, [on August 1, 1989] Claimant was employed as a full-time legal assistant ("paralegal") to manage massive amounts of documents for a major client (See Attachment C). Shortly thereafter, [on March 9, 1989] the client filed for bankruptcy protection and eventually the legal work diminished." At best, this error indicates Akin Gump's lack of knowledge of the material facts (which carries implications regarding the thoroughness of its investigation of my charge of harassment prior to my termination); at worst, it's an intentional misrepresentation of a material fact.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman

Re: Meeting with James Kestell, Esq. in April 1993:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/11/meeting-with-james-kestell-esq-1993.html

Letter to James L. Kestell, Esq.

2012-01-27T12:21:00.000-05:00

April 20, 1993
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC 20008

Mr. James L. Kestell
1101 15th Street, NW

RE: McNeil v. Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld

Dear Mr. Kestell:

Enclosed is Akin Gump's Response to the Complaint filed with DOHR in Freedman v. Akin Gump together with a copy of my Reply.

Please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman

Re: Meeting with James Kestell in April 1993:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/11/meeting-with-james-kestell-esq-1993.html

A Grievance with Non-Psychoanalysts

2012-01-27T12:11:00.001-05:00

In a book by Harvard psychologist Richard J. McNally titled Remembering Trauma, the author disputes the value of analyzing the dreams of patients in psychotherapy. He argues that in order to analyze a dream, the psychologist needs to know a lot about a patient, and if the psychologist already knows a lot about the patient, analyzing his dreams will only be redundant. Apparently, if I read him correctly, Professor McNally does not believe that dreams provide novel insights about a patient.

That argument does not sit well with me, though I can't think of a way to dispute it logically. But I did think of the following, which, I believe, serves as a useful analogy.

There are already many fine and exhaustive biographies of Abraham Lincoln. Let us say that someone discovers a cache of hitherto unknown letters written by Lincoln while he was President. Would it make sense to say to a historian who contemplates writing a book about the letters: "So much is already known about Lincoln. Won't a book about President Lincoln's newly-discovered letters simply be redundant?" In all probability, only a non-historian would ask such a question.

Does professor McNally's dismissal of the value of dream analysis say anything about the ultimate value of dream analysis -- or does his observation simply stamp him as a non-psychoanalyst?

Though in defense of Professor McNally I will quote the preface of E. James Lieberman's biography of the analyst Otto Rank. Dr. Lieberman is a retired Washington, DC psychoanalyst/psychiatrist. Dr. Lieberman opens the preface to his book as follows: "As a reader who feels burdened by a surfeit of books, I must justify the production of yet another. Otto Rank gave up writing for a time, saying, 'There is already too much truth in the world--an overproduction which apparently cannot be consumed.' I agree." Dr. Lieberman goes on to justify his writing a biography of Rank titled: Acts of Will: The Life and Work of Otto Rank!

Gift to my Sister -- And Family Psychopathology

2012-01-26T14:26:00.001-05:00

My Uncle Izzy (Isidore) Freedman, one of my father's older brothers, died in the early 1970s. I was a college student at the time. Uncle Izzy was a bachelor who lived his entire adult life with an older sister, Ella Freedman Klein and her family. He worked for RCA in Camden, New Jersey. He had a factory job, but amassed a small fortune of about $60,000 in savings.   He left a will bequeathing his entire estate to Aunt Ella. My father was infuriated; he believed that his brother, who wrote a will during his final illness (he had diabetes his entire adult life), was the victim of undue influence by his older sister. He accused his older sister, my Aunt Ella, of greed: of wanting to take the entire estate, when, no doubt -- at least according to my father -- his older brother, Izzy, would have wanted all his siblings to share equally.

My sister's husband talked to a friend, a lawyer, about the family situation. The lawyer recommended that my father and his siblings hire a lawyer to challenge Isidore Freedman's will. According to the lawyer, my father could make a creditable case of undue influence, invalidating the will, and allowing Uncle Izzy's estate to pass equally to the surviving brothers and sisters. (My father had six siblings). The lawyer recommended a colleague, Martin Herring, Esq. My father proceeded to corral his brothers and sisters into agreeing to hire Martin Herring to contest the will, at the urging of my brother-in-law. And thus a will contest was had. In the end, Ella Klein settled, agreeing to pay about $1,000 to each of her siblings and keeping the remainder of Uncle Izzy's estate.

Thus, in my brother-in-law's narrative an older sister used undue influence to induce her younger, infirm brother to hand over his estate to her.

Be that as it may.

In January 1980 my mother died. I was the sole beneficiary of my mother's employer-sponsored life insurance policy in the amount of about $18,500. I was in law school at the time, living alone on personal savings. My sister knew I suffered from mental illness. In fact, in November 1977, after my suicide attempt, my brother-in-law talked to his friend, the lawyer, about suing my psychiatrist for malpractice, accusing him of substandard care leading to my suicide attempt. The lawyer told my brother-in-law that alleging psychiatrist malpractice in a case of suicide or attempted suicide was exceedingly difficult to prove. But the lawyer recommended that I see a psychiatrist, I.J. Oberman, D.O., a forensic psychiatrist who was a professional colleague of the lawyer friend; the friend happened to be a mental health master for the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas. About the severity of my mental condition, the lawyer friend told my brother-in-law that suicide was "an inherently psychotic act." I ended up embarking on treatment with Dr. Oberman. I saw him from June 1978 till early 1979. I entered law school in August 1979. Thus, both my sister and brother-in-law were well aware of my psychiatric problems as of 1977. Incidentally, when I stopped working in June 1979 -- prior to my law school enrollment -- I lost my employer-sponsored medical insurance.

What did my sister and brother-in-law know as of January 1980, at the time of my mother's death?

1. They knew I had a history of severe mental illness that included a psychotic episode.

2. They knew I had no medical insurance that would allow me to obtain psychiatric treatment.

3. They knew that my mother, while she was alive, was concerned about my ability to take care of myself -- the primary motive in her decision to make me the sole beneficiary of her life insurance. (My mother had named me sole beneficiary in mid-1969, when I was 15 years old. My sister and brother-in-law had gotten married in early May 1969; thus, my sister was an emancipated adult at the time my mother made me beneficiary of her life insurance.)

Despite this knowledge, my sister and brother-in-law seemed to have a sense of entitlement about the life insurance. A brief time after my mother died, I telephoned an employee at my mother's place of employment, Lorraine Dobransky, to advise her of my address so that the insurance payment would be sent directly to me in Spokane, Washington, where I was living at the time. Lorraine Dobransky seemed surprised by my call. She said: "I just got a call from your sister. She said she wanted the check sent to her as administrator of your mother's estate." Note that insurance proceeds do not come within the purview of an estate administrator. Insurance proceeds fall outside the jurisdiction of a deceased's estate. I told Lorraine Dobransky: "Please send the insurance check to me, not my sister."

As the months passed, my brother-in-law said to me, "Did you get the check yet?" What business was that of my brother-in-law? Note that sense of entitlement is a symptom of a narcissistic personality disorder (as is interpersonal exploitation). On another occasion, my brother-in-law said to me, "I was talking to Steve Frankel (a friend of my brother-in-law in the insurance business), and Steve said that you are entitled to interest on the insurance proceeds from the date of your mother's death." I suspect -- I don't know -- but I suspect that my brother-in-law had asked Steve Frankel if there was some way to compel me to share the insurance proceeds equally with my sister. Remember the case of Ella Klein and Izzy Freedman, above?

In the end, generous and selfless person that I am, I shared my mother's life insurance proceeds with my sister. Incidentally, one of the symptoms of schizoid personality disorder is that the schizoid is,"at times, altruistically self-sacrificing." Yes, I am a generous person. It's part of my psychopathology!

I still have the receipt for the check I sent to my sister (which she proceeded to hand over, in full, to her husband -- who worked as a Camden County elementary school teacher despite the fact he had a business degree).

Thus, my brother-in-law had an older sister use undue influence to induce her younger, infirm brother to hand over his insurance proceeds to her.
__________________________

ONB OLD NATIONAL BANK No. 3385336

PURCHASER'S RECEIPT      DATE: May 12, 1980

PAY TO THE ORDER OF EXXXXXE JXXXXXXN **$10,000

CASHIER'S CHECK     NOT NEGOTIABLE   [initialed: J.T.]

Reading Double Meanings: Ideas of Reference or Immaturity

2012-01-25T15:24:00.000-05:00

I was terminated from my job as a paralegal at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld days after I lodged a harassment complaint against firm personnel. I had told two of the firm's senior managers that I believed a sexual meaning could be read into the communications of my supervisor and coworkers, and that firm personnel were harassing me thereby. The firm concluded, after consulting a psychiatrist about me, that my harassment charge indicated I suffered from a psychiatric disorder, "ideas of reference" that caused me to attribute a negative meaning to trivial events. With that psychiatric opinion in hand, I qualified for disability benefits from the U.S. Social Security Administration, and I will probably collect about $500,000 in disability, Medicare and Medicaid benefits by the time I "retire" at age 65.

But am I necessarily mentally ill because I see a sexual meaning in the communications of others? Perhaps I am simply immature and perfectly sane.

I recently came across the following observations in an article titled: Shrinking Texts: Against Hermeneutics Under Freudian Auspices. "Every schoolboy knows how easy it is to foist sexual overtones onto almost every sentence one hears in normal conversation, asexual though those sentences might actually be. If we put our minds to it, we can transform countless words and notions into sexual innuendo. When a young wit exercises his ingenuity in this way, and is brash enough (or disrespectful enough) to voice his indiscretions publicly, he usually succeeds only in embarrassing those around him and discrediting himself. We who hear him know that his perverse projections are merely that -- projections. They have no real bearing on the original speaker or on that speaker's language, character, or motivations. We hear such indiscreet interjections and dismiss them, (if our standards of morality and of social decorum are not too severely offended) as the immaturity of youth. When he is older, we hope, he will put away childish things."

Simply because, perhaps, I have the mind and maturity of a fifth grader, should I qualify for a half-million dollars in public monies?

Worshipping Jesus is Gay

2012-01-25T13:10:00.000-05:00

The Birth of My Niece

2012-01-25T12:11:00.000-05:00

The following is the text of a poem I wrote upon the birth of my niece, Suzanne, in January 1982. I gave a copy of the poem together with two white lilies to my sister and brother-in-law. The name Suzanne is derived from the Hebrew Shoshanna, which means lily. The poem is a jumble of English, French, and German.

Most wond'rous birth--quel miracle!

Spring leaps forth with a flower in her hand

breaching winter's chilling shackle

defying nature's solemn reprimand.

Say, what flower blooms with such allure

'mid winter frost and wind-swept flourish?

C'est l'enfant d'un coeur si doux et pure

que nous l'appellons une fleur fraiche, alors!

Mais quelle est nee en janvier

au commencement de l'annee, au lieu de mai?

Il faut que ca soit un fleur-d-lis,

une fleur d l'ile enchantee.

Une fleur d'une ame suss'

--une suss' ame--

Mai oui, sans doute, elle est le fleur-de-lis, Suzanne!!

(Suzanne, name derived from Hebrew word for lily)

___________________

I was probably inspired to write the poem by a birthday greeting the composer Richard Wagner gave to his wife, Cosima. He set to music a poem he had written which poses the question: "What flower blooms at Christmas?" Wagner's wife, Cosima, was born December 25th.

Thank You!

2012-01-25T11:43:00.000-05:00

The following is text of a Hallmark card sent to me in early 1983 by Neil Sagot, Esq., an attorney in Philadelphia for whom I worked as a law clerk during the period 1981-1982. I had sent him a necktie as a gift for his birthday, which is in early January.

Thank You

Dear Gary:

Thank you for the birthday present. It's a beautiful tie, and as you know the ties I usually wear are anything but beautiful, so I appreciate this one all the more.

It was very thoughtful of you.

Keep in touch and let me know how well you're doing.

Thanks again.

Neil

Temple Law School -- Admission as Second Year Transfer Student

2012-01-25T11:37:00.000-05:00

TEMPLE UNIVERSITY
OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION

SCHOOL OF LAW
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

OFFICE OF ADMISSIONS

August 7, 1980

Mr. Gary Freedman
East 15-1/2 Augusta Ave.
Spokane, WA 99207

Dear Mr. Freedman:

I am delighted to inform you that you have been accepted to the School of Law for the Fall 1980 as a second year student. In accordance with your application, you have been assigned a place in the Day Division.

We are pleased at the prospect of your joining the Temple Law School community. While demanding, the study of law is one of the most richly rewarding of intellectual and social experiences. Our hope is that you will continue to be stimulated by the challenges it offers.

Information is enclosed regarding your acceptance and the procedures for reserving your place for the Fall of 1980. IS IS MOST IMPORTANT THAT YOU READ CAREFULLY AND COMPLY WITH ALL PROVISIONS TO ENSURE YOUR PLACE WITH US. If you have further questions concerning the terms of your acceptance, please contact my office (215) 787-7865.

It is essential that you arrange for an appointment with Marcene W. Goldmann, Assistant Dean for Students. Please call her secretary at (215) 787-8957 so that your program and registration for the 1980 academic year may be reviewed.

On behalf of the Dean and the Faculty of Law, I congratulate you upon your acceptance to Temple University School of Law.

With best regards,

Carlton S. Clark
Assistant Director of Admissions

CSC:ab
Enclosures

cc: Marcene W. Goldmann
Assistant Dean for Students

Hogan & Hartson Mobbing Complaint: Defensive Response by Coworker

2012-01-25T10:32:00.007-05:00

I worked as an agency-supplied temporary employee in the Computer Applications Department (CAD) at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson from mid-September 1985 to late February 1988. In about January 1987 there arose a rumor in the department that I was in love with a male coworker, Craig W. Dye, and that I was trying to woo him. The innuendo grew in intensity beginning in mid-February 1987 after the department supervisor, Sheryl Ferguson, announced her resignation (on February 12, 1987). Sheryl Ferguson was a strict and effective manager; employees curtailed their acting out while she supervised the department. After her departure, the department's data base administrator Espe Rebollar assumed a supervisory role over employees. Espe Rebollar was a less than exemplary employee and an ineffective supervisor. Further, the employees worked in a suite in an office building on I Street, across the street from the firm's main site at 815 Connecticut Avenue. The employees were isolated and lacked effective supervision. An additional factor that spurred the innuendo about me was the envy I aroused in January 1987 when I announced to several employees that I had earned $1,000 in compensation by working doubletime in late December 1986. In about January 1987 James Hourihan,Esq., the billing partner for the client Chrysler, directed Sheryl Ferguson to transfer me from Milwaukee Public Schools litigation to work on Chrysler. Thus, an additional factor that aroused jealousy in the Department was that time and again I was chosen to work on special assignments by senior attorneys in the firm.

In May 1987 Miriam Chilton was hired by the firm to manage the CAD. She had no supervisory experience. The innuendo and mobbing behaviors directed at me continued even upon Miriam Chilton's hiring.

I wrote the following memo to Miriam Chilton in exasperation about the mobbing behavior directed at me in the CAD.

The following document is psychologically revealing. Arguably, the memo contains symbolic references to the Biblical Joseph who aroused the jealousy of his older brothers because Joseph was favored by the father, the Patriarch Jacob. Jacob had given Joseph a "coat of many colors." Thus, perhaps, the references to my purchase of clothing and to a "coloring book" may be oblique references to sibling jealousy vis-a-vis an envied brother.

TO: Miriam T. Chilton

FROM: Gary Freedman

RE: Requested Change in Workspace

DATE: July 20, 1987

______________________________________

Thank you for taking the time to speak with me twice on Friday and giving serious consideration to my request for a change in workspace. After thinking about what you said I've decided that, if it meets with your approval, I would like to remain where I am. It is clear to me now that no matter what I do—or its opposite—only one inference will be drawn. Since in my opinion we are dealing with irrationally-based conclusions, facts and reason hold no sway. For example, significance is attached to the fact that I started jogging last month. The fact is that I have been working out regularly since April of 1986 (there is an exercise room in my apartment building, which I used religiously [Miriam T. Chilton is an observant Reform Jew] before I began jogging—note that Craig [Dye] started at the firm in October of 1986). If memory serves correctly, I chatted with Sheryl on the morning of Saturday June 29^th 1986 about my exercising on a rowing machine and sporadic jogging. (She can verify this—it was the morning she honked at me from her car as I was about to cross Connecticut Avenue on the way to work—she may remember). My jogging was only the next step in a long range exercise plan. (These details raise another issue—my memory. A great deal is made of the fact that I notice and recall a great deal about Craig. The fact is that I notice and recall a great deal about everything. Although it has not been verified by a professional, there is strong evidence that I am dyslexic. I school I had to train myself from an early age to listen intently and recall everything teachers said simply because reading was so difficult. Interestingly, recent research indicates that dyslexia is sometimes associated with what is termed “social skills deficit,” which explains a great deal also).

I've concluded that my colleagues simply have poor memories and highly selective perceptions. I'll just have to live with my celebrity status and continue providing entertainment for inquiring minds who need to know.

The attached check is submitted simply to corroborate a statement I made a few weeks back regarding an inheritance I received earlier in the year.

A word of explanation.

In 1980 my sister and I became intestate heirs of an estate that included an item of personal property. My sister and brother-in-law had possession and use of the item until early this year. In late January/early February (?) my sister informed me that her husband had found a buyer who was willing to pay $600 for the item. She also informed me that she would share the proceeds equally upon sale of the item. It was just after receiving this news that I began to purchase, on credit, items of clothing in early February. (Although it was not until late March that I received the check, I mentioned the inheritance to Matthew [Allender] sometime in February. Also, I jokingly said to Daniel [Cutler] and Cindy [Rodda], in response to comments about my clothes, that I had just inherited “$30 million”--if memory serves correctly, that would have been on the morning of Monday February 16--another reason why people can't stand me!).

Unfortunately, I began to purchase clothes just before James Hourihan directed Sheryl to transfer me from MPS to Chrysler, which brought me into closer contact with an employee with whom I had had little contact previously [i.e., Craig Dye].

You may wish to note another coincidence. It was also in mid-February that Sheryl announced to the group that she was leaving the firm. As you noted yourself in our conversation on Friday, the absence of a supervisor (or simply a “lame duck” supervisor) can lead to serious personnel difficulties.

In fairness to all concerned I have to admit that were the situation reversed I might draw some of the same conclusions (although I don't think I would make a circus of it). Part of the reason for the inference is, as one coder once said, “You attract so much attention simply because you are an enigma,” and of course I give people little cause or opportunity to like me. I am like a page from a coloring book—blank and waiting to be filled in. Perhaps the people I associate with cannot be faulted for coloring the page in bizarre and hideous hues.

I've decided to take Jeannette [Gringo]'s advice and just “chill out.”

Thank you once again for your patience.

_____________________________________

I wrote the memo (above) on Saturday July 18, 1987 at the Hogan office. I was working overtime, as was Daniel Cutler. I gave a copy of the memo to Daniel Cutler to read; he penned the following note that he gave me a short time later. What is the psychological meaning of Daniel Cutler's memo? Was it a sympathetic and friendly gesture or was it an admission of a guilty conscience? Perhaps both.

Gary,

For the first three months I worked with you I saw you probably a total of three hours. When I did see you some of the things you said made me feel uncomfortable. I don't "understand" you. Yes, you are definitely an enigma.

Moreover, you are the subject of occasional conversation, like everyone else. I don't believe any of these behind the back conversations are malicious or intended to paint anyone in a "hideous hue." People talk and laugh about people and circumstances they don't understand or find unusual.

I think I understand one thing: you feel and see too much sometimes. Sensitivity and strong intellect when taken too far will tear your guts out. That's some free homespun bullshit but while lacking substance it still smells right.

However, your knowledge of this scenario exceeds mine. Personally, psychology depresses me because all summed together everyone consciously or unconsciously puts themselves into positions where they are unhappy, neglected, paranoid, degraded and on and on . . . And most of us lack the will to extricate ourselves from this state of being. We cling to that certain feeling because it is constant and predictable. These big brains we have demand it.

Anyway, rest assured that myths are exaggerated and distorted, including yours. Nevertheless, the dull Daniel or plain Jane rarely have myths written or spoken in their name.

Hogan & Hartson: Overtime Hours -- Week of December 29, 1986

2012-01-25T09:01:00.002-05:00

I was employed as an agency-supplied paralegal at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson from mid-September 1985 to late February 1988. In December 1986 I was assigned to assist attorneys working on Milwaukee Public Schools litigation to prepare an exhibit list. It was a lengthy process and I ended up working about 83 hours during the week beginning Monday December 28, 1986. I earned about $1,000 that week. The temp agency's policy was to pay time and one-half after 40 hours and double time after 60 hours. I foolishly bragged to coworkers in the Computer Applications Department that I had earned $1,000 dollars, which I believe probably aroused envy in the department. Bob Ferguson, who is mentioned in the memo below, was a Hogan computer consultant. I did not have any interaction with Bob Ferguson--he did not know me. Though I believe Bob Ferguson and Craig W. Dye had some interaction.

A note about my memos to my supervisor Sheryl Ferguson. I wrote numerous memos to her. Some of the memos were somewhat bizarre, and seemed to be attempts to show off my intellect--such as the memo below. Sheryl Ferguson never told me to stop writing memos so I assumed it was OK with her to write them. By the time Sheryl Ferguson left the firm in early 1987, she had on file in her office a stack of my memos. I had a paranoid suspicion that when Craig Dye assumed the administration of the Computer Applications Department, after Miriam Chilton's departure in January 1989, Craig Dye transmitted copies of all or some of the memos to Akin Gump management, which would have constituted a breach of Hogan's confidentiality on Craig Dye's part.

TO: Sheryl Ferguson

FROM: Gary Freedman

RE: Time Sheet

DATE: January 12, 1987
___________________________________________

A word about my hours for Monday, January 5. If you check the register in the lobby, you will note that I signed out at 9:00 PM, while the "time-finished" entry on the vendor time sheet states 7:00 PM. After reviewing my work on Monday, I was dissatisfied with the quality of work that I spent approximately 2 hours on and decided to stay late to redo it and further decided that it would be improper to charge for those two hours, especially in view of the fact that I anticipated working double-time hours during the week. This note will serve to explain what I was doing in the building during the hours of 7:00 to 9:00 PM.

With regard to Bob Ferguson's password, I'd like to add something that I failed to state on Friday. At the very moment that I saw Espe's fingers key in the password, which I knew to be confidential, I said, "I just saw what you keyed in." Her response was, "Well, never use it; it contains a lot of functions that no one else has access to--that's why no one is supposed to use it." Her response explains my knowing nod of the head when you said essentially the same thing to me on Friday.

I feel the fact that I informed Espe, a supervisory employee, of what I learned--immediately upon having learned it--discharged my duty to the department; I did all that I could reasonably be expected to do. It then fell upon Espe to take immediate and appropriate action (i.e., informing Dennis [Payne]). Clearly, at no time was there any active concealment on my part or any effort to make use of what I had learned. Further the fact that I informed Espe, a supervisory employee, of the security breach, should be considered an effective communication as to all supervisory or confidential employees in both CAD and ISD. That is, there was no duty on my part to track down each and every potentially interested party and provide notice of the security breach.

To close, permit me to restate, in a more respectful and reasoned way, something I alluded to on Friday. One should not confuse the essentially discrete, though potentially overlapping, issues of ability on the one hand and intent on the other. For example, the fact that a scientist may possess the intellectual prowess, or ability, to decipher nature's secrets and make important discoveries in the field of, say, genetic engineering, does not presuppose that he has the intent to use that ability to create a Frankenstein-like monster. Likewise, the fact that I may be unusually observant (see attachments) does not carry with it the necessary presumption that I have the intent to misuse the knowledge gained through my perceptiveness. For perceptiveness is an ability rooted intellect while an intent to use or misuse that ability is determined by character. The fact that I told Espe immediately of what I saw when I saw it attests to my character and lack of intent to misuse what I learned.

"First the Nobel? Now, the Oscars?"

2012-01-24T20:01:00.002-05:00

We know that Freud had a Nobel Prize complex. In his writings, Freud referred, on several different occasions, to his disappointment after learning that he had been passed over for the Prize:

"'Definitively passed over for Nobel Prize,' the seventy-four-year-old founder of psychoanalysis grumbled in his Chronik, his private diary, in November 1930. It wasn't the first time his life's work had been passed over for recognition by the international scientific and medical communities—or the first time he'd complained about it. As early as 1917, when he was nominated by a previous winner, Freud had been fervently hoping for a Nobel in physiology. But it wasn't to be. 'No Nobel Prize 1917,' he wrote on April 25 of that year. He was still sufficiently preoccupied with the Nobel the following year to make note of it once again as the Europe he knew disintegrated around him. The Chronik entry for October 30, 1918: 'Revolution Vienna and Budapest.' For November 3: 'Armistice with Italy. War over!' For November 4: 'Nobel Prize set aside.'"

In 2011 the movie A Dangerous Method was released. Set on the eve of World War I, A Dangerous Method is based on the turbulent relationships between Carl Jung, founder of analytical psychology, Sigmund Freud, founder of the discipline of psychoanalysis, and Sabina Spielrein, initially a patient of Jung and later a physician and one of the first female psychoanalysts.

There had been some Oscar buzz surrounding the film, which stars Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortenson, Keira Knighthtly, and Vincent Casell. The screenplay was adapted by Academy Award-winning writer Christopher Hampton from his 2002 stage play The Talking Cure, which was based on the 1993 non-fiction book by John Kerr, A Most Dangerous Method: the story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein.

Well, the Oscar nominations were announced today. And A Dangerous Method was passed over. I can just hear Freud saying, "First, the Nobel -- and now the Oscars?"

Ambiguity Tolerance

2012-01-24T14:23:00.006-05:00

Ambiguity tolerance is the ability to perceive ambiguity in information and behavior in a neutral and open way.

Ambiguity tolerance is an important issue in personality development and education. In psychology and in management, levels of tolerance of ambiguity are correlated with creativity, risk aversion, psychological resilience, lifestyle, orientation towards diversity (cross-cultural communication, intercultural competence), and leadership style.

Wilkinson's Modes of Leadership is largely based on ambiguity tolerance. Mode one leaders have the least tolerance to ambiguity with mode four leaders enjoying and preferring to work in ambiguous situations. In part this is due to what Wilkinson calls 'emotional resilience'.

The converse, ambiguity intolerance, which was introduced in The Authoritarian Personality in 1950, was defined in 1975 as a “tendency to perceive or interpret information marked by vague, incomplete, fragmented, multiple, probable, unstructured, uncertain, inconsistent, contrary, contradictory, or unclear meanings as actual or potential sources of psychological discomfort or threat.”

Be that as it may.

I am currently in weekly psychotherapy with a psychiatry resident. I believe that an issue of ambiguity tolerance has arisen in my work with the psychiatrist.

I had a session with the psychiatrist on January 23, 2012. In two different contexts the psychiatrist raised the issue of my contradictory feelings about objects and seemed to me, at least, to assume I had feelings associated with my inconsistent evaluations. I do not know whether I am tolerant or intolerant of ambiguity. I like to believe that I am ambiguity tolerant. I wonder whether my therapist assumes I am ambiguity intolerant and, further, that ambiguity arouses strong negative feelings in me. Or, perhaps, my therapist is himself ambiguity intolerant, and my narratives -- rife as they are with ambiguity, contradiction, and part-truths -- arouse negative feelings in him. (According to Barron, creative people state only part-truths.)

I was talking about a psychiatrist I used to see, Stanley R. Palombo, M.D. I described Dr. Palombo as a super-smart guy. I described him as "scary smart." I said I admired his intellect. But I also had negative things to say about Dr. Palombo. I said that from time to time Dr. Palombo would try to persuade me to actualize my academic and professional credentials and embark on the practice of law. I said I viewed Dr. Palombo's comments as simplistic and a sign that he was feeling frustrated by my lack of progress in therapy.

My psychiatrist pointed out my contradictory feelings about Dr. Palombo. But why? I have contradictory feelings about many (if not most) things. My inconsistencies, part truths and ambivalent feelings don't trouble me.

In another context during the session I talked about the McClendon Center, where I see a therapist who prescribes psychotropic medications. I said I had feelings of futility and meaninglessness about my interaction with the various doctors I had seen at the McClendon Center. I said I felt like a "professional patient" who was being processed or warehoused: someone who was passed on from doctor to doctor. I said I felt that my relations with the doctors at the McClendon Center were dehumanizing.

At the consult on January 23 my psychiatrist pointed out that I had previously said that I was happy with the medication that had been prescribed for me at McClendon: paxil. My psychiatrist noted that I had said that Paxil moderated my insomnia and that I felt more relaxed on the drug. Thus, the psychiatrist pointed out a seeming inconsistency regarding my feelings about McClendon. My unstated emotional reaction at that moment was "so what?" Yes, I value the services that McClendon provides. Those services are indispensable for me. I also believe that there are problems with the McClendon Center's handling of me. The initial assessment was, in my view, inadequate. I believe that no doctor has taken a step back from his bureaucratic handling of me and asked himself: "What does it mean that this patient has been seeing psychiatrists on and off for 35 years, and never seems to get anywhere in life?" It's as if I were a patient on an assembly line of patients. In each case the McClendon psychiatrist will simply glance at the chart, reference the previous doctor's treatment, and continue with the same treatment without ever looking beyond the chart and making a de novo assessment of the patient's therapeutic needs.

Yes, my feelings about McClendon are ambiguous and ambivalent. But it's not my feelings of ambivalence or ambiguity that bother me. What bothers me are the objective limitations of the Clinic: not my ambivalent feelings about the clinic.

Maybe there's something intrionsically Jewish about my affective world. I am reminded of the following scene from Woody Allen's movie Annie Hall.

Such are my feelings about life in general: I have mixed and contradictory feelings about most things.

In any event, I took an ambiguity tolerance test on the internet and I scored 81, whatever that means.

Franklin Institute Coworker -- Correspondence

2012-01-24T10:37:00.006-05:00

During the period June 1975 to June 1979 I was employed at The Franklin Institute Research Laboratories in Philadelphia. The following is a letter a coworker and friend wrote me in Spokane, Washington, where I had entered law school in August 1979. And, by the way, I did not live in the dorms in law school. I had my own apartment.

10/12/79

Dear Gary,

Hello! Thanks so much for the birthday card. It really was a pleasant surprise. I guess I have to take back everything I said about being a good letter writer. I guess I am out of practice! I have been meaning to write for quite some time, but you know that I usually do some of my best letter writing at work and I have been sooooooo busy here that I haven't had time to _______________ (fill in whatever you think is appropriate here). PHS is just one mess after another; a minute does not go by without some kind of emergency. It is really interfering this month with getting BENER together. As you see I've enclosed the issue of BENER for you—notice the Errata sheet in the back. How nice to make a major mistake of that magnitude on your first issue. I don't think I ever made a mistake of that magnitude on Gastro, not in 4.5 years: Well, at least the sponsors were very nice about it. I was the only one to lose sleep over it (and believe me, I did!).

Gary, we miss you around here (even your silence). You wouldn't recognize this place. There are so many new faces. There are all sorts of little foreigners running around. They are working on the MESH indexing for ICRDB. We've also started work on the Army editing contract. Dena S[her] had written that proposal, but Marsha Hall is directing (?) it. Believe it or not, we also got both aging proposals. Gwen [Lysaught] will be working on one (headed by Helis Miido); hopefully, she'll finish Nancy's stuff before she starts on the Aging work.

I think that's enough about work. You couldn't possibly be interested in any more. How are classes? Is it everything you anticipated or is it easier? How's Washington? I heard on the Today show yesterday that it was 73 F there. Not too bad—we had snow yesterday morning. I seem to remember that we had a long winter last year, with no spring, only 1 day of summer, and now—no fall! What's happening here? How's living in the dorms? Please answer all these questions in your letter; also answer all questions that I didn't ask but should have.

I hope you noticed the quality of this stationery. This is imported Italian stationery (my aunt brought it back to me) and I broke it open in honor of this occasion.

Let's see--I discussed work and school, I guess I'm up to “friends” now. This is usually the juicy stuff. I know how you like gossip. I'll start with Betty. She can usually provide hours of entertainment, but fortunately I have not seen too much of her since she has been living with Jerry during the week. She started to go out with this other guy, John, who worked with Ed Rendell as his public relations rep, but last week Jerry was moved into a new apartment. Guess where? The station rented him one in the very same building as John and on the very same floor! That should make for an interesting story sometime.

Even though Sharon and Michelle have left work, we have been managing to stay in touch. Michelle is doing freelance work (editing BENER, CA, and doing indexes for Cancer Research and Rockefeller at $6.50 and $7.00/hr) and is actually making out better doing it at home. She seems really healthy and looks pregnant and not fat! Last week we had a scare though. She had these tremendous pains so I took her to the doctor. Everything is fine now—it turned out to be gastrointestinal. Her and Charlie bought a charming row house in Upper Darby right near 69^th St. It looks exactly like the ones on Midvale Ave. in East Falls with a cathedral window in front.

Sharon and Kenny also bought a house. They bought a biggie! I only saw a picture, but it still looks real nice. I wonder who is going to cut all that grass? Their birds had babies and Michelle and Charlie are going to take two. It will be a new cult—to be “in” one must have a pair of Australian Zebra finches; Sharon loves her new job, and imagine this, they even asked her if she wanted a raise yet!

Ken and I are seeing each other again and neither of us are dating any one else now. He seriously wants to get married and I (seriously) have no idea what I want to do. Such a commitment . . . and it's for the rest of your life! Ken has given me a year to decide so don't hold your breath.

The only other new thing is my hair cut. I got it permed and it is as curly as it will ever be. In fact, someone I met for the first time asked me how long it took for my perm to grow out! (They thought that I had got it done a long time ago and now it was growing out. What really happened though is that I got it done last week and it is just straightening out). I was not meant for curly hair. I'm glad you're not here to see it. I have forbidden pictures of it, even though I got a camera from Ken for my birthday. He bought me a Minolta 35 mm with automatic something or other. All I have to do is focus it for distance. A little red light goes on if there is not enough light. It has a built in flash. I'm having a good time playing with it. I guess I should have some of the pictures I've taken developed so I can see how I'm doing!

Well, I guess I should get back to work now. I don't think I did too badly with this letter for being out of practice! Take care of yourself and stay in touch. Can I hope to see you in December?

Love,

Sheryl

P.S. I've enclosed some pictures taken at Sharon's wedding – do you still recognize us?

Condolence Letter -- Franklin Institute Coworker

2012-01-24T09:57:00.000-05:00

During the period June 1975 to June 1979 I was employed at The Franklin Institute Research Laboratories in Philadelphia. The following is a condolence letter a coworker, Gwen Lysaught, sent me following the death of my mother in early January 1980. I lived in Spokane, Washington at the time, attending my first year of law school. Gwen Lysaught passed away in the year 2006 at age 83.

January 15

Dear Gary,

I want to tell you how sorry I am about your loss. Your mother made the Institute seem less forbidding to me ten years ago, and now there are so few people left who are as pleasant and sympathetic as she.

My favorite cousin (and substitute brother) died just a week ago, so I hope you'll understand why I didn't attend Sophie's services today. My thoughts were with you.

Sincerely,

Gwen

Social Security Claim -- Evidence that I Viewed It as a Litigation Strategy

2012-01-24T09:05:00.001-05:00

I faxed the following message to my sister in early 1993--after I received a copy of Akin Gump's Response to Interrogatories in late December 1992 in Freedman v. Akin, Gump, Hauer & Feld -- and before I filed for Social Security benefits on April 20, 1993. The document evidences the fact that I viewed a future Social Security Claim as a part of a litigation strategy. The document is perhaps psychologically revealing. I was more concerned with the rupture of my relationship with Akin Gump (the "lost object") than with oral needs gratification (suckling at the "mother's all-giving breast" in the form of the Social Security Administration, which doles out money).
_________________________

FAX NO. 609 235 5569 MEREDITH FINANCIAL SERVICES

transmittal for Mrs. Estelle Jacobson c/o Mr. Edward Jacobson

Dear Stell,

You asked me what I'd do if I lost my case before the Dept. of Human Rights.

I don't know the law in this field, but off the top of my head I was thinking of the following (although what it would accomplish I don't know—except that it might prove to be a headache for Akin Gump, and horror of horrors, might even prove to be embarrassing.)

lose case with Dept. of Human Rights; this would constitute an adjudication that the basis of my termination was sound; an essential element of the decision to terminate was my employer's finding that I was unemployable (paranoid and violent).

I apply for Social Security disability benefits on basis that I am severely disturbed and unemployable, relying on the adjudication by a municipal agency.

Social Security denies benefits, in which case I will be entitled to an appeal before the Social Security Administration.

The appeal will raise the issue of the grounds for my termination and will constitute a collateral attack on the decision to terminate and the decision of the Dept. of Human Rights.

The firm will then have the Social Security Administration breathing down its neck.

Gotta run now, gotta take a leak.

Me and Cartoon Physics

2012-01-24T08:34:00.002-05:00

Message to the Powers That Be

2012-01-23T20:48:00.001-05:00

The director gave me the role of the "disturbed mental patient" -- like Billy Chenowith in the HBO series, Six Feet Under -- and I plan to continue to play that role till the end of the series. Not till the end of the season, mind you, but the end of the series. Then it's off to the world of syndication and residuals. That's where the real money is.

Hogan & Hartson: Overtime Compensation

2012-01-23T12:20:00.002-05:00

TO: Sheryl Ferguson

FROM: Gary Freedman

DATE: October 14, 1986

RE: Overtime
_________________________________

I spent much of the week ending [Sunday] October 12, 1986 working on MPS [Milwaukee Public Schools litigation]. On certain days the total hours exceeded 8. It is my understanding that, although no overtime was authorized on the project, it is permissible to work more than 8 hours per day (or on the weekend) on MPS as long as no more than 40 hours are charged to the project during the one-week period and the total hours do not exceed 50. (Also, no petty cash vouchers are being submitted for MPS work).

Is this correct?

[Handwritten note by Sheryl Ferguson:] Not really, Gary. If you would like to come see me we can discuss. SLF

GW Psychiatric Treatment: Initial Assessment -- Treatment History

2012-01-23T12:07:00.000-05:00

In September 1992 I was assessed at the George Washington University Medical Center Department of Psychiatry by Napoleon Cuenco, M.D., a third-year resident.
________________________

September 2, 1992
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Apt. 136
Washington, DC 20008

Dr. Napoleon Cuenco
George Washington University
Medical Center
Department of Psychiatry
Washington, DC

Dear Dr. Cuenco:

For your information, the following lists all mental health professionals I have ever consulted.

1. Dr. Chubb, MD, Pennsylvania State University, Student Health Center, University Park, PA. One consultation in fall of 1973. [problems with roommate.] [physician deceased]

2. Dr. Louis Alikakos, MD [deceased]
Weekly psychotherapy January 1977-March 1978, Spring and summer 1979 [prescribed Ativan]

3. Dr. Gregory Tramuta, two consultations at Germantown Hospital, Philadelphia, PA following suicide attempt in November 1977. [performed suicide risk assessment]

4. Dr. I.J. Oberman, DO, Northwest Institute of Psychiatry, consultations during period June 1978-early 1979. [deceased] [prescribed Ativan]

5. Spokane Community Mental Health Center, Dr. Elizabeth Ekin, MD (periodic consultations) and John Brennan (weekly consultations) February 1980-July 1980. [prescribed Ativan]

6. Dr. Timothy Dickens, MD, Temple University Student Health Center (periodic consultations - Fall 1980 to Spring 1982). [prescribed Ativan]

7. Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia, PA. Evaluation for psychoanalysis (Spring 1981). Cannot recall name of evaluating psychoanalyst. Determined not to be fit for psychoanalysis as performed at training Institute.

8. Ms. Kathleen Kelly (September 1989), Sheppard Pratt Institute, Washington, DC. Two consultations [sought referrals]

9. Ms. Judy Peres (November 1990), Sheppard Pratt Institute, Washington, DC. One consultation. [sought referrals to hypnotherapists]

10. Dr. Stanley Palombo, MD, 5225 Connecticut Avenue, Washington, DC. Weekly consultations late January 1990-early December 1990.

11. Dr. Steven Stein, Ph.D., (One consultation, March 15, 1991). Referred me to Dr. Norman Wilson, MD. [believed I might be psychotic and referred me to Dr. Wilson for possible medical treatment.]

12. Dr. Norman Wilson, MD (One consultation, March 1991).

13. Dr. Lewis Winkler, MD (Three consultations, April 1991).

14. Dr. Laurence C. Sack, MD, 3801 Connecticut Avenue, (3 consultations, May 1991). [deceased]

15. Dr. William Brown, Ph.D., (weekly consultations, May-October 1991). [psychologist precluded from prescribing medication] [job termination October 29, 1991]

GW: Lithium Prescription for Bi-Polar Disorder

2012-01-23T11:34:00.003-05:00

Peoples Drug Pharmacy Bag

PATIENT: Freedman, Gary

DATE: 2-9-93

ADDRESS: 3801 Conn Ave.

PHONE: 362 7064

GW: Lithium Prescription for Bi-Polar Disorder

2012-01-23T11:32:00.001-05:00

Receipt from Peoples Drug:

Peoples Drug #1353 Phone 966-7210 3327 Conn Ave NW
Washington DC 20008

Freedman, Gary
3801 Conn Ave NW
Washington DC

Rx 779000 Dr GWU Hosp 02/17/93 JA
Lithotabs 300 mg Tablet Row 16 TA
Price $3.89 $0.00 Pay $3.89

GW: Lithium Prescription for Bipolar Disorder

2012-01-23T11:30:00.000-05:00

Receipt from Peoples Drug:

Peoples Drug #1353 Phone 966-7210 3327 Conn Ave NW
Washington DC 20008

Freedman, Gary
3801 Conn Ave NW
Washington DC

Rx 779530 Dr GWU Hosp 02/25/93 JA
Lithotabs 300 mg Tablet Row 6 TA
Price $3.89 $0.00 Pay $3.89

Akin Gump: Psychoanalytic Theory Applied to Defensive Pleadings

2012-01-23T10:39:00.002-05:00

In late October 1991 I lodged a harassment complaint against my supervisor and other personnel at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld where I worked as a paralegal. I specifically complained about innuendo current in the firm relating to my sexual orientation. A few days later, the employer terminated my employment on the grounds -- as later alleged to the D.C. Department of Human Rights (DHR)) -- that the firm had found, following a consult with a practicing psychiatrist, that my harassment complaint was the product of a paranoid "disorder," namely, "ideas of reference." In early February 1992, DHR filed an unlawful termination complaint against Akin Gump on my behalf. In May 1992, Akin Gump filed a Response in which the firm alleged that I suffered from a paranoid mental illness -- that might be associated with a risk of violence -- and that I was, therefore, unemployable as a tort risk to the firm. Akin Gump's Response also emphatically denied that the subject of my sexual orientation was ever raised by anyone involved "directly or indirectly" with the firm: "Until the filing of this Charge, the subject of Claimant's sexual orientation was never brought up by Claimant or anyone involved directly or indirectly with Claimant's employment." The firm also denied that I had ever complained at any time that I was a victim of job harassment because of perceived sexual orientation: "Claimant's sexual orientation was not a factor or even known by those involved in any stage of the decision process."

DHR found that I complained about sexual harassment on October 23/24, 1991 to two of the firm's attorney managers. DHR (and later, the D.C. Office of Corporation Counsel) implicitly found that Akin Gump lied about its knowledge of the sexual harassment I experienced during my tenure, and lied when it denied that I had complained to the firm's senior managers that I was a victim of sexual harassment.

Thus, Akin Gump denied that I was aggressed on by firm personnel based on perceived sexual orientation, terming my allegation of harassment "paranoid." At the same time the firm alleged that it had rational grounds to believe I was a potential aggressor (specifically, that I was potentially violent), thereby implicitly denying its own paranoia.

I am not a psychoanalyst, though I am somewhat familiar with orthodox psychoanalytical thinking. I am unable to analyze the psychological meaning of Akin Gump's Response, though I am able to point to writings that might help a psychoanalyst offer some insight into Akin Gump's convolutions about my experiences, behavior, and mental state -- as well as management's and coworkers' emotional reaction to me.

In Freudian thought there is a relationship among the mental states of paranoia, homosexuality, love and hate. In orthodox analysis it is believed that the paranoid individual comes to hate his perceived persecutor so deeply because unconsciously he loves him so much. Gay at 281. Paranoia was, for Freud, the mental ailment parading with unsurpassed vividness the psychological defenses of reversal and, even more, projection. Gay at 281.

"Projection is the operation of expelling feelings or wishes the individual finds wholly unacceptable--too shameful, too obscene, too dangerous--by attributing them to another. It is a prominent mechanism, for example, in anti-Semites, who find it necessary to transfer feelings of their own that they consider low or dirty onto the Jew, and then 'detect' those feelings in him. This is one of the most primitive among the defenses, and is easily observable in normal behavior, though far less prominent there than among neurotics and psychotics." Gay, P. Freud: A Life For Our Time, footnote at 281 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1988).

"The 'core conflict in the paranoia of a man' is, as Freud put it . . . a 'homosexual wish-fantasy of loving a man.' The paranoiac turns the declaration 'I love him' into its opposite, 'I hate him'; that is the reversal. He then goes on to say, 'I hate him because he persecutes me'; that is the projection." Gay at 281.

"To call someone paranoid was, in the technical vocabulary Freud had developed, to call him a homosexual, at least a latent one." Gay at 275. Paranoia, according to Freud, is a mental disorder that is rife with "remnants of unconscious homoerotic feelings." Gay at 275.

To what psychoanalytical interpretations are Akin Gump's pleadings susceptible with specific regards to reversal, projection, homosexuality, anti-Semitism, love (my desire for affiliation with coworkers, coworkers' desire for affiliation with me, as well as Akin Gump's feelings that I was desirable associate material), and hate (my fear of persecution by coworkers, Akin Gump's allegation that I was potentially violent, and coworkers' fears that I might become violent)?

Color of Law Abuse: Constitutional Rights Violation

2012-01-20T15:28:00.000-05:00

The following is the text of a live chat I had with an employee of the D.C. Superior Court's Juror Office on Friday January 20, 2012 (3:00 PM). The employee advised me that in the future event I am summoned for jury duty I will be legally required to advise the Court that a psychiatrist has diagnosed me with delusional disorder. The D.C. Court of Appeals in 1998 affirmed a prior D.C. agency determination that my belief that I was a victim of job harassment was diagnosed as a delusional "disorder" by a practicing psychiatrist, Gertrude R. Ticho, M.D. Freedman v. D.C. Department of Human Rights, D.C.C.A. no. 96-CV-961 (Sept. 1, 1998).

All of my subsequent treating psychiatrists to the present day concur that my belief that I was a victim of job harassment at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld is delusional.

A psychiatric assessment made by the McClendon Center in 2009 expressly states that my belief that I was a victim of job harassment at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld is delusional:

Cl's paranoia and delusions led him to believe he was being harassed at work. He made a complaint that was investigated. Cl was fired after the investigation contradicted his reports of harassment. Cl stopped working at 37 after delusions interfered with his ability to work. Cl expresses interest in returning to work but is concerned about his ability to get along with others and possibly being harassed in the workplace.

Mrs. Diallo: Welcome to our real-time support chat. How can I help you today?

Visitor: I have been diagnosed with severe mental illness by my psychiatrist. He says I am delusional. I do not believe that I am delusional and that my psychiatrist is wrong. I believe I have a constitutionally protected right to serve on a jury impaneled by D.C. Superior Court. My question is: Do I have a legal duty to disclose to the court that my psychiatrist thinks I am delusional? Again, I do not believe I am delusional and I think I have a right to serve on a jury.

Mrs. Diallo: What is your full name and juror barcode number from the summons?

Visitor: My full name is Gary Freedman. I have not been summoned for jury duty. I am asking this question for future reference.

Mrs. Diallo: Yes, there is a question on the summons that states if you have a mental/physical disability which would permit you from serving. You would have to state that to the court.

Visitor: Thank you. That answers my question fully.

Curious Omissions

2012-01-20T11:18:00.002-05:00

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Litigation Support Senior Project Manager at Nossaman LLP

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Function Trumps Label: On Winning My Case With the IRS

2012-01-20T09:49:00.000-05:00

I was employed at Information Ventures, Inc. in Philadelphia in the spring of 1983. My employer classified me as an independent contractor, which meant that I would be responsible for a higher FICA tax than if I had been classified as an employee. I argued to the IRS that the label "independent contractor" mischaracterized my function as an employee. The IRS accepted my argument. What do you think of that, Mr. Sheldon S. Cohen?

Also, note the consistency of my legal philosophy. For me function is more important than manifest label. For example, I argued before the D.C. Court of Appeals in Freedman v. D.C. Dept. Human Rights that although the D.C. Government did not make an express finding that I suffered from a psychiatric disorder, the Department of Human Rights' no probable cause finding functioned as a de facto mental health determination thereby rendering my case before the Court a "contested case" in that the agency action altered my legal status (i.e., barring my service on a jury, qualifying me for Social Security disability, requiring me under tort principles to advise a prospective employer that I posed a "direct threat" in the workplace, etc.).
______________________________

Statement Regarding Inapplicability of Schedule SE and C

I was employed as an employee and not as an independent contractor or sole proprietor by Information Ventures, Inc. from March 14, 1983 until May 27, 1983.

The services performed, for which I was compensated at the rate of $8.00 per hour, consisted of editorial services--preparing abstracts of technical literature, editing, proofreading, and typing.

While the employer has reported this income on Form 1099 rather than Form W2, the conditions of my employment as set forth below indicate that I was employed as an employee and not sole proprietor or independent contractor.

--the services were performed on a continuous and regular basis (usually 40 hours per week)

--the employer furnished all supplies and materials with the intent that said supplies and materials be used for the employer's benefit

--the employer provided instruction in the use of word processing equipment located on the employer's premises

--the employer prescribed and supervised on a continuous basis all work activities and reviewed all work product to ensure that said work product complied with the employer's specifications

--all services for which I was compensated were performed on the employer's premises located at 1500 Locust Street, Suite 2613, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19102

Moreover, I am not nor have I ever engaged in the business of providing editorial services as an independent contractor or sole proprietor.

For the reasons stated herein, the wage income reported on Form 1040 paid by Information Ventures, Inc. is not subject to Social Security Self-Employment Tax at the rate of 9.35 percent. Said income constitutes wages received for performing services as an employee and are subject to Social Security tax in the amount of 6.7 percent.

__________________________

Gary Freedman

xxx-xx-xxxx

__________________________

April 9, 1984

Hogan & Hartson: On Driving Your Supervisor Crazy

2012-01-20T09:17:00.001-05:00

M E M O R A N D U M

DATE: OCTOBER 17, 1985

TO: SHERYL FERGUSON

FROM: GARY FREEDMAN

RE: PROPOSED REVISIONS IN DOCUMENT CODING PROCEDURES
_________________________________

Implementation of the following proposed revision in the coding and keying of documents could result in a significant cost savings in the preparation of a computerized litigation data base for MPS [Milwaukee Public Schools] documents.

At the present time, the coding and keying of documents are performed as discrete functions. It is proposed, however, that the coding and keying of documents could be performed simultaneously by document coders keying the extracted data direct onto a word processor, rather than entering the data on coding forms. Data extraction and data input would be combined in a single function, carried out by one individual, thereby eliminating the need for a separate keying phase.

It should be emphasized that the cost savings resulting from direct input document coding would not be limited to the coding and keying stages. Additional cost savings would result by combining the now discrete functions of quality control of data sheets and the proofreading of keyed data.

Under current procedures, the document coder enters extracted data on a coding form, which is then quality controlled by a legal assistant. The coding sheet is then keyed by a typist and finally the output is proofed.

Utilizing direct input document coding, the document coder would input the extracted data directly. The output would thereafter be reviewed by a legal assistant for (1) accuracy of data extraction and (2) accuracy of keying. Employing direct input, the now discrete functions of quality control of data extraction and the proofreading of keyed output would be combined in a single function.

Direct data entry promises a considerable cost savings over current procedures; the suggested benefits merit consideration.

In Memoriam: Bernard E. Epstein

2012-01-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

August 10, 1933 - August 9, 2007

In Memoriam: Alec Peters

2012-01-20T08:28:00.003-05:00

January 27, 1915 - January 19, 1994

"Professor Laurence Tribe is Married to an Extra-Terrestrial Alien!"

2012-01-20T07:01:00.000-05:00

[blank]

"Professor Laurence Tribe is in League with Racketeers!"

2012-01-20T07:00:00.000-05:00

Now, why on Earth would third parties be interested in my psychotic delusions?

Comcast Cable (24.125.141.251) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visits Maidens, Virginia, United States Show Full URLs www.google.com/url sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDAQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdailstrug.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F03%2Fopen-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.html&ei=dgIbT7T4LPi0QH58eGXCw&usg=AFQjCNG3OmV5JPDmFvd9TRC51iM3wxQhsg&sig2=4tCfT49XoId-oitr8xbPbQ 21 Jan01:22:54 PMdailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.html Videotron Ltee (70.83.114.118) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visitsCanada FlagMontreal, Quebec, Canada www.google.ca — laurence h. tribe open letter #220 Jan 07:14:26 AM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2012/01/professor-laurence-tribe-is-in-league.htmlCablevision S.a. (201.231.208.86) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visitsArgentina FlagBuenos Aires, Distrito Federal, Argentina www.google.com.ar — Laurence Tribe open letter20 Jan 02:32:05 AM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.htmlAustralian Taxation Office (180.149.192.133) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visitsAustralia FlagCanberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia au.search.yahoo.com — laurence tribe open letter19 Jan 09:27:19 PM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.html

Eftel Limited. (202.182.75.179) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visits Australia FlagOld Beach, Tasmania, Australia www.google.com.au — Laurence H. Tribe open letter #219 Jan 01:44:53 AM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2012/01/professor-laurence-tribe-is-in-league.htmlUniversity Of Mary Washington (76.78.255.97) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visitsUnited States FlagFredericksburg, Virginia, United States www.google.com — laurence h tribe open letter #219 Jan 12:52:39 AM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2012/01/professor-laurence-tribe-is-in-league.htmlOptimum Online (69.112.114.244) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visitsUnited States FlagHuntington, New York, United States www.bing.com — lawrence h tribe open letter18 Jan 10:04:52 PM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.htmlComcast Cable (24.245.40.65) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visitsUnited States FlagSaint Paul, Minnesota, United States www.google.com — laurence tribe open letter #218 Jan 05:55:24 PM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.htmlTw Telecom Holdings (74.203.177.1) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visitsUnited States FlagDallas, Texas, United States www.google.com — lawrence h. tribe open letter #118 Jan 01:22:02 PM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.htmlCogeco Cable (24.150.205.240) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visitsCanada FlagOakville, Ontario, Canada www.google.ca — laurence h tribe open letter #118 Jan 11:54:06 AM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.htmldailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.html18 Jan 11:56:52 AM dailstrug.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2012-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&updated-max=2013-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&max-results=50dailstrug.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2012-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&updated-max=2013-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&max-results=5018 Jan 11:57:05 AM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/12/akin-gump-lack-of-fit-same-old-story.htmldailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/12/akin-gump-lack-of-fit-same-old-story.html18 Jan 11:59:36 AM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/12/akin-gump-i-cant-work-in-group-setting.htmlCox Communications (68.230.153.103) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visitsUnited States FlagProvidence, Rhode Island, United States www.google.de — laurence h. tribe open letter #118 Jan 10:56:37 AM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.htmlComcast Business Communications (173.162.22.85) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visitsUnited States FlagWinchester, Tennessee, United States Show Full URLswww.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCsQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdailstrug.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F03%2Fopen-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.html&ei=peIWT6imOozBtgf6_t2OAw&usg=AFQjCNG3OmV5JPDmFvd9TRC51iM3wxQhsg18 Jan 10:18:47 AM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.htmlComcast Business Communications (173.162.22.85) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visitsUnited States FlagWinchester, Tennessee, United States Show Full URLswww.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCsQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdailstrug.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F03%2Fopen-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.html&ei=peIWT6imOozBtgf6_t2OAw&usg=AFQjCNG3OmV5JPDmFvd9TRC51iM3wxQhsg18 Jan 10:18:47 AM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.htmlComcast Telecommunications (66.240.56.198) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visitsUnited States FlagJoliet, Illinois, United States www.google.com — laurence h. tribe open letter #218 Jan 09:58:26 AM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.htmlOhio State University (164.107.42.249) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visitsUnited States FlagColumbus, Ohio, United States Show Full URLswww.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdailstrug.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F03%2Fopen-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.html&ei=bt0WT_nTOcemgwfs5ZTAAw&usg=AFQjCNG3OmV5JPDmFvd9TRC51iM3wxQhsg&sig2=ohqcYcM8orwGMFrDSw6uXQ18 Jan 09:55:56 AM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.htmlCite Internationale Universitaire De Paris (193.52.24.23) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visitsFrance FlagParis, Ile-de-france, France www.google.com — Laurence H. Tribe open letter18 Jan 08:12:14 AM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.htmlRoad Runner (76.94.164.133) [Label IP Address] 0 returning visitsUnited States FlagLos Angeles, California, United States www.google.com — lawrence tribe open letter #216 Jan 07:24:25 PM dailstrug.blogspot.com/2011/03/open-letter-to-prof-laurence-h-tribe.html

My Sister

2012-01-19T14:40:00.002-05:00

My beautiful sister with her fiancee's grandkids!!

Hogan & Hartson: The "Generating Overtime" Canard

2012-01-19T11:04:00.003-05:00

I was employed as an agency-supplied temporary paralegal at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson from mid-September 1985 to late February 1988. In May 1986 I was assigned to a document production task, along with a team of coworkers, for the client Mercedes-Benz. In the beginning of July 1986 the other employees were reassigned to a different client and I was left to complete the Mercedes task. The billing partner was Jerome Sonosky, Esq. The senior partner on the Mercedes matter was Patrick Raher, Esq. Firm associate Catherine J. Lacroix, Esq. interfaced with the document production team. The paralegal assigned to the case was Sara Shea.

Sometime in July 1986 I was accused, falsely, by the Computer Applications Department Data Base Administrator, Espe Rebollar, that I was engaged in a scheme to generate overtime for myself by deliberately incorporating errors into my work product. I wrote the following memo to refute that charge.

Arguably, the false and baseless allegation of wrongdoing lodged against me was a form of workplace harassment that is a feature of workplace mobbing.

In the book MOBBING: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace, the authors identify mobbing as a particular type of bullying that is not as apparent as most, defining it as " . . . an emotional assault. It begins when an individual becomes the target of disrespectful and harmful behavior. Through innuendo, rumors, and public discrediting, a hostile environment is created in which one individual gathers others to willingly, or unwillingly, participate in continuous malevolent actions to force a person out of the workplace."

The authors say that mobbing is typically found in work environments that have poorly organised production and/or working methods and incapable or inattentive management and that mobbing victims are usually "exceptional individuals who demonstrated intelligence, competence, creativity, integrity, accomplishment and dedication".
____________________________________

TO: Sheryl Ferguson

FROM: Gary Freedman

RE: Delays in Completion of MERCEPA

DATE: July 20, 1986
____________________________________

The following memorandum is intended to document and explain the various delays and problems which have caused a bottleneck in the completion of the MERCEPA [Mercedes EPA Investigation] data base.

By the end of June 1986, the vast bulk of Batch 288 (which contains approximately 300 German language documents from Stuttgart) had been coded and was ready for data entry. For some unexplained reason, data entry of these documents did not begin until Friday, July 11. This delay in processing by CAD [Computer Applications Department] would not have caused difficulties in the completion of MERCEPA had it not been for the unanticipated deluge of documents that were received by H & H [Hogan & Hartson] well into July. As of the end of June it was anticipated incorrectly, but not unreasonably, by all those engaged in the project, that Batch 288 represented the last batch of documents to be coded and processed for loading.

PROBLEM: unexplained delay in processing Batch 288 by CAD, which made it difficult for CAD to process a large number of late-arriving documents, the arrival of which could not have been anticipated

The following portion of this memo details dates on which documents were received by the coder, turnaround time in coding, and date of submission of the documents to CAD.

On Wednesday, July 9, I resumed work on Mercedes full time after a hiatus occasioned by the client site visit to H & H (which lasted from July 1 through July 8). During the hiatus, there were remaining only approximately 40 documents to be coded. It was believed that the coding of these remaining 40 documents would complete all of the MERCEPA document coding. However, during the hiatus, H & H received 3 boxes of test data comprising 92 test packets from the Ann Arbor lab. I was informed of the existence of these documents on July 8 and was instructed by the CAD DBA [Data Base Administrator, Espe Rebollar] to code the documents when I resumed work on the project on July 9. The documents had to be labeled & batched. Sara Shea, the paralegal assigned to Mercedes, also instructed me to attach a label to each test packet indicating the corresponding record number in Batch 69. (Batch 69 had been coded earlier and comprised Xerox copies of the front cover of each of the subject 92 test folders). [Catherine] Lacroix[, Esq.] and Shea had not anticipated that the firm would receive the complete test packets. Once they were received, however, Lacroix instructed that Batch 69 should be “ditched” and the 92 test packets be coded totally from scratch. Coding of the documents was completed on Saturday, July 12. The 92 IU’s [Information Units] were submitted to CAD first, Monday morning July 14.

PROBLEM: late submission of documents by the client; demand by attorney that each test packet be coded from scratch rather than simply interpolating the new data in the corresponding records of Batch 69, which was suggested by the CAD DBA

BULAT APPOINTMENT CALENDARS

Lacroix placed appointment calendars on my chair, apparently on the evening of Friday, July 11. I found them on Saturday, July 12 with no note explaining what they were or how they were to be coded. So that I could begin coding them at once, rather than waiting for instructions from Lacroix on Monday morning, I telephoned Lacroix at her residence on Saturday, July 12 for direction regarding coding of the appointment calendars. Coding of the calendars began immediately on Saturday July 12 and continued unabated on Sunday July 13; I worked until 9:00 PM Monday night to complete the coding of the calendars, which generated approximately 310 IU’s. The IU’s were submitted to CAD first, Tuesday morning, July 15. Data entry was begun Friday afternoon. It should be noted that, as to coding, turnaround time was no longer than the time to code. Also, CAD had been informed of the existence of the calendars on Sunday, July 13 (one day after I received them), at which time I discussed a problem regarding duplicate document numbers with Sheryl Ferguson.

PROBLEM: late receipt of documents by firm; attorney’s request that each individual dated entry [of the diaries] be coded (and CAD’s request that blank entries be coded), which generated a huge number (310) of documents to be QC’d, keyed and proofed.

TEST RESULT SUMMARIES:

On Tuesday, July 15, an employee of the client, Mercedes (Mr. David Clark, chief engineer at the Ann Arbor Lab), spent the day at the firm reviewing test data in the firm’s possession and requested that certain pages of “test result summaries” should be coded. Sara Shea gave a copy of the 11 pages to be coded to me on Wednesday, July 16. These were coded and submitted to CAD for processing on Friday morning, July 18.

PROBLEM: unanticipated late submission of documents by client, documents that are exceptionally difficult and time consuming to key

REMAINDER OF GERMAN TRANSLATIONS:

On Monday afternoon, July 14, the H & H secretary transcribing the Berlitz translations completed approximately 40 documents (in addition to the 40 documents cited on page 1 of this memo), which represented the remainder of the German documents. I coded these documents on Tuesday, July 15 and submitted them to CAD first, Wednesday morning, July 16. The turnaround time, as to coding, was no longer than the time to code. (Upon coding the documents I noticed that 7 pages (3 documents total) had “blank spots”--portions of one tape were inaudible and could not be transcribed). H & H sent the tape back to Berlitz to be retranslated; H & H received the corrected tape on Thursday July 17 and I was given the documents to code Friday morning. The three documents were submitted to CAD at approximately 10:00 AM, Friday morning, July 18, thereby completing the coding of MERCEPA documents.

PROBLEM: delays in translation by Berlitz, possible delays in transcription at H & H

The above review indicates that this coder completed the coding of MERCEPA under unusual, and at times back-breaking, time constraints. In order to expedite the processing of the project I worked several hours without compensation. It is to be expected that the work product could not be error-free, and that demands by the CAD DBA that the work in fact should be error-free are unreasonable and unwarranted. It is also rather insulting for the DBA to insinuate that I intentionally incorporated errors into the work product in order to generate overtime. Certainly, it goes against reason to suggest that a person whose productivity is unusually high, and who is willing to work uncompensated hours, is concerned with “generating” overtime.

[appended post-it note:] Sheryl: perhaps it would not be inappropriate to quote the German playwright, Schiller, who wrote: “The world loves to blacken the radiant and drag the sublime into the dust.” The fact is that I doubt that any of the other coders could have completed MERC as I did. Catherine [Lacroix] told me privately that I was chosen to complete the project because she believed that I was the one person who could get the job done the quickest. I did not fail.

Interesting Parallel

2012-01-19T09:49:00.001-05:00

In 1944 inmates of the Terezin concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia gave a performance of the Verdi Requiem in front of an audience that included high-ranking Nazi officials, including Adolf Eichmann. The Requiem contains the following lines:

What dread there will be
When the Judge shall come
To judge all things strictly.

A trumpet, spreading a wondrous sound
Through the graves of all lands,
Will drive mankind before the throne.

Death and Nature shall be astonished
When all creation rises again
To answer to the Judge.

A book, written in, will be brought forth
In which is contained everything that is,
Out of which the world shall be judged.

When therefore the Judge takes His seat
Whatever is hidden will reveal itself.
Nothing will remain unavenged.

What the Jewish choristers at Terezin could not tell the Nazi officials directly -- that one day the the Nazi regime would be judged and their crimes would be avenged -- they were able to communicate obliquely through the words of the Requiem. That was the conscious reason for the inmates' decision to learn and perform the Verdi Requiem.

Listening to the Lacrimosa section of the Verdi Requiem, I came to see notable parallels between musical phrases in the Lacrimosa and the song Ha-Tikva (The Hope). "Hatikvah" is the national anthem of Israel. The anthem was written by Naphtali Herz Imber, a secular Galician Jew from Zolochiv (today in Lviv Oblast), who moved to the Land of Israel in the early 1880s. The anthem's theme revolves around the nearly 2000-year-old hope of the Jewish people to be a free and sovereign people in the Land of Israel.

Perhaps it was the vague resonance of Ha-Tikva in the Verdi Lacrimosa that explains, in part, the concentration camp inmates' decision to perform the Verdi Requiem. One can always speculate.

The following is a performance of Ha-Tikva:

The following is a piano arrangement of Ha-Tikva, which will allow the reader to follow the vocal line:

http://www.8notes.com/scores/9695.asp

The following video contains both a performance of the Verdi Lacrimosa as well as the vocal line (at 1:30 on the video):

My Life Was Saved By A Bad Joke!

2012-01-19T09:02:00.000-05:00

Message to the Powers That Be

2012-01-18T18:40:00.000-05:00

A Different World -- A Different Notion of Time

2012-01-18T16:26:00.004-05:00

The following is a brief excerpt from the testimony of a Nazi concentration camp survivor at the trial, in Israel, of Adolph Eichmann, architect of the Holocaust.

The time there is not a concept as it is here in our planet. Every fraction of a second passed there was at a different rate of time. And the inhabitants of that planet had no names. They had no parents, and they had no children. They were not clothed as we are clothed here. They were not born there and they did not conceive there. They breathed and lived according to different laws of nature. They did not live according to the laws of this world of ours, and they did not die … [at this point in the testimony the witness collapses.]

Be that as it may.

That horrific quote calls to mind several of my own experiences and associations. Though far more benign, my experiences of workplace mobbing -- a work environment often referred to as a Twilight Zone by other "experiencers" -- resonate with the other-worldly and suprahuman.

Take for example my former employer, Akin Gump's sworn Response to Interrogatories filed with the D.C. Dept. of Human Rights (May 22, 1992) in the unlawful job termination complaint I lodged against the firm: it posits the following nonsensical time sequence:

Claimant, Gary Freedman, was initially employed [June 13, 1988] by Respondent law firm, Akin, Gump, Hauer & Feld, L.L.P. as a temporary employee for a specific project (See Attachment B). Later Claimant was employed as a full-time legal assistant ("paralegal") to manage massive amounts of documents for a major client (See Attachment C) [August 1, 1989]. Shortly thereafter [March 1989], the client filed for bankruptcy protection and eventually the legal work diminished. In an attempt to find comparable work for the Claimant, a decision was made to transfer him to the Litigation Support Department. Because Claimant preferred to work in isolation, Respondent attempted to accommodate him -- and did so until work and space constraints became a problem (See Attachment D).

It was as if I did not live according to the laws of this world of ours. Rather, I lived in a world consistent with that created by imaginers of the extra-terrestrial.

http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/11/me-and-et-law-school-hypothetical.html

Yes, we can dwell on certain experiences for only so long before our need for the real and the human overtakes us -- just as the need for oxygen overtakes a suffocating man.
_______________________________

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=1ZVlWwUF9iGix5xiEQwcN2PKlpfVsHZmbQUDED0vmDUHmnzKYpeZt-QGSHNH0&hl=en_US

What You Put in Your Head, The Bastards Can't Take Away From You!

2012-01-18T14:17:00.000-05:00

http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2010/10/akin-gump-hostile-work-environment.html

Maui Wowie!!

2012-01-18T11:35:00.004-05:00

Comcast Cable (67.190.219.56)
Jacksonville, Florida, United States

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Hogan & Hartson: Latent Anti-Semitic Acting Out?

2012-01-18T10:16:00.000-05:00

September 27, 1993

3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC 20008

Suzanne M. Pitts, MD
Dept. of Psychiatry
GW Univ. Medical Center
2150 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20037

Dear Dr. Pitts:

I would like to draw your attention to an instance of “retrospective paranoia” that has recently arisen with respect to events that I experienced approximately five and one-half years ago, in mid-February 1988. Retrospective paranoia may be defined as a situation in which events (or circumstances, if you will) are experienced in a non-paranoid, non self-referential manner at the time the events transpire, but at some later time are ascribed a paranoid, self-referential meaning. The term and the concept to which it refers are self-created; I do not know whether the concept “retrospective paranoia” is a recognized phenomenon.

On about Thursday February 11, 1988 [in fact, it appears the correct date was Friday February 12, 1988], while I was employed at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson (with Craig Dye and others), my supervisor, Miriam T. Chilton held a staff meeting. During the meeting, I sensed a vague and indefinable hostility emanating from co-workers and Miriam Chilton. The feeling was unlike any I could recall. Although the sense of hostility that I experienced might be termed paranoid, I did not attribute any special, self-referential meaning to the topics discussed at the meeting.

At the meeting, Miriam Chilton distributed an article that had recently even published in The Wall Street Journal reporting that the Chrysler Corporation had decided to offer airbags in certain lines of its vehicles. Up until that time Chrysler had refused to install airbags in any of its vehicles and, indeed, had maintained that these safety devices were unsafe and of unproven effectiveness. The article had been called to Miriam’s attention by one of my co-workers in the department, Michael Wilson.

At that time, in February 1988, the Computer Applications Department, in which I was employed, had been engaged since 1986 on a long-term project for the Chrysler Corporation. Hogan & Hartson had been retained to serve as a repository of Chrysler’s airbag litigation documents, and the firm’s Computer Applications Department had been assigned the task of creating a computerized data base for approximately 200,000 pages of the client’s documents relating to airbags.

Upon distributing a copy of The Wall Street Journal article to employees, Miriam Chilton and the employees present at the meeting discussed the installation of airbags. The question arose at the meeting as to why Chrysler, which had strongly opposed airbags, now had decided to install the devices, thereby implicitly admitting that its prior opposition was either wrong or, perhaps, even that Chrysler’s prior position opposing airbags was not taken in good faith.

I did not see or attempt to see any symbolic meaning in the question regarding Chrysler’s “admission” of wrongdoing at the time of the meeting in February 1988. Indeed, until very recently, I did not recall the specific content of what was discussed at the meeting; my recollection of the meeting had receded to a pre-conscious level.

At the time of the meeting I felt that there was a belief among co-workers that I was homosexual and that I had a romantic attachment to a male co-worker, Craig Dye. My beliefs might be termed paranoid.

Approximately two weeks after the subject meeting my assignment at Hogan & Hartson was terminated, effective Friday February 26, 1988.

In the last few days I have come to attribute a paranoid meaning to the discussion at the Hogan & Hartson staff meeting on February 11, 1988 [sic]. Specifically, I have come to ascribe a sexual/anti-Semitic symbolism to the issue of Chrysler’s decision to reverse its position on airbags. I have translated the question of Chrysler’s reversing its vigorously maintained opposition to airbags into the accusation: “Freedman maintained all along that he wasn’t homosexual and in love with Craig, but that position was a lie.”

A signal event in my recent re-interpretation of events of mid-February 1988 was a piece of comedy material presented by Jerry Seinfeld on his television program on the evening of Thursday September 16, 1993. Jerry Seinfeld compared a car crash to sexual relations, and specifically related a car crash with the female orgasm.

There are two types of female orgasm the real and the fake. And, I’ll tell you right now, as a man, we don’t know. We do not know, because to a man, sex is like a car accident, and determining the female orgasm is like being asked “What did you see after the car went out of control?” “I heard a lot of screeching sounds, I remember I was facing the wrong way at one point, and in the end my body was thrown clear.”

Note also that the airbag itself has a phallic quality: an unobtrusive, flaccid device that expands during a car crash (which, in Jerry Seinfeld’s metaphor, is equated with orgasm).

My paranoid re-interpretation of the airbag discussion on February 11, 1988 [sic] apparently resulted from a supervening event: my having seen, on September 16, 1992, the Jerry Seinfeld material equating a car crash with sex. Thus, events that were registered in a non-self-referential manner at the time of their occurrence in February 1988 were re-interpreted five years later as an idea of reference--an instance of retrospective paranoia.

My notion that the airbag discussion in February 1988 had anti-Semitic undertones arose simultaneously, in the days following September 16, 1993, with my perception that the issue of airbags related to sex. I specifically related the question of Chrysler’s “admission” of wrongdoing--Chrysler’s reversal of a previously staunchly defended, bad faith position--to a symbolic long-delayed admission of Oedipal guilt (latent homosexuality) and, by implication, to the issue of Jews’ long-maintained denial of purported deicide (murder of the “Father”).

A signal factor in my anti-Semitic gloss of the airbag discussion in February 1988 is a comedy skit written by Lenny Bruce that presents a sardonically comedic transformation of the issue of an admission of a long-denied crime (“All this time they denied it, now they admit it.”)

" . . . you and I know what a Jew is -- One Who Killed Our Lord. I don't know if we got much press on that in Illinois--we did this about two thousand years ago--two thousand years of Polack kids whacking the shit out of us coming home from school. Dear, dear. And although there should be a statute of limitations for that crime, it seems that those who neither have the actions nor the gait of Christians, pagans or not, will bust us out, unrelenting dues, for another deuce.

And I really searched out, why we pay the dues. Why do you keep breaking our balls for this crime?

"Why, Jew, because you skirt the issue. You blame the Roman soldiers."

Alright. I'll clear the air once and for all, and confess. Yes, we did it. I did it, my family. I found a note in my basement. It said:

'We killed him,

      signed,

               Morty.'

And a lot of people say to me,

"Why did you kill Christ?"

"I dunno . . . it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know."

We killed him because he didn't want to become a doctor, that's why we killed him.

[From: Howe, I. World of Our Fathers, at 572-3 (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich: 1976)].

In conclusion, the foregoing material highlights the occurrence of an instance of retrospective paranoia in which events, perceived in a non self-referential manner at the time of their occurrence and relegated to the pre-conscious, were later recalled and ascribed a paranoid meaning following a supervening event.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman

The Management Committee

2012-01-17T20:23:00.000-05:00

Question for Dennis M. Race: Can A Computer be Paranoid, Unemployable, and Potentially Violent?

2012-01-17T17:37:00.001-05:00

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-04/thats-what-she-said-software-recognizes-pervy-double-entendres-automatically

Double entendres have been making us laugh since the days of Chaucer and Shakespeare, but up until now computers weren't in on the joke. Chloé Kiddon and Yuriy Brun, two computer scientists at the University of Washington, have developed a system for recognising a particular type of double entendre - the "that's what she said" joke, in which seemingly innocent sentences can be transformed into lewd utterances by appending just four short words.

The pair describe the "TWSS problem" as recognising when it is funny to follow a sentence with "that's what she said" - they give "Don't you think these buns are a little too big for this meat?" as one example. The equivalent in the UK is appending sentences with "as the actress said to the bishop" and is used in the same way.

Automating this process means identifying sentences that contain potential euphemisms and follow a particular structure - a "hard natural language understanding problem", say the researchers. Kiddon and Brun began by analysing two different bodies of text - one containing 1.5 million erotic sentences, and another with 57,000 from standard literature.

They then evaluated nouns, adjectives and verbs with a "sexiness" function to determine whether a sentence is a potential TWSS. Examples of nouns with a high sexiness function are "rod" and "meat", while raunchy adjectives are "hot" and "wet".

Their automated system, known as Double Entendre via Noun Transfer or DEviaNT, rates sentences for their TWSS potential by looking for particular elements such as nouns that can be interpreted in multiple ways. The researchers trained DEviaNT by gathering jokes from twssstories.com and non-TWSS text from sites such as wikiquote.org.

The system turned out to be around 70% accurate, but the pair say this is deceptively low because much of the training data did not consist of TWSS jokes, and with a more even data set it could achieve 99.5% precision.

The results will be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics in June. Future work could also see DEviaNT extended to identify other kinds of jokes, say the researchers, writing "The technique of metaphorical mapping may be generalised to identify other types of double entendres and other forms of humor".

That's what she said.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/04/software-works-out-whether-tha.html

Craig W. Dye: Trivial Recollections

2012-01-17T16:32:00.000-05:00

During the period October 1986 to late February 1988 I worked with an individual named Craig W. Dye in the Computer Applications Department of the law firm of Hogan & Hartson. Beginning in late May 1987, Miriam T. Chilton served as the department's supervisor.

An undated memory:

On a morning in about September 1987, at the start of the business day, Craig and Miriam just happened to arrive at work at the same time. My cubicle adjoined the door to the office suite. Miriam and Craig were chatting. I remember Craig referring to "Oedipal conflict." I still wonder: What on Earth did he mean by that reference? Was Craig suggesting that I was sexually attracted to Miriam and that I viewed Craig as a rival? Who knows? And, by the way, wasn't I supposed to be a homosexual who was in love with Craig?

August 17, 1987:

On Friday August 7, 1987 Craig took a flight to Miami for a one-week vacation. That was the day department personnel took summer employee Brett Rome to lunch. It was his farewell lunch; he was returning to Princeton. I remember that because at lunch Craig and another summer employee, Tom MacIsaac were ridiculing the masculinity of Princeton football team members. (Didn't former Secretary of State James Baker play football for Princeton? Be that as it may.) Miriam attended the lunch. She told Craig to take a lot of sun block with him; Craig was a fair-skinned Aryan.

Craig returned to work on Monday August 17, 1987. That date just happened to coincide with the completion of a particular stage of work that department personnel were performing for the client Chrysler Corporation. Miriam held a staff party in a conference room for all department employees together with David Kikel, Esq., the attorney who interfaced with the document production staff. I remember that Miriam had purchased a bottle of champagne. As David Kikel was trying to open the champagne bottle he said, "I was thirteen years old when I opened a champagne bottle for the first time." I was glancing at Craig at that moment, and he sneered. Why would Craig sneer at someone talking about the first time he opened a champagne bottle?

D.C. Court of Appeals -- Order re: Filing Appeal 96-CV-961

2012-01-17T12:45:00.000-05:00

District of Columbia

Court of Appeals

No. 96-CV-961

GARY FREEDMAN,

Appellant,

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DEPARTMENT
OF HUMAN RIGHTS,

Appellee.

MPA15-95

O R D E R

On consideration of the motion and affidavit of appellant to proceed on appeal in forma pauperis, and the uncontested motion of appellant for leave to late file the lodged docketing statement, designation of record and statement regarding transcript, it is

ORDERED that the appellant’s motion to proceed on appeal in forma pauperis is denied. It is

FURTHER ORDERED that the appellant shall, within 30 days from the date of this order tender the $50 docketing fee and the $10 motion fee. It is

FURTHER ORDERED that the lodged motion for leave to late file the documents is held in abeyance pending compliance with this order. Failure to comply with this order shall result in the dismissal of this appeal. See D.C. App. R. 14

BY THE COURT:

/s/

ANNICE M. WAGNER

Copies to:

Mr. Gary Freedman
3801 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Apartment 136
Washington, D.C. 20008

Mr. Charles L. Reischel, Esquire
Deputy Corporation Counsel

ee

[receipt for USPS money order in the amount of $60.00 attached, dated 10/24/96.]

[filed by the court on 10/4/96.]

Hogan & Hartson: Circumstantial Evidence of Mobbing

2012-01-17T10:19:00.002-05:00

I worked as a paralegal at the Computer Applications Department of the law firm of Hogan & Hartson from mid-September 1985 to late February 1988. There was a breakdown in employee discipline beginning in mid-February 1987 when the department supervisor, Sheryl Ferguson, announced she would be leaving the firm. The following is a sarcastic note I posted on the Bulletin Board in the department's office at the I Street site, across the street from the firm's main office at 815 Connecticut Avenue (where Craig Dye worked). There was a rumor in the department that I was in love with a coworker Craig W. Dye, and that I was desperate to seduce him. All my random behaviors were interpreted in a way that would support that belief. Such rumors and innuendo are markers of workplace mobbing, a type of subtle job harassment.

FOR: THOSE WITH ENQUIRING MINDS

FROM: GF

DATE April 15, 1987

RE: SCHEDULE
__________________________

This will advise that I am currently in the "coding phase" on MPS, which means that I will be spending virtually all my time at EYE Street coding documents. However, sometime next week, after the coding is completed, the documents will be submitted to Data Entry for keying, after which the batches will have to be proofread. This means that I will be making frequent visits to 815--specifically, CAD!! During the proofreading phase my visits to CAD are more frequent than they used to be because formerly, Matthew [Allender] and I shared the responsibility of going back and forth between CAD & Eye Street. But now, Matthew is no longer here, so I have to make double the no. of visits. Also, I now use the spelling verifier function on the batches, which I didn't do formerly while Sheryl [Ferguson] was here because she forbad (forbidded? forbade? forbodded?--who the hell knows) it. So my visits are now more frequent and more lengthy. This memo is intended to allow sufficient notice, or lead time, for everybody to begin concocting their fantasies. DON'T WAIT--START NOW. Also I plan to purchase some suits sometime this week, which I will be wearing to the office (Be sure to figure that into you analysis).

YOUR FANTASIES SHOULD RIVAL OR SURPASS THE FOLLOWING:

1) Gary signs out all the batches (Product/Work Plans)

2) Gary visits a tanning salon

3) Gary lives in an apartment with no furniture

4) Gary intentionally signs the wrong date in the sign-in log . . .

Hogan & Hartson Termination: February 1988

2012-01-17T09:36:00.002-05:00

TO: Miriam T. Chilton

FROM: Gary Freedman

DATE: February 25, 1988

RE: Termination Notice
__________________________________________

In view of the fact that you did not go into detail regarding your rationale for my termination, please permit me to respond to a few issues that may have been a part of your decision making, and, in so doing, perhaps clarify what may be a misunderstanding.

Monday, while proofreading, I noticed that one of the QC'ers [Daniel Cutler] was not using the standardized names when correcting mentioned names. Purely as a joke, I noted to the QC'er that the reason he was failing to follow the standardized names was that he was attempting to generate overtime for himself since this same individual has been assigned the task of "cleaning up" the names field in OLIVE.

You may be aware of this incident and may have drawn certain inferences, namely that I was imputing to the QC'er my own motives, thereby revealing something of myself. You may further have inferred that as a a matter of course I displace aspects of myself onto other individuals.

In fact, I was imputing nothing to the QC'er. First, the few instances of incorrectly QC'ed names were too few to generate any overtime. But more important was what motivated my statement. Back in 1986, while working on Mercedes, Espe had charged that I intentionally incorporated errors in my work in order to generate overtime, a charge that was amply refuted in a memo I gave to Sheryl Ferguson (a full copy of which you may have in your file, dated July 1986) (Sheryl concluded that Espe's accusation was false). When, on Monday, I made the statement to the QC'er, I consciously had Espe's charge ringing in my ear, and as a sarcastic bit of humor I simply repeated what had been said of me back in May 1986 since it was an analogous situation.

In short, I was imputing nothing and revealing nothing of my "inner self." I was simply making an attempt at humor based on a recollection.

Further, the charge of attempting to generate overtime is as false as it was in July 1986. It is simply one more case of a baseless accusation that seems to crop up now and again [See Attachment A], much like the accusation that I pick and choose batches to work on, which had been refuted each time it has been raised.

Once again, let me say, I work the way I do just because that's my nature. I invite you to review the work I performed following the staff meeting on February 12. If you review the batches of Full Pass QC and Pass II QC you will see that the work is done with the thoroughness typical of my efforts since commencing my assignment with the firm. I'm not here for praise or acknowledgement and I don't work like a demon for some base motives. I just take pleasure in a job well done, and, yes, I work to earn a living.

I respectfully request that you permit me to stay on and would welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you. Also, Craig said yesterday that he would be willing to speak with you and noted to me that in his opinion my leaving would be a loss to the department.

If your decision remains firm, I wish to say it has been a pleasure to serve.

Thank you very much.

/s/

Gary

Hogan & Hartson: Memo re: Snow Days

2012-01-17T07:00:00.001-05:00

M E M O R A N D U M

January 29, 1987

TO: All CAD Temporary Personnel

FROM: Sheryl L. Ferguson

RE: Paid Versus Unpaid Leave

The recent snow emergencies have re-raised the issue of when temporaries are to be compensated if the firm is closed. The firm policy is and has been that all CAD personnel are to receive compensation for national holidays. The holiday pay benefit does not apply to firm holidays (the day after Thanksgiving, the 1/2 day of the lawyer outing, the occasional 1/2 day(s) prior to Christmas or New Year's and snow days).

Due to the circumstances of the recent snow emergencies and the fact that in the recent past (through an oversight) adherence to this policy has been slightly inconsistent, you will be compensated for the hours during which the firm was officially closed (Thursday, January 22nd - from 12:30 p.m. and Monday, January 26th - all day).

Effective this date, however, the policy regarding such compensation will be strictly followed and payment will not be issued for hours not worked on any day other than a national holiday.

Please give me a call should you have any questions about this mater.

SLF

cc: Martha K. Williams

David T. Hines

I Dreamed

2012-01-16T19:25:00.000-05:00

Dreaming

2012-01-16T19:15:00.002-05:00

Dream

2012-01-15T12:11:00.000-05:00

I Had a Wonderfully Beautiful Dream!

2012-01-15T11:24:00.002-05:00

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (ACT THREE)

(Walther enters from the chamber. He pauses a moment at the door, looking at Sachs. The latter turns and allows his book to slip to the ground)

SACHS

God be with you, Sir knight! You've rested till now?
You were up late, and then you slept?

WALTHER

A little, but deeply and well.

SACHS

So you are now in good heart?

WALTHER

I had a wonderfully beautiful dream.

SACHS

That bodes well! Tell it to me!

WALTHER

I scarcely dare even to think of it:
I fear to see it vanish from me.

SACHS

My friend, it is precisely the poet's task
to interpret and record his dreamings.
Belive me, man's truest madness
is disclosed to him in dreams:
all poetry and versification
is nothing but true dream interpretation.
What are the odds that your dream told you
how you might become a Master today?

WALTHER

No, from the guild and its Masters
my vision did not want to take its inspiration.

SACHS

But it taught you the magic spellwith which you might win her?

WALTHER

How you delude yourself, after such a failure,
if you still cherish hope!

SACHS

I shan't let my hope diminish;
nothing has yet overthrown it;
were it so, then belive me, instead of hindering your flight
I would have run away with you!
So please give up your resentment now!
You are dealing with men of honour;
they make mistakes and are content
that one takes them on their own terms.
He who decides prizes and offers prizes
expects also that people should please him.
Your song made them uneasy;
and rightly so; for when you think of it,
it is with such fire of poetry and love
that daughters are seduced to adventure;
but for loving and blissful wedlock
other words and melodies were invented.

WALTHER

These too I know, since last night;
there was much noise in the street.

SACHS

Yes, yes! Very true! The time-beating as well
you must have heard! But let that be,
and follow my advice; in short:
take courage and make a Master-song!

WALTHER

A beautiful song, a Master-song:
how am I to grasp the difference?

SACHS

My friend, in the sweet time of youth,
when from mighty impulse
to blissful first love
the breast swells high and free,
to sing a beautiful song
many have succeeded:
the spring sang for them.
But when summer, autumn and winter come,
much hardship and care in life,
much married joy as well,
baptism, business, discord and strife:
whoever then can still succeeded
in singing a beautiful song:
Behold! He is called Master!

WALTHER

I love a woman, and will woo her
to be my wife for ever.

SACHS

Learn the Master's rules in good time,
that they may truly accompany you
and help you keep
what in youthful years,
with lovely impulse,
spring and love
placed unawares in your heart,
so that you may cherish it safely.

WALTHER

If they now stand in such high repute,
who was it who made the rules?

SACHS

It was sorely-troubled Masters,
spirits oppressed by the cares of life:
in the desert of their troubles
they formed for themselves an image,
so that to them might remain
of youthful love
a memory, clear and firm,
in which spring can be recognised.

WALTHER

But the form whom spring has long since fled,
how can he capture it in an image?

SACHS

He refreshes it as often as he can:
so, as a troubled man, I should like,
if I am to teach you the rules,
you to explain them to me anew.
See, here is ink, pen, paper:
I'll write it down for you if you will dictate to me.

WALTHER

How I should begin I scarcely know.

SACHS

Tell me your morning-dream.

WALTHER

Through the good precepts of your rules
I feel as if it were effaced.

SACHS

Then take poetry to your hand now:
many found through it what was lost.

WALTHER

So it might be not dream, but poetry?

SACHS

The two are friends, gladly standing by each other.

WALTHER

How do I begin according to the rule?

SACHS

You make it yourself, and then you follow it.
Think of your beautiful dream of this morning;
of the rest let Hans Sachs take care!

The Dreams

2012-01-15T08:17:00.000-05:00

From Robert Schumann's "Scenes from Childhood."

Winter Dreams

2012-01-15T08:14:00.000-05:00

The first movement of Tchaikovsky's First Symphony, known as "Winter Dreams."

Dreams

2012-01-15T07:00:00.000-05:00

Tell me, what kind of wondrous dreams

are embracing my senses,

that have not, like sea-foam,

vanished into desolate Nothingness?

Dreams, that with each passing hour,

each passing day, bloom fairer,

and with their heavenly tidings

roam blissfully through my heart!

Dreams which, like holy rays of light

sink into the soul,

there to paint an eternal image:

forgiving all, thinking of only One.

Dreams which, when the Spring sun

kisses the blossoms from the snow,

so that into unsuspected bliss

they greet the new day,

so that they grow, so that they bloom,

and dreaming, bestow their fragrance,

these dreams gently glow and fade on your breast,

and then sink into the grave.

Nothing Will Remain Unavenged

2012-01-14T17:41:00.000-05:00

Significant Moments: Daniel Pearl -- October 10, 1963 to February 1, 2002

2012-01-14T09:29:00.007-05:00

Daniel Pearl (October 10, 1963 – February 1, 2002) was an American journalist.

At the time of his kidnapping, Pearl served as the South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal, and was based in Mumbai, India. He went to Pakistan as part of an investigation into the alleged links between Richard Reid (the "shoe bomber") and Al-Qaeda. He was subsequently beheaded by his captors.

My contribution to the memory of Daniel Pearl is the following passage from my book Significant Moments:

He himself preserved his life and sanity by deliberately and persistently clinging to the historical Jewish identity of invincible spiritual and intellectual superiority over a physically superior outer world: he made his tormentors the subject of a silent research project which he safely delivered to the world of free letters.
Erik H. Erikson, Identity and the Life Cycle.
It was that deliberate recovery of such a specific and proud . . .
Robert D. Kaplan, The Books of Daniel: Two views of the life and death of the American journalist Daniel Pearl.
. . . identity . . .
Leonard Shengold, Soul Murder.
. . . that kept his tormentors from reducing him to a mere symbol.
Robert D. Kaplan, The Books of Daniel: Two views of the life and death of the American journalist Daniel Pearl.

Why I Blog

2012-01-14T09:21:00.010-05:00

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has a large mezuzah prayer scroll on the doorpost in her chambers, writes: "I am a judge, born, raised, and proud of being a Jew. The demand for justice runs through the entirety of Jewish history and Jewish tradition. I hope, in all the years I have the good fortune to serve on the bench of the Supreme Court, I will have the strength and courage to remain steadfast in the service of that demand."

I personally identify strongly with Judea Pearl's description of the Jews: "I see Jews as the scouts of civilization -- the ones who question conventional wisdom and constantly seek the exploration of new pathways." Pearl sees a long line of these Jewish "scouts," from Abraham challenging idolatry to "Marx, Herzl and Freud, down to Einstein, Gershwin and the civil rights activists of the 1960s." For centuries, Jews have also been "border-challengers, idol-smashers, and boat-rockers."

There's Only One Freedman!

2012-01-14T08:26:00.002-05:00

Mystery Blogger

2012-01-13T14:56:00.003-05:00

"I had a problem with same person you were talking about in an older post - in a law firm. I would be curious to speak to you about it and compare experiences. The person in question was a female supervisor. I wouldn't want to further communicate about the issue in a blog but would be great if we could talk via email, yahoo messenger, skype etc."

My email is garfreed@netscape.net

Condolence Message -- Franklin Institute Coworker

2012-01-13T10:49:00.001-05:00

From June 1975 to June 1979 I worked full-time at The Franklin Institute Research Laboratories located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of my coworkers in the Science Information Services Department was Elena P. Saboe. In early January 1980 my mother died. Elena Saboe sent the following condolence message to me in Spokane, Washington where I was attending my first year of law school.
___________________________

With Sympathy

Jon & Elena Saboe

Gary,

So sorry to hear about your mom. My prayers and thoughts are with you and your family.

Elena.

Subtle Job Harassment: State Court Recognition as of 1986

2012-01-13T10:22:00.000-05:00

In Eide v. Kelsey-Hayes Co., 154 Mich. App. 142, 397 N.W.2d 532 (1986) the Michigan Court of Appeals recognized the phenomenon of subtle job harassment and permitted expert testimony to explain to the jurors the latent harassing meaning of seemingly trivial acts that went into the creation of a hostile work environment.

The Court wrote:

Next, defendant claims that the trial court erred in admitting the testimony of a sociologist as an expert witness. Defendant asserts that the testimony of plaintiffs' expert, Dr. James Gruber, was inappropriate, without foundation, and highly prejudicial because his testimony invaded the province of the judge and jury by going to the ultimate factual and legal conclusions.

An expert is considered any person which the trial court determines has recognized scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge that will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue. MRE 702; Strzelecki v Blaser's Lakeside Industries of Rice Lake, Inc,133 Mich.App. 191, 198; 348 N.W.2d 311 (1984). The determination of whether a proposed expert witness is properly qualified is left to the sound discretion of the trial court, the decision of which will not be reversed absent an abuse of discretion. Dybata v Kistler,140 Mich.App. 65, 68-69; 362 N.W.2d 891 (1985).

Here, the trial court determined that plaintiffs' expert witness was qualified as an expert witness in the area of sexual harassment. Dr. Gruber had been teaching in the area relating to the subject for a number of years and had published books and articles on the subject. He also testified that he was familiar with the extensive body of research and literature regarding sexual harassment. We do not believe that the trial court abused its discretion in deciding that Dr. Gruber was qualified as an expert.

After reviewing the record we also conclude that the evidence was sufficiently complex so that an expert would be helpful to the jury's understanding of the evidence. Little case law exists in the area of sexual harassment based on the creation of an offensive, hostile and intimidating environment which allows the sexual conduct to exist. Further, sexual harassment can take many forms and is often very subtle. Here, Dr. Gruber illuminated for the jury the type of environment that existed in the defendant's plant and testified to the sexual connotations of several of the acts of which plaintiff complained.

I referenced the Eide case in my Brief on Appeal filed with the D.C. Court of Appeals, stating that it was a dubious proposition to deny that attorney managers of a major law firm -- Dennis M. Race, Laurence J. Hoffman, and Malcolm Lassman (all labor lawyers, by the way) -- either knew or should have investigated in late October 1991 the possibility that the complaint of subtle job harassment I lodged against firm personnel satisfied, prima facie, the legal requirements of a hostile work environment. That is to say, I might have been mistaken to believe that the acts I complained of constituted job harassment, but the complaint I lodged was not necessarily the product of mental illness that rendered me unemployable and potentially violent -- at least according to Eide and possibly other case law.

Freedman v. Akin Gump: Receipt of Akin Gump Response

2012-01-13T09:52:00.000-05:00

On February 4, 1992 the D.C. Department of Human Rights (DHR) issued a complaint against the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, my former employer, alleging that my job termination on October 29, 1991 was unlawful under the D.C. Human Rights Act of 1977. On May 22, 1992 Akin Gump filed with DHR its Response to Interrogatories and Document Request.

DHR sent me Akin Gump's Response by certified mail in late December 1992. The following is a telephone message pink slip prepared by the front desk employee at my apartment building alerting me to the certified letter:
___________________________

MESSAGE: Please sign for Certified letter on the day of 12-22-92.

Akin Gump Surveillance: Apartment Manager

2012-01-13T09:41:00.000-05:00

I had the paranoid suspicion that apartment manager Elaine Wranik used to inspect my apartment surreptitiously every day after I left for work and reported her findings to Akin Gump's managers. I used to leave her notes too read. The following is a humorous note from the fall of 1991.
____________________________

Paranoid, Paranoid,

I want to get paranoid.

Let me hear those voices talk.

Akin Gump Surveillance: Pattern of Suspicious Behavior

2012-01-13T08:55:00.001-05:00

The following are three pages of handwritten notes that I prepared immediately after I was fired from my job as a paralegal at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld on October 29, 1991. During my employment I did not keep a diary of daily events. After the termination I wrote down everything I could remember, sometimes trying to discern patterns of behavior. The following notes look for a pattern in the behavior of my direct supervisor, Chris Robertson.

I can't say for sure now, but it's possible I wrote these notes during my employment at the firm, sometime in October 1991, and that I left them in a prominent place in my apartment for Elaine Wranik to see. I had the paranoid suspicion that apartment manager Wranik inspected my apartment surreptitiously every day after I left for work and reported her findings to Akin Gump's managers. These notes would have enraged Akin Gump's supervisors. The fact that I did not "name names" in the following notes (namely, Lutheria Harrison and Katherine Harkness) is circumstantial evidence that I did not write these notes solely for my reference, but rather wrote the notes with the intent that Elaine Wranik would read the notes and report this information to Akin Gump's managers. That is, it appears that I was trying to avoid antagonizing specific employees out of fear that I might invite retaliation.
________________

1. April 16, 1990

Inference: J.D. Neary meets with Dr. Palombo

Outcome: Chris Robertson calls staff meeting. She appears unusually agitated. Her voice drops when she mentions J.D. Peculiarity--Monday afternoon staff meeting.

http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2010/03/for-sonia.html

2. April 2, 1991

First meeting with Dr. Lewis Winkler. Upon returning to office, Chris Robertson advises she is calling a staff meeting on April 3, 1991 to train coders on Hoechst.

April 3, 1991

2 4/10 hour meeting re Hoechst coding appears to have been prematurely and hastily called in that a number of important issues re data base have not been worked out with attorneys such as agreed on list of document types. There seem to be many double entendres relating to my session with Dr. Winkler the previous day. Cynthia Hogue make a comment about David Callet that can be interpreted as mildly ridiculing him. (Perhaps David Callet said something favorable about me, possibly in connection with my session with Dr. Winkler?).

3. August 8, 1991

Inference: Telephone conversation between Dr. Winkler and Malcolm Lassman. Possible comment by Dr. Winkler that he couldn't understand why I terminated my work with him since I had told him I was enthusiastic about working with him.

Outcome: Reference by litigation support employee [Lutheria Harrison] to word "rude" -- possibly related to Dr. Winkler. After 5:00 PM Chris Robertson says to me, "I spoke with Maryellen Connor about your working on Hoechst chem analysis; she said she was enthusiastic about your working on the project."

4. August 30, 1991

Inference: Telephone conversation between Dr. Palombo and Malcolm Lassman.

Outcome: Telephone call to me from Chris Robertson re: plans she has to have me enter Hoechst chem analysis in "Notebook." Her tone of voice is affectedly professional. References to me as guinea pig, use of term "bugs," data conversion, scroll down and scan, "It will be better for you" (Miriam Chilton?), "fine tuning" (phrase used by Dr. Palombo).

5. October 2, 1991

Inference: Telephone conversation between sister and Malcolm Lassman (Met with Dr. Brown on October 1, 1991). Sister becomes hysterical or enraged?

Outcome: Meeting with legal assistant in her office [Katherine Harkness]. Perception of sexual harassment. Inference that legal assistant is attempting to enrage me. Uses M.O. typically used by Chris Robertson, namely, first plant idea that I am more valuable than other employees. Intent: "Feel free to have a temper tantrum!"

Akin Gump Sensitivity About Embarrassing Blog Posts

2012-01-12T16:34:00.001-05:00

The following news item is republished from the ABA Journal, January 19, 2011:

An Akin Gump partner is apologizing for a blog post deemed "insensitive" by the managing partner of his law firm.

Writing at the Power Line blog, partner Paul Mirengoff criticized the delivery of an Indian prayer at a memorial for Tucson, Ariz., shooting victims. The original post has since been removed, but it lives on in cached form.

Mirengoff's post commented on “the good, the bad and the ugly” of the prayer service. The good included scripture readings by Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano, he wrote. The bad included praise for President Obama and “frequent raucous cheering” by the crowd.

“As for the ‘ugly,’ I'm afraid I must cite the opening ‘prayer’ by Native American Carlos Gonzales,” Mirengoff wrote. It “apparently was some sort of Yaqui Indian tribal thing, with lots of references to ‘the creator’ but no mention of God. Several of the victims were, as I understand it, quite religious in that quaint Christian kind of way (none, to my knowledge, was a Yaqui). They (and their families) likely would have appreciated a prayer more closely aligned with their religious beliefs.”

Mirengoff later posted an apology on the Power Line blog, saying he failed to give the prayer the respect it deserves and apologizing to “the Yaqui tribe, to all tribal leaders and Indian people, and, specifically, to Carlos Gonzales who delivered the prayer.”

But he wasn’t the only one expressing regret. Akin Gump chairman Bruce McLean issued a statement emphasizing that the law firm isn’t affiliated with—and isn’t a supporter of—the Power Line blog. “We found his remarks to be insensitive and wholly inconsistent with Akin Gump’s values,” McLean said.

Akin Gump spokeswoman Kathryn Holmes Johnson tells the ABA Journal that the law firm is currently reviewing its social media policies.
__________________________

It's interesting that in the past, Akin Gump has shown an obsessive interest in this blog, My Daily Struggles: a blog the firm might find embarrassing.

Akin Gump: Anti-Semitic Stereotyping -- The Jew as Moral Hypocrite

2012-01-12T14:51:00.000-05:00

The view of the Jew as a moral hypocrite is a venerable and widespread stereotype. A Google search of the phrase "Jews are hypocrites" yields 14,900 hits.

Bela Grunberger's analysis of anti-Semitism suggests a reason or motive behind the stereotype. Grunberger writes: "The Jew represents the father, and from that perspective we can understand the various aspects of the anti-Semite's behaviour. We understand, for example, why the Jew excites so much attention, why his conduct must be perfect, and why his slightest moral weakness is exaggerated by the anti-Semite who would remain utterly indifferent, even approving or amused before the most shameful actions and moral turpitudes perpetrated by non-Jews. He reminds us of the adolescent at the climax of his Oedipus conflict, forgiving nothing in his parents and on the look-out for the slightest fault in their moral conduct, and particularly in respect to the father, as though he would say: 'Look at yourself, you who preach morals to me and wish to criticize me at every moment.' "The Anti-Semite and the Oedipal Conflict," The International Journal of Psycho-analysis, 45: 380-385, 383 (1964).

An appreciation of the stereotype of "Jew as hypocrite" has led me to re-examine a series of incidents that occurred in March 1991 during my employment at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld.

The incidents are described elsewhere on this blog as follows:

34. In mid-March 1991 two apparently related incidents, perpetrated anonymously, occurred on successive days. One morning, probably during the week of March 11, 1991, upon arriving at my desk on the ninth floor, I noticed that someone had taken a dagger shaped letter opener from a drawer in my desk and had positioned it with the blade inserted between the pages and had positioned it with of a bound volume of documents and with the handle protruding from the bound volume. The letter opener, positioned as it was, gave the impression of a symbolic stabbing. The next morning, upon arriving at the office, I observed that someone had strewn my desk with pieces of a paper napkin, which had been shredded into tiny bits. Also, on a piece of 8.5” x 11” paper placed on my desk, someone had written in bold, upper case letters the phrase, “WHITE TRASH.”

[The above incidents may be evidence of a form of harassment known as gaslighting. See paragraph 16, above.]

(The bound volume of documents in which the letter opener had been placed was a compilation of exhibits for litigation concerning a client, LL&E. The 8.5” x 11” piece of paper on which the phrase “WHITE TRASH” had been written was the reverse side of a computer printout relating to the client LL&E. At that time I was working on LL&E under the direction of Ms. Lutheria Harrison, a black employee assigned to the litigation support group. It is possible that some third party perpetrated the acts described above in an attempt to prompt me to complain to a supervisory employee or member of management, with the ultimate intent to make it appear that I harbored a racial animus against black employees. Such contrived “evidence” of a putative racial animus could then be used to counteract any allegations I might make that other employees’ harassing acts were motivated by anti-Semitism. That is, other employees could argue that my allegations of anti-Semitism were simply a projection of my own unacknowledged racial bias.)

My theory is that the actor's motive in carrying out these deeds was to prompt me to lodge a harassment complaint against a black employee, to make me appear to be a hypocrite, as if the actor were saying: 'Look at yourself, you who preach the immoral nature of anti-Semitism to us and wish to criticize us at every moment, you yourself are a racist who suspects the worst of African-Americans. You are a hypocrite!'

The incidents can be seen as an instance of projective identification: an attempt to prompt me to behave in a certain way that could then be "interpreted" to third parties, such as firm management. In projective identification "projection is combined with the manipulation of reality selected for the purpose of verifying the projection."

The job harassment that I experienced at Akin Gump betrays a remarkable simplicity -- a single root cause -- in that it involved projective identification, the spreading of false rumors that I was homosexual, interpersonal exploitation, jealousy, and rationalization (pretext): all recognized symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder.

The Tanenbaums

2012-01-12T13:45:00.003-05:00

When I began work as a paralegal at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld in March 1988 my supervisor, legal assistant administrator, Maggie Sinnott, was married to one of the firm's partners, a litigator who did some work for the client Eastern Airlines, named Larry Tanenbaum. Maggie Sinnott and Larry Tanenbaum got divorced.

By 1991 Larry Tanenbaum was dating Rebecca Jackson, who was one of my coworkers in the Litigation Support Group, supervised by Chris Robertson. Larry Tanenbaum and Rebecca Jackson Tanenbaum are now married.

I vaguely recall that for a time after I moved to the Terrace Office Suite that housed Litigation Support, beginning April 8, 1991, Rebecca Jackson worked in the cubicle adjacent to mine. Rebecca Jackson would therefore have first-hand knowledge of my frightening, disruptive and bizarre behavior that led to the decision to terminate my employment in late October 1991.

Another Litigation Support employee, Bob Dillon, would also have first-hand knowledge of my bizarre behavior.

Akin Gump: Wrongful Demotion and Failure to Honor Promise for Advancement

2012-01-12T10:25:00.006-05:00

I submitted the following letter to the Director of the D.C. Department of Human Rights in March 1992 following the agency’s complaint issued February 4, 1992 in Freedman v. Akin, Gump, Hauer & Feld. Inexplicably, Director Utley did not place the letter, which was copied to the case investigator Donald M. Stocks, in the administrative file. Emendations to the following letter as of this posting (January 12, 2012) are highlighted in yellow.

March 14, 1992
3801 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Apartment 136
Washington, DC 20008

Ms. Margie A. Utley
Director
Government of the District of Columbia
Department of Human Rights and
Minority Business Development
2000 14th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20008

Re: Docket No.: 90-087-P(CN)
Gary Freedman -v- Akin, Gump, Hauer & Feld

Dear Ms. Utley:

In the interest of a timely and cost-efficient resolution of the above matter, you may wish to inform the Respondent that it is in its strategic interest to accept mediation of the dispute now with a view toward returning me to my position as legal assistant. If the Respondent does not accept mediation and elects to allow the investigation to proceed, the Respondent may risk a determination by the Department of Human Rights that its failure to offer me an associate position, or at least an associate-track legal assistant position, constitutes an unlawful discriminatory practice on the basis of sexual orientation, in violation of the District of Columbia Human Rights Act of 1977.

I offer the following facts in support of the claim that the Respondent’s failure to offer an associate position, or associate-track legal assistant position, was an unlawful discriminatory practice.

1. I am licensed to practice law. I am admitted to the bar of Pennsylvania, having been awarded the degree of J.D. by Temple University School of Law. I also hold the degree of LL.M. in International Legal Studies from The Washington College of Law, The American University. The field of International Law is a major practice area of the Respondent. I am not a member of the D.C. bar.

2. During the course of my association with the Respondent, I was employed in a position far below my level of education and experience, notwithstanding the Respondent’s knowledge of my educational and professional background.

[Respondent states: "Claimant was a law school graduate performing paralegal or administrative duties."]

3. At no time during the course of my association with the Respondent did I request in any manner that I be considered for an associate position. Upon being hired in June 1988 I was warned by the Respondent’s then Legal Assistant Administrator, Ms. Margarita Babb, that I should not view my position as legal assistant as a stepping stone to an associate position. The Legal Assistant Administrator’s warning carried the implicit threat of disciplinary action for failure to comply.

4. During a discussion with the then Legal Assistant Administrator, Ms. Margarita Babb, in June 1988, prior to being hired as a full-time legal assistant, I was advised that when the largely menial document coding assignment for the client, Eastern Airlines, was completed, I would be assigned to the Legal Assistant group. In February [sic] 1990, however, as the flow of work on Eastern slowed, I was assigned to the Litigation Support group to continue the menial task of document coding rather than being assigned to substantive tasks in the Legal Assistant group.

[My unexplained transition to the Litigation Support Group in March 1990 constituted a demotion, a possible unlawfully discriminatory act under the D.C Human Rights Act of 1977.]

5. During my three year tenure with the Respondent I was harassed, on the basis of perceived sexual orientation, by staff persons, associates and partners of the Respondent. As a result of the harassment, I formed the belief that my employment with the Respondent was in jeopardy, which combined with the warning of the legal Assistant Administrator, militated against my inquiring as to an associate position with the Respondent.

6. During a meeting with my supervisor, Ms. Christine Robertson, in early August 1991, I requested that she consider my being reassigned to the legal assistant group under Mr. J.D. Neary and Ms. Maggie Sinnott so that I might have the opportunity to perform more substantive assignments. I was never advised by Ms. Robertson that she had followed up on my request. On October 23, 1991, in a meeting with Mr. Earl L. Segal, the partner who oversees the Legal Assistant program, I again requested that the firm consider my being reassigned to the Legal Assistant group, implicitly stating a desire to be provided an opportunity to perform more substantive assignments. Four days later, on October 29, 1991, I was advised that the Respondent had decided to terminate me. I believe that I was terminated on the basis of my perceived sexual orientation.

6. Some time in 1990, Mr. Brian Burns, a legal assistant who had been employed by the Respondent since about 1985, was granted an associate position. Mr. Burns is a member of the D.C. Bar. To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Burns is not a homosexual. I believe that during his tenure with the Respondent, Mr. Burns was consistently granted substantive assignments that eased his transition from legal assistant to practicing attorney. In effect, Mr. Burns’ position with the Respondent was an “associate-track” legal assistant position. My educational and professional experience also qualified me for an associate-track legal assistant position with the Respondent; a like position was never offered to me. The harassment that I underwent during my tenure, which carried with it the implied threat of termination, precluded me from requesting an associate-track legal assistant position.

7. The Respondent has a policy requiring that prospective associates be admitted to the D.C. bar. I do not know when this policy was adopted or how strictly the policy is enforced. The policy would, of course, not have barred me from being employed in an associate-track legal assistant position, with the understanding that I be offered an associate position upon admission to the D.C. bar.

8. In a letter dated February 7, 1985, before my employment with the Respondent, I submitted a resume to the Respondent’s hiring committee, requesting consideration for an associate position. I was not a member of the D.C. bar in February 1985. The Respondent’s Hiring Committee advised me by letter dated February 14, 1985 that, regrettably, it had to deny my request for an interview despite my excellent credentials because of the limited number of openings then available. The Respondent did not cite as a reason for denying me an interview the fact that I was not a member of the D.C. bar.

9. Mr. Brian Burns is employed as an associate in the Respondent’s tax group. The Respondent’s tax group is headed by a partner named Mr. David Hardee. During my tenure with the Respondent, I experienced a number of harassing interactions with Mr. Hardee, arguably evidencing an anti-homosexual bias by Mr. Hardee.

[2. During my three and one-half years association with the firm attempts to be friendly with employees, including attorneys, were frequently met with a hostile reaction. For example, one morning in about late June 1988, while walking behind attorney David Hardee, near whose office I worked for a time, I asked wither the plastic bag he was carrying contained his breakfast. He responded in a rude tone of voice, “No, it’s drugs!”

One morning in late October 1988, I had a brief conversation with Lisa Hassell, who was David Hardee’s secretary. The next morning I attempted to engage her in conversation again. She seemed to freeze, and look over her shoulder into her bosses’ office. I inferred that Mr. Hardee had told Ms. Hassell not to talk to me.

* * * *

[David Hardee was a tax partner who had professional ties to Vernon Jordan. Jordan served on the Board of Directors of RJR Nabisco, a client that Hardee represented. The head of the firm's tax practice group was Charles Levy whose office was adjacent to that of Bob Strauss. Hardee was active in Democratic party politics and attended the 1988 Democratic presidential nominating convention. Hardee seemed consistently hostile to me, more so than any other attorney at the firm.

I was assigned to work in a private office on the fifth floor by my supervisor, Maggie Sinnott, on her initiative, in mid-June 1988, a brief time after I was hired as an Akin Gump temporary employee, effective June 13, 1988. I did not request a private office. It is interesting to note that Akin Gump alleged in an interrogatory response filed with the D.C. Department of Human Rights that I demanded to work in total isolation. In this instance my supervisor isolated me, on her initiative. I remained in this office, adjacent to that of David Hardee, until March 17, 1989.

* * * *

11. In mid-June 1988, shortly after being hired as a firm temporary employee, I was assigned a private office on the fifth floor. On the first morning in that office space as I was getting a cup of coffee in an adjacent kitchen area, an attorney, whom I later learned was named David Hardee, said to me, “I smell something sweet in here. Do you smell something sweet in here?” I said, “No.” He repeated, “I smell something sweet in here.”

The D.C. Department of Human Rights made a specific finding that I told Akin Gump about this incident. The incident, characterized by the DHR as an "idea of reference," might be more accurately described as innuendo. Note also that the notion that Jews have an unpleasant sweet odor is stereotypically anti-Semitic.

DHR Finding of Fact 4(c):

(c) In mid-June 1988, at about the time Complainant was hired by the Respondent, Complainant was assigned a private office on the fifth floor. On the first morning in that office space, as Complainant was getting a cup of coffee in an adjacent kitchen area, an attorney, whom Complainant later learned was a partner named David Hardee, said to Complainant, “I smell something sweet in here. Do you smell something sweet in here?” Complainant said, “No.” Mr. Hardee repeated, “I smell something sweet in here.”

Complainant stated that he ascribed a homosexual meaning to Mr. Hardees’s comments. Mr. Race asked Complainant why Complainant ascribed a homosexual meaning to Mr. Hardees’s comments.]

10. Some time during the summer of 1989, The Washington Times reported on an alleged homosexual incident involving an attorney in the Respondent’s Dallas office. One would like to know how the Respondent’s management handled this incident, specifically how the handling of the matter reflected management’s attitudes and policies regarding attorneys suspected of homosexual activities.

[21. One day during the summer of 1989, while working in office space shared with legal assistants Stacey Schaar and Gwen Lesh, Ms. Lesh had a vivid telephone conversation with her brother about a sexual encounter he had had the previous evening with a female. She said, among other things, “You used a rubber, didn’t you? You used a rubber, I hope.” Shortly after this telephone conversation, Stacey Schaar arrived in the office with Xerox copies of a newspaper article about a homosexual encounter that had allegedly occurred between an attorney in the firm’s Dallas office and a male prostitute. Ms. Schaar proceeded to distribute a copy of the article to me and others in private offices in the vicinity.]

11. To the best of my knowledge there are no homosexual attorneys in the Respondent’s Washington office. One would like to know whether the Respondent has an unstated policy excluding homosexual attorneys or attorneys suspected of homosexual orientation.

[In fact, during my tenure one of the Respondent's partners, Clint Batterton, Esq., was openly-homosexual. See Comment No. 16 contributed by Clint Batterton.]

12. Some time in the first half of 1990, while riding alone in an elevator with a partner of the Respondent. Mr. David Essential, Mr. Eisenstat proceeded to pace back and forth and whistle, all the while grimacing at me. I experienced Mr. Eisenstat behavior as offensive and intimidating. Mr. Eisenstat is the husband of the Respondent’s attorney recruitment administrator, Ms. Nina Eisenstein. Around noon on October 29, 1991, after having been advised of my termination, shortly after I got off the elevator in the lobby area to leave the building, Ms. Eisenstein glared at my genital area.

[See Department of Human Rights Finding of Fact 4(j):

(j) Some time in 1990, while Complainant was riding alone in an elevator with a partner, David Eisenstat, Mr. Eisenstat began to pace back and forth and whistle, all the while glancing at Complainant.

Mr. Race asked Complainant why Complainant interpreted Mr. Eisenstat’s behavior as relating to Complainant. Mr. Race, offering a possible explanation for Mr. Eisenstat’s behavior, stated that Mr. Eisenstat is an “intense guy.” Complainant added that he believed that Mr. Eisenstat may be Jewish, and stated that the anecdote concerning Mr. Eisenstat raised a question as to whether the harassment was based on an anti-Semitic animus.]
________________________

Arguably, the above facts raise a question as to whether the Respondent’s failure to offer me an associate position or an associate-track legal assistant position constitutes an unlawful discriminatory practice on the basis of sexual orientation, in violation of the District of Columbia Human Rights Act of 1977.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman

cc: Donald M. Stocks
___________________________

The following are pertinent portions of Complainant's Reply to Respondent's Response to Interrogatories and Document Request, which I filed with DHR on January 5, 1993:

10. Respondent's assertion that Dennis Race advised Complainant at the termination meeting on October 29, 1991 that it did not have a position similar to his job tasks for client Eastern Airline (R. 4) and that "there did not appear to be a good fit" with other employees (R. 5) is misleading and conceals Respondent's discriminatory denial of opportunities for promotion.

Complainant’s education, background and professional experience qualified him for consideration for three types of positions with Respondent: legal assistant, law clerk, or associate.

In response to Complainant’s request that he be considered for reassignment to the Legal Assistant program Dennis Race advised Complainant at the termination meeting on October 29, 1991 that he had spoken to Legal Assistant Administrator, Maggie Sinnott and Legal Assistant Coordinator, John D. Neary about such a reassignment. Mr. Race advised Complainant that both Ms. Sinnott and Mr. Neary had told him that they could not work with Complainant, that they found him difficult to work with, and that they were afraid of Complainant.

(The Response omits details concerning Complainant’s request or reassignment to the Legal Assistant program and the comments Dennis Race made at the termination meeting regarding Complainant’s request for reassignment. Respondent, however, admits that Complainant made a request for reassignment to the Legal Assistant program (See Attachment D [Memo of Earl. L. Segal to Personal File dated October 23, 1991])).

Dennis Race failed to investigate the possibility that the comments of Ms. Sinnott and Mr. Neary may have been made in retaliation for Complainant's allegations of harassment or may have been an unlawful discriminatory practice aimed at depriving Complainant of employment opportunities.

The actions of Ms. Sinnott during the summer of 1990 are at variance with her assertion at the time of Mr. Race's investigation that she could not work with Complainant, or that she was afraid of him. Sometime during the summer of 1990, after Complainant had been reassigned to the Litigation Support group, Maggie Sinnott went out of her way to advise Complainant that transcript digesting work was available--work typically performed by other legal assistants and not Litigation Support employees. At that time Maggie Sinnott was no longer Complainant’s supervisor. Maggie Sinnott's comments about Complainant to Dennis Race at the time of the job termination, which contributed to Mr. Race's conclusion that "there did not appear to be a good fit" with other employees, was apparently not made in good faith.

Mr. Race's statement that it did not have a position similar to Complainant’s job tasks for the client Eastern Airlines or that "there did not appear to be a good fit" conceals the fact that Mr. Race did not investigate the possibility of having the Complainant employed on other positions for which he is qualified, namely law clerk or associate.

Mr. Race's failure to investigate the possibility of employing Complainant in the position of law clerk or associate was an unlawful discriminatory practice (See Attachment F).

Complainant is licensed to practice law. He is a member of the bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and was awarded the degree of J.D. by Temple University School of Law. Complainant also holds the degree of LL.M. in International Legal Studies from The Washington College of Law, The American University. The field of international law is a major practice area of the Respondent.

During the entire period of Complainant's employment with the Respondent Complainant was harassed, on the basis of perceived sexual orientation, by staff persons, associates, and partners of the Respondent. As a result of the harassment, Complainant formed the belief that his employment with the Respondent was in jeopardy.

The hostile work environment to which Complainant was subjected deprived him of the opportunity to seek a position with the Respondent for which he was qualified. Other employees of the Respondent, however, were not similarly deprived of employment opportunities. The limitation on Complainant’s opportunities for promotion was discriminatory.

Jan Fraser-Smith, an agency-supplied temporary employee, who began her assignment with the Respondent at about the same time as the Complainant, in March 1988, and who worked as a document coder on the same project as the Complainant, was later hired by the Respondent as a law clerk. Though Complainant is qualified to work as a law clerk he was never offered such a position. The harassment that Complainant suffered during his employment, which carried the implied threat of termination, precluded Complainant from requesting a more substantive position with the Respondent.

Sometime in 1990, Brian Burns, a legal assistant who had been employed by the Respondent since about 1985, was granted a position as associate. Complainant believes that Brian Burns is not a homosexual. During his employment with the respondent as a legal assistant, Brian Burns was consistently granted substantive assignments that eased his transition from legal assistant to practicing attorney. In effect, Brian Burns' position with the Respondent was an "associate-track" legal assistant position. Complainant's education and professional experience also qualified him for an associate-track legal assistant position with the Respondent; a like position was never offered to Complainant. The harassment that Complainant suffered during his employment, which carried the implied threat of termination, precluded Complainant from requesting an associate-track legal assistant position.

In a letter dated February 7, 1985, before Complainant’s employment with Respondent, Complainant submitted a resume to the Respondent's Hiring Committee requesting consideration for an associate position. The Respondent's Hiring Committee advised the Complainant by letter dated February 14, 1985 that, regrettably, it had to deny Complainant's request for an interview despite his excellent credentials because of the limited number of openings then available (See Attachment F).

Dennis Race's statement that "there did not appear to be a good fit" between Complainant and other employees conceals Respondent's discriminatory failure, or refusal, to investigate the possibility of employing Complainant in other positions for which he qualified.

I Survived Big Brother

2012-01-12T08:37:00.001-05:00

Big Brother is a fictional character in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is the enigmatic dictator of Oceania, a totalitarian state taken to its utmost logical consequence – where the ruling Party wields total power for its own sake over the inhabitants.

In the society that Orwell describes, everyone is under complete surveillance by the authorities, mainly by telescreens. The people are constantly reminded of this by the phrase "Big Brother is watching you", which is the core "truth" of the propaganda system in this state.

Since the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the term "Big Brother" has entered the lexicon as a synonym for abuse of government power, particularly in respect to civil liberties, often specifically related to mass surveillance.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell describes the power of denial, of being able to split one's responsible awareness, as part of the principe of doublethink:

"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing both . . . to forget, then to draw it back into the memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all to apply the same process to the process itself . . . consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then once again to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink."

September 25, 1992
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Apartment 136
Washington, DC 20008

Mr. Donald M. Stocks
Government of the District
of Columbia
Department of Human Rights and
Minority Business Development
2000 14th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009

RE: Docket No. 92-087-P(N)
Gary Freedman -v- Akin, Gump, Hauer & Feld

Dear Mr. Stocks:

I respectfully offer additional facts in support of the contention that the termination of my employment by the Respondent in the above referenced matter was knowlingly wrongful and intentionally discriminatory.

On October 29, 1991, at the meeting at which Dennis Race advised me that I was being terminated, Mr. Race stated at various times during my employment certain employees (presumably supervisory employees) had placed statements in my personnel file, without my knowledge, detailing various infractions and instances of misconduct. He stated, "These are things you don't know about." Present at the meeting at that time were my supervisor, Christine Robertson, and the personnel administrator, Laurel Digweed.

However, not unlike Senator Joseph McCarthy and his elusive list of purported communists in the State Department, Mr. Race did not show me the referenced statements, and did not name the individuals who made the statements, or summarize the content of the statements. I do not know whether my personnel file, in fact, contains any such statements.

Mr. Race's reference to possibly nonexistent evidence against me -- secret charges by nameless accusers -- is consistent with a course of conduct at the termination that was calculated to intimidate and enrage in an attempt to provoke an incident and ultimately elicit incriminating statements and/or behaviors. Once again, attempts to elicit incriminating evidence -- after the decision to terminate had already been made -- strongly indicate that the Respondent's decision to terminate was groundless, knowlingly wrongful and malicious, and intentionally discriminatory. Mr. Race's conduct suggests that he was engaged in an Orwellian effort to create a post hoc justification for an initially unjustified termination. And certainly, irrespective of any attempt to provoke, Mr. Race's action of resorting to references to possibly nonexistent evidence against me is, in itself, highly suggestive that the decision to terminate was groundless, and knowingly so.

Further, one wonders how Mr. Race could have reviewed my personnel file without also stumbling across my job evaluations, including the one dated May 1991 that describes me as being "as close to the perfect employee as is possible to find."

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman

Record on Appeal at 525-526. Freedman v. D.C. Dept. Human Rights, D.C.C.A. No. 96-CV-961 (Sept. 1, 1998).

I sent the above letter on September 25, 1992 three months before I received, in late December 1992 (record at 511), Akin Gump's Response to Interrogatories and Document Request, a document production that disclosed that my personnel file in fact contained no record of any reprimands (oral or writen) or any "statements" of the nature referenced by Dennis Race at the termination meeting on October 29, 1991.

Dennis Race had engaged in a carefully constructed lie at the termination.

My Daily Struggles

LL.M. in International Trade Law: American University Acceptance

LL.M. in Taxation -- Acceptance to Villanova Law School Program

Letter to James L. Kestell, Esq.

Letter to James L. Kestell, Esq.

A Grievance with Non-Psychoanalysts

Gift to my Sister -- And Family Psychopathology

Reading Double Meanings: Ideas of Reference or Immaturity

Worshipping Jesus is Gay

The Birth of My Niece

Thank You!

Temple Law School -- Admission as Second Year Transfer Student

Hogan & Hartson Mobbing Complaint: Defensive Response by Coworker

Hogan & Hartson: Overtime Hours -- Week of December 29, 1986

"First the Nobel? Now, the Oscars?"

Ambiguity Tolerance

Franklin Institute Coworker -- Correspondence

Condolence Letter -- Franklin Institute Coworker

Social Security Claim -- Evidence that I Viewed It as a Litigation Strategy

Me and Cartoon Physics

Message to the Powers That Be

Hogan & Hartson: Overtime Compensation

GW Psychiatric Treatment: Initial Assessment -- Treatment History

GW: Lithium Prescription for Bi-Polar Disorder

GW: Lithium Prescription for Bi-Polar Disorder

GW: Lithium Prescription for Bipolar Disorder

Akin Gump: Psychoanalytic Theory Applied to Defensive Pleadings

Color of Law Abuse: Constitutional Rights Violation

Curious Omissions

Espe Rebollar

Summary

Experience

Litigation Support Senior Project Manager

Nossaman LLP

Skills

Contact Espe for:

Function Trumps Label: On Winning My Case With the IRS

Hogan & Hartson: On Driving Your Supervisor Crazy

In Memoriam: Bernard E. Epstein

In Memoriam: Alec Peters

"Professor Laurence Tribe is Married to an Extra-Terrestrial Alien!"

"Professor Laurence Tribe is in League with Racketeers!"

My Sister

Hogan & Hartson: The "Generating Overtime" Canard

Interesting Parallel

My Life Was Saved By A Bad Joke!

Message to the Powers That Be

A Different World -- A Different Notion of Time

What You Put in Your Head, The Bastards Can't Take Away From You!

Maui Wowie!!

Hogan & Hartson: Latent Anti-Semitic Acting Out?

The Management Committee

Question for Dennis M. Race: Can A Computer be Paranoid, Unemployable, and Potentially Violent?

Craig W. Dye: Trivial Recollections

D.C. Court of Appeals -- Order re: Filing Appeal 96-CV-961

Hogan & Hartson: Circumstantial Evidence of Mobbing

Hogan & Hartson Termination: February 1988

Hogan & Hartson: Memo re: Snow Days

I Dreamed

Dreaming

Dream

I Had a Wonderfully Beautiful Dream!

The Dreams

Winter Dreams

Dreams

Nothing Will Remain Unavenged

Significant Moments: Daniel Pearl -- October 10, 1963 to February 1, 2002

Why I Blog

There's Only One Freedman!

Mystery Blogger

Condolence Message -- Franklin Institute Coworker

Subtle Job Harassment: State Court Recognition as of 1986

Freedman v. Akin Gump: Receipt of Akin Gump Response

Akin Gump Surveillance: Apartment Manager

Akin Gump Surveillance: Pattern of Suspicious Behavior

Akin Gump Sensitivity About Embarrassing Blog Posts

Akin Gump: Anti-Semitic Stereotyping -- The Jew as Moral Hypocrite

The Tanenbaums

Akin Gump: Wrongful Demotion and Failure to Honor Promise for Advancement

I Survived Big Brother