I've been out of work for most of the last five years. Many well-meaning yet sadly misinformed people give me what doubtlessly would be good advice for others, for example that I should go on disability, get into subsidized housing or to stop linking my essays about my mental illness from every page on my website, but those well-meaning people do not understand my values.
For reasons having largely to do with the way I was raised, it is far, far more important to me to solve the problems of others than it is to solve my own problems. I sent this just now to an administrator at the Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. I have many reasons to study law but primary among them are that while the legal rights of the mentally ill are well-established in legislation as well as court precedent, those rights are not only not enforced, they are largely unknown. That led for example, to my being very nearly beaten to death by two Oregon Health & Sciences University campus police officers. When I regained consciousness three days later, while I could correctly visualize the spelling of my name when I thought out it, I could not spell it correctly when I tried to write it by hand with a pencil. I asked the American Civil Liberties Union to represent me in a Civil Rights complaint against OHSU but recieved a form letter that pointed out that they focus only on Constitutional concerns. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense but that is what the ACLU actually said. To Wit: Ms. Sullivan, After a great deal of consideration, I have decided to change careers from Software Engineering to Public Interest as well as Civil Rights Law. However I'm not real sure how to get started. I am of very modest means; were I to go back to Physics grad school, I know my way would be paid by my advisor's research grant. I don't have a clue how I can pay for law school but given my lifelong dedication towards the service of others I expect some way can be found to pay my expenses. I wish to request an appointment for an Informational Interview, either with yourself or some other Law School staff that you recommend. My schedule is wide open. My number is (503) 688-8345 or my email is mdcrawf...@gmail.com. Among the reasons I want to read the law that I was taught from a very early age that the reason America exists was so that we would not live in the kind of country that in my actual experience, America has become. A great-great (not sure how many greats) uncle of mine, Roger Sherman, signed the Declaration of Independence - on the back of the $2.00 bill Uncle Roger is fourth from the right of the five founding fathers standing before the signing table, the tall guy with the tall forehead. I'm also related to the two Union Army General-in-Chiefs during the American Civil War, George B. McClellan and William Tecumseh Sherman. As a physicist and a computer programmer I know many ways to employ technical measures to protect our privacy and our rights however my experiences with those who don't take interest in technology is that engineering falls far short of the mark. My mother for example knows to shred her paper documents but there's no way I could ever convince her to use The Onion Router to protect her privacy. (http://torproject.org/) Mom attended Lewis and Clark her first year in college but transferred to the U of Idaho after she met my father. I attended Solano Community College and UC Davis for just a few classes after passing the California High School Proficiency Examination. I majored in Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, then transferred to UC Santa Cruz where I obtained my BA in 1993. I enrolled in graduate school with a focus on Elementary Particle Physics, but dropped out as I was not prepared financially. While I would love to go back into Physics I don't see it as solving the kinds of problems I see. My experience is that while I do not get the best grades I am very well-known for asking the most-insightful questions. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that my difficulty finding work in my present profession is due to my being so notoriously outspoken; a while back I wrote an online book called "Solving the Software Problem: a Taxonomy of Error". While I wrote it pseudonymously as "Jonathan Swift", on my "Contact" page I wrote: ================= I suppose this is a good place to clue you all in to the fact that my real name is Michael David Crawford. I use Jonathan Swift as a pseudonym not because he wrote the well-known book Gulliver's Travels but because he wrote the more historically important pamphlet A Modest Proposal. A Modest Proposal suggested that the problem of Irish poverty could be solved by slaughtering Irish infants that their meat may be served on the dinner tables of wealthy Britons. For his contribution to the social discourse of the day, Swift got a price put on his head by the British Crown. Perhaps if I work very, very hard to perfect my craft as a writer, I too might get a price put on my own head. One Can Only Hope. ================== Ever Faithful, Mike Crawford Michael David Crawford, Consulting Software Engineer mdcrawf...@gmail.com http://www.warplife.com/mdc/ Available for Software Development in the Portland, Oregon Metropolitan Area. _______________________________________________ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
