Tag Archives: Home Assoc

It’s Not About A Flag, It’s About Testosterone

I swear, I’ve gotta quit doing stories about outrageous treatment of the American Flag, there are just too many of them. I could get stuck doing 12 or 15 stories a day. Still, I feel duty-bound to at least occasionally tell you when the latest cretin is pushing around his weight after having been given new power over other homeowners.

The latest victim of a flag outrage is a retired veteran named Larry Murphree of the Tides Condominium at Sweetwater, Jacksonville, Florida. It’s actually just a small flag that he placed in a flower pot on his porch. You can barely see it. It’s sticking in the flowerpot behind the right porch rail in the photo below. He’s been fined $8000 before and he got it settled in court.

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After his court victory, Larry replaced the flag. And once again he’s being sued for $8000 and confiscation of his home. Here’s a very tight shot to show you a real good closeup of this tiny flag.

“It’s worth fighting for,” says Larry. “It’s a small flag but it stands for a big thank you and it shows the love and respect I have for my country.”

Larry, a little advice here from someone who knows. It’s not about the flag. It’s about a brain chemical called Oxytocin. If you don’t know about it look it up. When a chimpanzee of either sex is placed in a cage with a bunch of other chimps at the zoo, there’s an immediate disturbance. The new chimp races around the enclosure showing off his or her ‘equipment’, spraying the cage, making other chimps a little frightful of his or her prowess. Jane Goodall spent a lifetime studying this kind of behavior in all kinds of primates.

Larry, you’re being victimized by a new board member who thinks his or her virility is a little more chemically tinged than yours. Or maybe this board member wants you to think his or her influence among the weaker members of the tribe will carry more weight on the evolutionary scale. Whether you’re an evolutionist or not, you cannot deny that chimpanzees share approximately 96% percent of their DNA with humans. They (and orangutans) are our closest relatives. In so many ways, they’re a lot like us and we can learn from them. Your flag fight is not about patriotism. It’s about simianism. It’s about oxytocin. It’s about sex.

All science aside, there’s perhaps a bit of usable truth here. Spread this blog far and wide around the Tides At Sweetwater condominium complex. Without putting yourself in a slander trap, figure out which tiny dickensonian creature has been causing you all this misery. The good women of the Tides at Sweetwater know that as a veteran you probably came from good genetic stock. They’ll respect you. Then gather the whole community’s support as they publicly and visibly show this ‘little’ simian how ‘little’ they think your challenger’s virility really is. Each hour of each day when those community members greet that simian they should hold up their fingers about one inch apart. It’s just a guess. Just to show how much that person is regarded in the community.

Most journalists won’t tell you all of this. But since I know a little about science I will.

(Fox News story (ignore the ad, they’re getting harder and harder to skip))

Please reach out to Larry and let him know this blogsite address so he can spread it throughout the neighborhood.

And here’s a quick link from him:

(let me fly the flag)

 

 

 

Open Letter On LinkedIn About The CAI

by Deborah Goonan, Ormond Beach, FL

(The oft repeated rhetoric) is that further regulation of HOAs would amount to increased “government control.” In fact, the purpose and goal of smart regulation of HOAs is to protect owners’ rights by way of limiting the power of HOA corporate Board governance through a proven system of CHECKS AND BALANCES. The goals of regulation must not be to control community choice in HOAs, but rather to provide a favorable environment where the rights of owners are balanced against the rights of the Association, to allow for all members to have a voice in self-governance, and to promote harmony rather than division in communities. 

I trust that legislators will ignore the tired CAI, status-quo rhetoric repeated over and over again on this forum, the same rhetoric that has prevented substantive HOA reform in states all over the country. To what end? How does ignoring obvious problems, and washing one’s hands of responsibility for fair and just treatment of constituents benefit communities, states, and our country? 

I trust that readers of this and similar forums will seriously consider the cumulative negative effects that have resulted from limited respect for the rights of owners, in favor of special interests. Those of you who “get it,” please let your legislators know that you support positive reform and consumer protections for millions of owners and residents in over 300,000 community associations across the country.

Important Letter From George Staropoli

George is one of the early champions, and one of the great minds in the Homeowners Rights Movement. This email made the rounds this week, so I’m posting it to try to bring more people into his fold.
 
From George:
 
I’ve been following your emails and blogs reflecting your activism in your state.  It’s refreshing.  Keep the dialogue up you guys and remember:
 
Illegitimati non carborundum (Don’t Let The Bastards Wear You Down) — Gen. Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stillwell (WWII)
 
I am pleased with the criticism and exposure of CAI and its puppet associations of HOAs and managers.  I refer to CAI as the Evil Empire, because its miniscule majority of HOA members is less than 1% yet  it dominates and shapes all state legislation.  The question becomes: how to effect favorable HOA legislation in your state?
 
Talking between ourselves is great for unity and a better understanding of the extent of the “virus.”   And by doing so we can better reach out to the legislators and educate them to offset the years of the Ministry of Propaganda and National Enlightenment, which in today’s world refers to CAI (was Goebbels’ NAZI agency).  In my mind the broadest impact lies in reforming the 5 issues contained in my  HOA Common Sense: rejecting private government.  Of course, we must also deal with the existing unjust laws that affect HOA operations on a daily basis. 
 
But, we cannot lose sight in all of our debates, discussions, statements and emails where we want to be, and that’s getting HOA reform legislation enacted. That is the only place where change can come about (note how the AZ legislature ignored the court decision on the unconstitutional HOA statutes of last year and has allowed them to remain un-repealed).  It would be nice if policy can be set through your efforts under the name of some national unity group. 
 
I urge you to try to include this awareness in your battles with the Evil Empire.

 

-George Staropoli

 

Your Voting Rights Really Are At Risk!

There’s no better homeowners rights advocate in the country than CalHomeLaw.org., in California. I wish they’d let me link directly to some of their blog posts, but they are a paid-only subscription website and I understand and respect that. In the meantime, I have to re-purpose some of their material, while giving them full credit.

CalHomeLaw.org has been vigorously lobbying against Internet voting for Homeowners Associations. The reason is obvious. The Homeowners Association industry is a wasps nest of fraud and once they get Internet voting passed, you and I as private property owners are toast.

Their latest blog cites www.verifiedvoting.org as an expert on what goes on in elections, public AND non-profit.

Now, imagine this scenario: In California, AB-1360 would allow the HOA industry to set up its own internet election equipment, count its own votes, and name the winners. There’s no paper trail, there’s no audit. Challenging election results will be absolutely impossible.

The HOA industry has poured massive amounts of money into trying to lobby for this bill and others like it.

Remember Las Vegas? Hundreds of millions of dollars were skimmed away from Homeowners Associations into the pockets of private law firms, police officials, political bigwigs, all based on the fact that phony ‘straw men’ were elected to HOA boards in completely fixed elections!

Dang it, Folks, this is ORGANIZED CRIME! This is the NEW MAFIA!

We’ve already seen gunfire break out in a number of Homeowners Associations across America. We’ve seen suicides, and we’ve watched thousands of people evicted from longtime homes. We’ve seen cases where a buddy of the HOA lawyer bought up the victim’s home at auction for pennies on the dollars a day after the foreclosure.

Heck, we’ve even seen cases where the HOA board auctioned off and then bought a homeowner’s house and put the money back in the HOA treasury! Talk about a conflict of interest!

This is ugly stuff gang, and it’s going on in neighborhoods all around the country, even in the town you thought was so benign and peaceful.

Organize Folks! Beat these criminals down at every possible chance. I’m not much of a bell-ringing alarmist, but I know this stuff is coming. I swear to you that we are in the very real situation where Constitutional rights we all thought we once had are being pulverized. When they’re gone, we have no way of getting them back.

 

The Fight Against The Red, White & Blue

Across HOA Amerika there’s a desperate struggle to prevent homeowners from displaying the American Flag. “They’re not earth colors,” says the CAI and Associa, and a myriad of other HOA management firms that get their marching orders from above.

Thus, there was legal action taken against Colonel Barfoot who served in three wars, won the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery, a Silver star, a Bronze Star, three Purple Hearts. and saluted the flag outside his door each morning and evening. Then there was the case in Texas where a former Marine fought a pitched battle to display a few patriotic bumper stickers on his car.

No, the national Homeowners Association Movement has its own battle colors and they’re all various shades of beige and gray. And they’ll fight to the death to impose their bouquets of beiges on all the rest of us.

The latest battle is in Boston, where 52 year old Mark DiGiovanni wants to hang his flag so it shows through a window at the intersection of Congress and A Streets. But the Fort Point Condo Board says the policy is white window coverings only, and it’s prepared to fine and sue DiGiovanni’s butt if he dares to violate the ‘whites only’ policy.

One of the board members of the condo, Michael Avery, gained fame in 2011 when he called it “shameful” to support American men and women in uniform who’ve gone overseas to kill other human beings. In that same email, Professor Avery complained about an “oversized flag” in a lobby of the University.

DiGiovanni has his work cut out for him. Despite Boston being a big center of patriotism 250 years ago, there’s not much of that left these days. The Red White and Blue can give some people a bad case of hives.

(click here for Boston Herald story)