Thoughts from the shower...

I. Freedom of Speech

Thursday, April 22nd, at about 6:15 pm I received a phone call from Sandie Rolenaitis. She began by asking me to do her a favor. The favor she wanted was that I remove her husband's name from my blog. I responded by telling her that I would think it over and since we lived in the US of A there was a little issue of Freedom of Speech. I also said that we were eating dinner (which we were) and we rang off.

Moments later the phone rang again and we did not pick up. Yes, we knew it was from the Rolenaitis' again. Tom was calling and he left a very angry message. He said that slander was not legal and that if I did not take down my blog he had someone who would take care of it.

Comments:
1) There is no freedom to slander. Slander is the verbal use of false information with the intention of doing harm to another person.
2) There is no freedom to libel. Libel is the use of printed false information with the intention of doing harm to another person. In these two cases if a suit is brought the level of proof must also include ACTUAL harm.
3) There is no freedom to use any language to do harm to others by crying "fire" when there is none or inciting a riot.
There probably are a few other specifics that might also be forbidden but I am sure that expressing one's opinion is not one of them.

Returning to the events of that day.

The time stamp on the email that I then received from Laurie Stone was 6:37 pm. This was barely 10 minutes after Tom had left his message. In addition to pointing to an error I had made in the history of HKC she also demanded that I remove her name from my blog and that if I did not she would take legal action.

With this threat Dennis asked me to take it down and since she had threatened both of us I deferred to his request. Personally I would have kept it up just to see how far they would go but I will not risk another person because of my beliefs.

One more thought on the subject of my blog. I have had a blog for several years on my web site. I believe that none of you have ever read it and maybe no one in the rest of the world has. I have never had a response from anything I have written except for those who send programs crawling across the web for nefarious reasons. I asked Sandie how she had come to my blog and she said that Tom has a program that goes around the web looking for his name. It took it four days from the posting of this entry for him to find this reference.

My blog entry was titled My History with HKC . . . and was written to comment on the friends I had lost due to my continuing to ask questions. I did name names of those I have lost but without Tom's paranoia I believe no one would have ever read this.

II. Communication within the club

Laurie Stone, as the chairman of the April 2010 show, has been almost impossible for me to communicate with. An email question that I sent elicited a response that accused me of “trying to start a pissing contest.” She did not answer the question that I had asked.

Because of this response, when I was asked by Sally and Susie to find out the situation with the vet services, I decided to wait until the January board meeting to ask the question face-to-face. This method was also not successful. We did get a response from Brian Brubaker that said that the vet service they wanted to use did not have any money to sponsor our show in their budget. We interpreted this as there was no reason to change what we were doing and I directed Laurie on that basis to contact the organization we had been using. As a result Laurie has resigned from the chairmanship for future April shows.

One more comment on the sponsorship question in regard to VCA. In most business transactions if a company is seeking to begin a relationship with another they present a proposal. I am not sure that HKC should join with another vet practice without something in writing that indicates how HKC would benefit from this alliance.

III. Doing business as HKC

This issue is that of" who is in charge of what business conducted by the club?"

The structure of the club is the same as the national government up to a point. The “buck” does stop with the president of the club and if that person is to be answerable to the club members and the public they are entitled to the information to make that position possible. It follows that they should be able to question any member about what they are doing in the name of the club. I would also expect a detailed report to be given at appropriate times and places of any activities that the club has asked them to perform.

In the course of doing work for the club the question comes up of what to do when the work is suspect. What should the president do when there is concern that work that must be done is not being done in the time frame required? If they are not able to ask questions without retaliation, as I was, the good of the club is not being supported. I felt for the last six months or so that I was not able to do what should have been done. Thus I can see no future for me in this club.

I hope you will consider giving respect to the office of president even if you do not respect the person. I can't imagine that anyone will want to serve this club the way you are now treating each other. I certainly don't.