R.I.P. JACKS

Jacks (on left)

Survived the mudslide and aftermath (six days in the dark without food or water).

Life of the party

ST. DYMPHNA DAY

Today is the Feast Day of St. Dymphna, patron saint of lunatics.

She was born in Ireland, very early in the seventh century, the daughter of a pagan king named Damon and a mother who converted to Christianity to ensure Dymphna would be educated by a priest named Gerebern.

Dymphna's beautiful mother met a sudden, young death.

Her father, inconsolable in the aftermath, fell into a deep and very dark depression.

Damon's courtiers worried that their king's mental health would further deteriorate unless he found a new bride, and they urged him to do so.

Thus, Damon dispatched envoys throughout Ireland to find a woman as beautiful as the wife he'd lost.

When they returned without a new woman, a deranged notion struck the king.

My daughter, Dymphna, looks almost identical to her mother...

Dymphna was horrified by her father’s proposal. 

Each time she refused his advances, the king’s rage grew worse.  

Gerebern, the priest, was also perplexed by this situation, and he plotted an escape.

With assistance from the court jester, Dymphna and Gerebern crossed the English Channel by boat and sailed up the River Schelde to Antwerp in what is now Belgium.

Feeling unsafe near a waterway, they made their way inland to Zammel, a small settlement of about fifteen houses, six miles from what would later become Gheel.

When King Damon realized his daughter and the pesky priest had duped him and fled, he went nuts.  (Also, he no longer had a court jester to help him see the humor in this.)

With a small army of warriors in three boats, Damon set sail in search of Dymphna.  

How did he know where to go?  

For two months Damon followed the money.  

Dymphna and Gerebern recklessly left a trail of their native coins as payment for services rendered en route to a new life abroad.  

The final tip came from a woman at an inn called The Kettle, in a village called Westerlo.  She pointed out the direction Dymphna had taken. (Legend suggests arthritis cut in immediately; the woman’s arm remained rigidly outstretched the rest of her life.)

When Dymphna and Gerebern learned the king and his warriors were near, they fled Zammel.  

But not fast enough.  

The king caught up with them six miles away.

Blaming the couple’s misadventure on Gerebern, Damon slew the priest without further ado (no trial necessary).  

Then he asked his daughter one last time:  “Will you marry me?”

Dymphna declined.                                                     

Damon commanded his warriors to execute his daughter.  

Not one stepped forward. 

So the crazed king raised his mighty sword and severed Dymphna’s head with one blow. 

(No one knows what happened to the court jester.)  

Adding insult to murder and mayhem, Damon and his warriors left the scene without bothering to bury their victims.

Zammel’s citizens were greatly distressed by the carnage they found at the scene.  

They interred Dymphna and Gerebern at the very spot they were slain.

Word of what happened that tragic day in 621 A.D. traveled around Europe.  

Within a few hundred years (word traveled slow back then), the burial site became a shrine for mentally disordered pilgrims.  

They discovered that if they prayed at Dymphna’s burial site, to her relics (bones), their mental illnesses gave way to sanity. 

(It sure beat an Abilify/Zoloft cocktail.)  

After notching up a few such miracles, Dymphna qualified for sainthood

A whole town grew up around it.  

The town of Gheel.

Gheel evolved into a thriving, open-air loony bin.

Belgium's mentally-disordered and sanity-challenged citizens are fostered into local families as part of a program called Family Care System of Mental Patients, and is considered to be the world's most humane way of looking after the insane.

Dymphna Church, Gheel
Thomas Van Stein

TC REINER: TAX ISSUES

Reiner Edmund Schmegner

This was Reiner Schmegner's admission during a recent copyright infringement case (which he lost): 

"TC Reiner" did not file any tax returns during the years 2004-2015.

Public Record

Of course, "TC Reiner" did not file tax returns.

"TC Reiner" cannot file tax returns because he's not a real person!

What really went down in that court case is this: 

Schmegner willfully deceived the court and concealed his true identity to evade the Discovery process!

Consequently, this question begs to be asked: 

Has "TC Reiner" filed tax returns under his real name, Reiner Edmund Schmegner?

And, if so, has Schmegner reported income paid to "TC Reiner"?

If not, it may partly explain why Schmegner has attempted, for a couple decades, to hide behind a fictitious name.

We do know that Schmegner had serious issues with the IRS during the period before he began using the fictitious name "TC Reiner."

Liens & Judgments

Filing Number: 9165261

Filing Type: Federal Tax Releases

Date: 11 October 1991

Release Date: 8 May 1996

Court: 1033000

Filing Office: Massachusetts Central Filing

Filing Address: US District Court, Boston, MA 02210 (Suffolk)

    Subjudgments:

Debtor Name: Reiner E. Schmegner

Debtor Type: Consumer

Debtor Amount: $24,289

Debtor Address: 556 S. Main Street, Centerville, MA 02632

Perhaps the IRS (and California State tax authorities) will become interested in Schmegner and/or his earnings as "TC Reiner."

Tax issues aside, any lawsuit that "TC Reiner" initiates against anyone over an alleged business arrangement can and should be challenged on these grounds:

a) It is improper t0 file a lawsuit under an unregistered fictitious name.

Schmegner has done this habitually as "TC Reiner," defrauding courts and defendants around the country.

Pop "TC Reiner lawsuits" into a search engine and see for yourself.

b) It is improper to conduct business under an unregistered fictitious name.

Schmegner does this habitually.

And if a Schmegner-initiated lawsuit concerns an alleged copyright infringement...

c) It is improper to claim copyright under a pseudonym unless it is registered as such.

Public Record
Improper copyright registration
(The pseudonym box is not ticked)

Hopefully, our posts will prevent this serial suer and proven deceiver from perpetuating his proclivity for shakedowns and litigation, fraud and deceit.

More important, now that this information is in the public domain it may deter innocents from wandering into this Schmeg's schticky web of chicanery.

Click these links for further info...  

Clubhouse on Wheels: TC REINER is actually REINER EDMUND SCHMEGNER

Clubhouse on Wheels: "TC REINER": FRAUD & DECEIT UPDATE

(Or just click the Scoundrel label below.)

FARMERS MARKET

TRASHY

What my old stomping grounds (La Cienega & Beverly) in toddler-hood have become.

Travel Back in Time to Kiddieland: The theme park that inspired Disneyland | Roadtrippers

Beverly Park, otherwise known as Kiddieland and Ponyland, was replaced by Beverly Center, which could easily win grand prize for ugliest shopping center ever built.

ICONIC WEST HOLLYWOOD

ROOM WITH A VIEW

The Hills of Beverly

Century City

MACHIAVELLI: 550 YEARS-OLD TODAY

When he was twenty-five years old in 1494, two years after Columbus discovered America, Niccolo Machiavelli—or "Machia," to his friends—entered government service, as a clerk, in Florence.

Florence was then a well fortified and bustling city-state and its autocratic Medici rulers had just been overthrown and expelled, allowing Florence to be transformed into a republic.

This suited Machia just fine since he was a republican at heart and a non-religious humanist in conscience.

But, although a republican, Machia came to believe that only an autocratic royal ruler, a prince, could defend a city-state from hostile foreign powers. 

One such hostile foreign power was the Pope and his papal army, along with neighboring city-states, such as Pisa.

Machia kept his republican thoughts to himself while rising to the position of Second Chancellor and undertaking diplomatic missions to other city-states.

In addition, for three years Machia took charge of the Florentine militia, whose job it was to defend the city.

It all turned sour for Machia in August 1512 when the republic was scrapped and a new Pope helped the autocratic Medici family—specifically, Cardinal Giovanni Medici—restore Medici rule. 

The Medici family returned with a vengeance.  

On November 7^th, Machia was fired from his job.

A couple of months later, Machia was arrested and accused of conspiring to overthrow the new Medici regime.

Machia was thrown into the clink and interrogated.

His interrogators tortured him.  

They used a form of torture called Strappado.

Machia was hoisted from his hands, which were tied behind his back, to the ceiling—and dropped, stopping just short of hitting the floor. 

Six times.  

Machia admitted nothing, denied everything, maybe grew an inch or two.

The Medici interrogators eventually released Machia.

They booted Machia’s butt to the Machiavelli family estate in San Casciano, about twenty miles from Florence, and told him not to come back.

Politics and statecraft was all that Machia truly cared about. 

Machia tried to talk his way back into Florence, pledging support for the Medici rule, anything that would keep him engaged in statecraft.

To no avail.    

For a political junkie like Machia, exile was almost as bad as the Strappado.

To take his mind off the political intrigue he was missing in Florence, Machia toiled by day in the fields of his family estate, supervising the cutting of trees to be sold as firewood.

Back then, firewood was the prime energy source.

Kind of like oil is today.

After work, Machia played backgammon in the local tavern.    

Evenings he reserved for solitude and madness.  

This is what Machia wrote to his friend Francesco Vettori on December 10th, 1513:

When evening comes, I return to my house and enter my study; and at the door I strip naked, taking off the day’s clothing, covered with mud and dust, and put on the regal robes of court and palace; and re-clothed appropriately, I enter the ancient courts of ancient men, where, received by them with affection, I feed on that food which is only mine and which I was born for, where I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions; and they in their kindness answer me; and for four hours of time I do not feel boredom, I forget every trouble, I do not dread poverty, I am not frightened by death; entirely I give myself over to them and I pass indeed into their world.

Machia believed that he interacted directly with Dante, Plutarch, and Plato.  

This was Machia’s art, upon which he became totally focused.

It provided Machia therapeutic escape from his fears and depression and led, ultimately, to Machia penning The Prince–-a work produced by what today’s New Agers would call trance-channel, as told to Machia by Dante, Plutarch, and Plato.

No doubt Machia suffered depression from his banishment. 

But did torture push him over the edge of sanity, into the realm of hallucination?  

Talking to the dead qualifies as an idea of reference.

Hallucination is criterion for schizophrenic disorder. 

Machia’s words also imply fears of poverty and death-delusions, which are symptoms of psychosis.

  

Simply put, Machia had gone nuts. 

The Medici family and their interrogators drove Machia to depression and madness, first with the Strappado, and then exile.

Machia’s dialog with the great philosophers, which morphed into The Prince, was published posthumously thirty years after he wrote it.  

Like Vincent van Gogh, Machia died feeling a failure.  

Machia tried to use his unpublished treatise, The Prince, to tease the Medici family into bringing him back to Florence and help them govern their prized city-state. 

Machia’s manuscript was duly hand-delivered to Cardinal Giovanni de Medici.

But Giovanni did not even bother to read it.

Truth was, the Medici family had Machia pegged: 

Machiavelli was a mediocre statesman who took no risks for fear of compromising himself.  

Machia was good at two things:  

One, playing all sides.

Two, writing treatises, for which his name endures.  

When the Medici family crashed and burned in 1527, giving way to a new republican government, Machia rushed to Florence to lobby for high position. 

But he got sick along the way, and died.

(Talk about bad luck.)

A few centuries later, Merriam-Webster would define Machiavellian as cunning or devious. 

This would have surprised Machia.

It would also have surprised him that his well-known smirk would captivate the world’s attention for centuries to come.  

How so?

This is where we crack the real Da Vinci code. 

Forget Dan Brown and his novel of that name.

The real story is that Machia and Leonardo da Vinci knew one another in Florence during the first decade of the 1500s. 

Machia and Leonardo even worked together, from 1503 until 1506.

They worked together on a bold and very secret engineering project to re-route the River Arno away from the city-state of Pisa.

Why did those charged with the defense of Florence want to re-route the River Arno away from Pisa?

Because Florence and Pisa were constantly at war, and Florence desired to deprive the Pisans of a fresh water supply.  

This bold engineering project failed.

In those days, if a project failed, those who committed the failure were often rounded up and executed.

Fearing that arrest and execution might be imminent, Leonardo fled Florence and exiled himself to Milan.

Leonardo did this not just because he feared reprisal, but also because of a broken heart.

Why was Leonardo’s heart broken?

Not from a failed engineering project.

From from unreturned love.

Leonardo was homosexual.  

And Leonardo was in love with Machiavelli.  

Leonardo demonstrated his love by painting Machia as a woman.  

The Mona Lisa.

These are the facts:

Mona Lisa was painted between 1503 and 1506, the same years Machia and Leonardo worked together on their bold engineering project.

Mona’s “mysterious smile” is Machia’s "enigmatic smirk."

Machia’s biographer described Machia’s enigmatic smirk as “neither a grin nor a sneer; a shield to protect against prying eyes.”   

Mona’s lash-less, almond-shaped eyes and manly hands also match Machia’s lash-less, almond-shaped eyes and manly hands.

But there is more.

The valley behind Mona Lisa is where the Arno River diversion was projected to take place.

Leonardo first sketched this valley as part of his engineering project with Machia, and he used those sketches as the background when he painted Mona Lisa.

Leonardo always refused to sell Mona Lisa.

Instead, he kept Mona Lisa near him, as a remembrance of Machia, the man who broke his heart.