Social/Cultural Imperialism and International Human Rights

I'm taking a class right now on theories and efforts surrounding international human rights. The premise is, essentially, that there are certain privileges/immunities/rights that inhere from the human condition, i.e. you have basic rights by virtue of just existing. This is not to say, of course, that you cannot somehow forfeit these rights necessarily, but the premise is that at the outset, you do have these rights. I think this is a general principle that all people can agree on, though to different extents. A major obstacle to the implementation of such human rights is the lack of consensus among civilized countries and the lack of any unifying force to impel said nations to enact parallel schemes within their own countries to guarantee these rights.

Enter the United Nations. Up until its creation, the lack of uniformity and dialogue between nations had left international human rights as a mere aspiration, nothing more than a nice idea. Now there exists an entity with the power to influence the actions of many nations in a single act. Advances in human rights came as the U.N. enacted treaties addressing issues like genocide, war crimes, torture, and crimes against humanity. The countries that signed these treaties were then bound to enact laws pursuant to these treaties.

The U.N. also enacted a wide variety of what might be termed "social" conventions and treaties, such as the Convention to Eradicate Racism and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Although the U.S., notably, has not ratified CEDAW and is therefore immune to its conditions, the basic provisions in these conventions mirrors a distinctly western point of view with which, in my opinion, most Americans would fall in line. For example, we should strive to eliminate racism, treat women fairly, and such. In Western nations, these ideals have often been mirrored in criminal/civil law. I term these notions as "liberal" in the sense that they have brought about social change or evolution.

But what about nations that don't adhere to the Western tradition? What about cultures whose norms and values clash with these ideas? Liberals will often profess to respect and promote diversity and personal identity in all its forms, but treaties and conventions like these make me wonder if that's really the case.

Take, for example, the practice of female mutilation among some African cultures. For a variety of cultural/religious reasons, the ritual of removing or disfiguring certain parts of the female anatomy is seen as standard and accepted practice. Of course we in the Western world find this abhorrent. But to those communities that practice it, there are real spiritual, social, and cultural reasons for retaining the practice. This presents a problem: on the one hand, a supporter of women's rights would say that this is a clear violation of women's rights under CEDAW, assuming the country in question had ratified the treaty. Yet, other provisions of international human rights documents (such as the ICCPR) clearly state that all individuals and groups have an inherent right to self-determination, meaning that they are mostly free to determine how they will live within their subsets of society. For an outsider to come in and say "that's an awful practice, you can't do that!" seems to sit in direct contravention to such an idea. The same issue presents itself when considering the mandate in Muslim cultures that women cover themselves in specific ways, i.e. headscarves or bhurkas. Do we as Westerners have the right to tell those cultures what they can or cannot do via international human rights treaties? Or do we respect the beliefs and norms of cultures that are not our own? What about child labor? Economic policies?

I'm afraid that the same ideology that condemns cultural imperialism actually pursues such a course when it manifests itself in international rights documents. It's one thing to operate for change within your own society. It's entirely different for an outside body to tell a nation/group what it may or may not condone in the realm of social, economic, or cultural policies. People who support such measures may argue that we should, for example, fight for equality of race everywhere because it's just the right thing to do. This may be true in an objective sense--in other words, it may be an intrinsic, universal truth that nobody should be judged on the basis of his race or religion. I would certainly agree with that idea personally.

However, in order to justify changing other cultures to fit another's perceptions of right and wrong, two things must happen. First, the proponents must somehow be qualified to dictate or interpret universal truths. In other words, you've got to be the "know-all-end all" of truth and reason. You'd have to be more than merely human, in other words. You'd have to be God. In assailing to change another's culture or practice without being a member of the same, we essentially engage in paternalism, implying that we know what's good for someone else better than they do. This hardly sounds tenable to me if we acknowledge the inherent equality of mankind. Second, you have to abandon the relativist rationale that underlies much of "rights" talk in favor of an objective framework. You can't, in other words, say on the one hand, "Let them be free to act as they please" and on the other hand say "Thou shalt do X because it is the right thing to do." Within a particular group, that can certainly be done--cultures and religions impose all kinds of rules and regulations on their own, and gain their authority from the voluntary assent of the governed. But you can't say the same for intercultural or international situations. Surely we would not tolerate Iran, for example, attempting to enforce its own interpretation of the role of women on our culture. Yet western civilization attempts to do this very same thing to other cultures via mechanisms such as U.N. human rights treaties.

Are we in the Western world justified in defining norms of behavior for other countries and cultures? If so, how? And if not, how can one justify the U.N.'s general adherence to a Western-oriented conception of human rights?

I Don't Want to Flog a Dead Horse, But...

I've seen a lot of articles like this floating around, and I wanted to post one I thought was particularly reflective of my own feelings on the Prop 8/Mormon issue. It's good to know that people share my opinions, at least.

Mile-High Musings

Sitting here in a nondescript Starbucks in the middle of the 16th Street Mall in Denver, I can't help but wonder how I got here.  I mean, obviously I know how I got here, but it all happened so fast (and it's about to end just as abruptly) that when I think about it, I feel like there's an element of importance to the event transcending a mere trip to look for an internship.

See, Marisa and I want to live here after I graduate.  And, given how the law profession works, that means I have to apply for jobs out here for next summer, even though we'll be in Boston until mid-2010.  So I started the tedious process of job-hunting in the Rockies, with only a cloudy clue as to how to proceed.  After all, I'm not too familiar (or comfortable) with situations or processes that entail that impersonal kind of formalism.  We've all been in those situations, the ones where there are preapproved topics of conversation, you don't let them get to know you too personally, after all.  (I never understood that).  I'm talking office-type job interviews, applications for various things, all that.  But I digress.

Anyway, thanks to some very friendly people who know people who know still other people, I was able to finagle an interview with the Colorado Attorney General's Criminal Justice Division.  They asked me to come out to interview face-to-face, but, of course, government agencies don't pay travel expenses like private law firms do.  So I put a dent in my student loans/Christmas shopping funds and came out.  I had a great interview.  The people that I spoke with were very personable, very genuine, and I didn't feel like I was in some rigid conversation where innocuous remarks or anecdotes were liable to be taken to define my personality for the interviewer.  I felt very comfortable and I sincerely hope they give me the job.  Later, as I was talking to one of the attorneys privately, she told me that interns in their office usually have great success getting jobs in the Denver area.  That really got me excited.

So now I'm sitting in this nondescript Starbucks on 16th Street Mall in Denver, sipping hot chocolate (with salted carmel--highly recommended) before heading back to the airport to catch the red eye home in time to embark on a 2-day Family Law binge before my final starts.  And I feel like, in the middle of the frenzy of pre-wedding events and finals bearing down hard and quick, I've somehow taken the first step to securing a future, not only for myself, but for my fiancee.  It's one of those few times where part of me actually feels like I can make something of myself in this world, that I can provide and thrive in society and that my family can do the same.  

It feels good.  

State of The Todd, November 13, 2008

Sitting here in my dimly lit room, flat light from an overcast morning seeping unobtrusively through the blinds, I sit on my couch, plumbing the depths of my mind for the motivation to pick up the Evidence casebook lying ominously on the floor in front of me.  I should do my Evidence homework.  It's probably not even that much reading, in reality.  And yet here I am, blogging instead.  

Bathroom break...

Now, where was I?  Oh yes, Not doing Evidence.  I'll get to it soon, I'm sure.  In the meantime, for those of you who have ever wondered what twisted things must go on inside my white-haired skull, please enjoy this State of The Todd address for November 13, 2008.

1.  I sprained my ankle pretty good last night stepping off a curb on Hearbreak Hill walking home from the T.  That's part of the reason I'm sitting on my couch right now, to take weight off the thing.  It's ridiculous to me how something like that happens when I'm just walking on a road, but them's the breaks, as they say.  I didn't tend to it until about three hours later, after the Warren Miller movie, which ironically is all about skiing and snowboarding.  And here I am pining for powder days with a bum ankle.  If it snows any time within the next two weeks, I'll know for sure God loves to laugh at me and you can't ever tell me otherwise.  

2.  On a related note, Boston curbs have now punctured two of my tires and sprained one of my ankles.  As if the exorbitant parking tickets weren't enough, now they're coming after my physical well being and my car's drivability.  Augustana had no idea what they were in for when they decided to go to Boston.  Or maybe they just didn't have cars.  

3.  I have interviews pending with the Colorado Attorney General's Office and the United States Attorney's Office in Salt Lake City.  So my summer job prospects aren't totally dead, which is more than I can say for a lot of my classmates.  Even so, I'm going to have to go through this job application rigmarole again next year, while the few that actually got private law gigs will more than likely lock up their careers by the end of this coming summer with lucrative job offers from their summer firms.  It's fortunate that I came to law school with the intent to go the government lawyer route in the first place, but I value predictability and stability, especially in financial matters, and I can't help but feel a little jealous of those people who can legitimately say "screw class, I'm making six figures next year!"  That must be a nice feeling.  

4.  I hate to be "that guy," but I gotta say, my fiancee rocks.

5.  Song of the Day:  "Unglued" by Stone Temple Pilots

6.  Lately I've found myself wishing I was six again.  I always said that if I could be one age forever, I'd be six.  Some people say 18 or 21, because you can do all this cool stuff.  But my thinking is, if you don't even know what that cool stuff is, what does it matter?  When you're six years old, you've got no drama, no problem that can't be solved by a half hour of Sesame Street, and no demands on your time besides the sandbox out back and your dog (if you're lucky enough to have one).  The pinnacle of your existence is being able to ride your two-wheeler around the block by yourself, and it's like you've won the freaking Tour d' France when you do.  I got three square meals a day from a Mommy that loved me, and spent my days climbing, jumping, rolling, and running everywhere because everything was just so freaking cool.  Look, a pile of dirt!  Look, a tree!  Check out my bike!  Awesome!  Then I got to play with my dad when he got home.  Then I went to bed with a smile on my face, even while AIDS and cocaine flooded the streets and our military made incursions into Panama and Grenada.  And don't forget that the Iran-contra scandal was around that time too.  But it was ok, because tomorrow I was going to play Nintendo at my friend's house.  

If you asked me if I'm happy now, I'd say overall, yeah, I am.  But it is my firm belief that happiness is never purer than it is in the mind of a child.  And like a lot of things, you don't know what you have until it's gone.  And I miss it dearly.  

Obama and Home Security

I've got something I'd like opinions on. Apparently our president-elect is advocating the formation of a sort of homeland security force, a kind of civilian security squad to keep the peace at home. I don't know if this is a kind of formal national police or a looser militia of sorts. It sounds kind of like the Chilean state police where I used to live, the Carabineros. Basically, in Chile, towns don't have their own police forces, the national police keep the peace and enforce the law. I don't know if it's a branch of the military or the executive or the legislature, but at any rate, it's really quite convenient and no different than a city police force.

That being said, to my knowledge Chile doesn't have the state-federal setup that we do, and I don't know how closely their system of checks and balances mirrors ours. It seems like overkill to me for a national police force to spring up in America, since there's already local and state police entities, FBI, ATF, DEA, DHS, the National Guard, and the Coast Guard. I don't see where a national civilian security force that Obama favors would have any real effect. I also wonder who they'd answer to. It would be an entity based in the executive power, so would they answer to one of the agencies I just mentioned? Or Obama himself? That latter idea is a scary proposition because it starts to resemble a gestapo of sorts, but I don't see that happening.

On the other hand, I can see the advantages of a national security force backing up or working in tandem with state and local police forces to relieve the pressure already on them. Places like airports, train stations, entertainment venues, nuclear reactors, and other high-probability targets where you normally see National Guard or regular soldiers could probably be taken under the watch of such a force, reducing burden on the military.

I'd like some opinions. What are your thoughts?

Falling Off the Fence

"Mormons have ten wives--why can't I have one?"

--Sign held by female protester outside Los Angeles LDS temple during Prop 8 protest.

"Hi, we're from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  We're here to take away your rights."

--LDS missionaries to lesbian couple as portrayed in the anti-Prop 8 movie Home Invasion.  

All right, ladies and gentlemen.  I used to favor gay marriage.  Then I came to law school and I was on the fence.  I was content to just sit back, hold my tongue except for personal conversations in my own living room and engage in reasoned, open-minded discussion.  Maybe gay marriage was all right, I mean, just another societal shift that wouldn't affect me that much.  I was willing to accept and deal with this for a while, no matter my moral stance on the issue.  

Now Prop 8 has passed, effectively banning gay marriage in California.  And the rainbow crowd and the intellectual liberals have trained their sights on the LDS church for actively campaigning for the proposition (as is their Constitutional right to do--see: U.S. Constitution, 1st Amendment).  Confrontational protests outside the L.A. temple.  Another one planned in Salt Lake for tonight.  But why us?  Last I checked, the Catholics and the Evangelicals were in on this too.  And if this past election has shown us anything, it's the surprising power of Evangelicals voting in blocks (see: Hucakbee, Mike).  

Why are my people made out to be the lone bad guy, the target of such acrimony and revulsion?  The anti-Prop 8 crowd has built their campaign on freedom of action and the right to exercise Constitutional privileges.  How terribly hypocritical it is, then, for a group of supposed "progressives" and "intellectuals" to engage in a wholesale abandon of those bedrock principles to sanctimoniously attack my people for doing precisely that--using their Constitutional privilege to fight for that which they believe to be right!  

I'm done being nice.  I've had it with pantywaist pundits and ignorant lay people bandying about the Constitution as some sort of trump card, a shield that magically validates their every whim.  I'm sick of the blind bigotry displayed by progressives who accuse their conservative brethren (often rightly) of the same. You have navigated a sea of pop culture and waves of twisted logic to become what you profess to hate, and I mock you for it.  Let it be known that I am now firmly and avowedly anti-gay marriage, not just morally, but socially, politically, intellectually, and legally.  Not because I'm morally opposed to it (I always was); not because it's as legally defensible as it is indefensible (which I'm finding out); but because you have made me this way.  Your raving, your hatred, your bigotry, your indescribable hypocrisy is the straw that broke this camel's back.  You've attacked my people out of your blind hatred, and your huffing and puffing has blown me off of the fence on to the other side.  

To the lady with the sign I mentioned at the outset:  Climb out from under that pretentious little rock you apparently live under and get your facts straight.  There is not a single Mormon man who has more than one wife, and it has been that way for almost 150 years now.  Those who engage in bigamy are summarily excommunicated.  We have tried for decades to make this clear, sending this message across the globe through every available medium.  You apparently did not get this message for all your supposed "open-mindedness."  So allow me to tell you myself: Mormons do not engage in, nor condone, polygamous marriage.  End of story.  Nothing makes you look more ignorant than using falsehoods as a logical pretense upon which to build your protest. Your argument is fatally flawed and I mock it.  You're an unmitigated embarrassment to your cause.  

To the writers, producers, directors, and associates of Home Invasion:  You assail to protect the fundamental rights of a minority from bigotry and ignorance.  Yet, never in my life have I seen such blatantly false, hateful, pretentious, regressive campaigning for a cause in my life.  What you have done borders on the hate speech typical of Hitler's rhetoric and Stalin's rule.  You have willingly spread slanderous lies and planted seeds of misinformation and ignorance in the minds of those who may otherwise come to know the truth for themselves, only to be blinded by your unabashed lust to satisfy your political appetite.  You have slashed and razed the innocent minds of those you have encountered, leaving a black, desolate, smoldering landscape of lies and ignorance in your wake, while that which is most dear to me (my religion) hangs from a tree, choked by your hypocrisy and mutilated by your bloody hands.  I sincerely hope you pay for setting my people (a religious minority, might I add) back in this manner.  

Finally, to all those who would point their dirty fingers at my church and say our actions have unfairly deprived a minority of a fundamental right; to all those who say the Mormon church is an old, stodgy bully that just doesn't get it; to all those who say we do not know whereof we speak:  Need I remind you all that this nation's government undertook to regulate the way in which a religious minority married over a century ago when it threatened to breach the bounds of the church-state relationship and end my people if they continued polygamous marriage?  Did we fight?  No, we could not.  Did we protest?  No, we obeyed and submitted under commandment from God to the dictates of the government, believing it to be for the greater good.  And why was our right to practice our religion as we saw fit (a clear, fundamental First Amendment right) so egregiously infringed upon?  Not on legal grounds, and certainly not on Constitutional grounds, but solely because our practice was seen as morally reprehensible, incompatible with the mores upon which American society was based.  Yet we carried on, indeed we thrived.

This premise, may I point out, is your argument.  Moral repudiation is no excuse for infringing on the rights of a minority to marry as they see fit, you say.  Nobody has a right to tell another how to marry or who they can marry.  You trumpet this banner about proudly on your high horses while approving of other laws and practices based upon the same premises.  Where are your protests about bigamy laws, marital licensing laws, bestiality laws?  You cannot simultaneously applaud gay marriage and condemn polygamy (or polyandry, for that matter).  It is logically and legally impossible.  Your ignorance is mind-blowing; words have not been written that would adequately describe the breadth and width of your intolerance.  Are we intolerant for denying gay marriage?  Perhaps in a way we are.  But you are equally so, you see.  Get off your high horse and don't you dare thumb your noses at us, you hypocrites.

Furthermore, you rail against my people, saying they have denied a minority the right of freedom of expression.  Yet you rail against them because they exercise this same right.  We are a church, a society based upon a moral code that we enforce upon none outside of our faith.  We have just as much a right to speak up, campaign, and persuade as you do.  You would force us, however, to change our ways, to abrogate our moral basis to accommodate your desires.  We have forced nothing on you, yet you seek to destroy the very basis upon which we are built because a compromise (civil union) is not enough for you.  We merely voice our opinions.  You would annihilate our beliefs to conform to your personal moral code.  Who is really being attacked?

You say Prop 8 violates the separation of church and state.  Yet marriage was a religious institution long before a civil one.  In fact, the Constitution does not mention marriage at all!  If anything violates the separation of church and state, it's your attempt to use the legal system to override and dictate our religious beliefs.  If the concept of the separation of church and state is valid, the corollary separating religion and popular opinion must be equally valid if the First Amendment is to have any meaning at all.  

And finally, may a lay out a legal principle, although I imagine it will not register with the more bigoted among you:  gay marriage is not a fundamental Constitutional right.  Loving v. Virginia is celebrated for recognizing a fundamental right to marry, not a right to marry whoever you want.  This right, moreover, is not found in any text of the Constitution, but in the minds of Supreme Court justices who looked at the penumbra of individual rights to confer legal legitimacy upon a mainstay institution of society.  Loving attached legal significance to what had existed since before the birth of this nation.  It did not give you a means to change it to fit your desires.  

You lost Prop 8.  Get over it and leave us in peace.  

Coincidence?

Random thought:

You know the story of Guy Fawkes, right? The guy who tried to blow up Parliament by stacking a truckload of gunpowder barrels beneath the building's halls? How does the story go?

Remember, remember, the fifth of November
The gunpowder treason and plot.
I know of no reason
That the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

Those of you in the know probably remember that delightful vignette as the one featured prominently in V for Vendetta, a movie in which a terrorist in a Guy Fawkes mask fights against the heavy-handed socialist-totalitarian regime that seized power by playing on people's fears for their own safety with war and other assorted calamities all around. In the end he winds up inciting widespread revoltution against the government and engendering hope for a future free of dictatorial control and dying in the process.

Now consider the fact that we elected Barack Obama into office yesterday, November 5th.

Coincidence?

Discuss.

Election-Related Observations

1.  I think it's funny (in a morbid, ironic sort of way) how a big campaign point for both presidential candidates is the need to unify the country, achieve bipartisanism in Congress and so on, since the country has been divided and fractured for so long, thanks to the Iraq war, post-9/11-ism, and the Bush administration in general.  Yet, I dare say, given all the grassroots campaigning and in-your-face rhetoric I'm getting, the likes of which I have never seen on such a widespread scale, this election has only served to deepen the ideological faultlines that each candidate says they can fix.  I suppose you can't blame them personally for this; in an event as important and polemic as a presidential election, it's probably a foregone conclusion that the race will be deeply divisive.  That said, I still think it's ironic, and I have a hard time seeing, given the extreme divisiveness all around, how either candidate will be able to reach out to those who didn't vote for him during the next 4 years and actually achieve bipartisanism.  I originally decided to base my vote on who I thought was most capable of that.  Sadly, I'm starting to think it's impossible.

2.  Dear President Obama,

In your law professor days, you criticized the Supreme Court in decisions such as Dandridge v. Williams and San Antonio School Board v. Rodriguez, in which the court declined to extend strict scrutiny review along economic lines, and established a textualist mode of determining what qualified as a "fundamental right."  Your comments, if I remember correctly, were to the effect that the Supreme Court unforunately failed to consider a paradigm which would mandate a redistribution of wealth.  For example, if Rodriguez had established a fundamental right to education, the law in question would have been a violation of equal protection and Texas would be forced to raise taxes or redistribute wealth from richer school districts to poorer ones to achieve economic equality between school districts.  This concievably opens the door for the christening of other "fundamental rights" such as food, shelter, etc. which would need to be provided for by the state.  I fail to see how this is not a completely socialist argument.  Is a vote for you, then, a vote for a socialist approach?  Or can I rest easy knowing that President Obama is more practical than, and not as extreme as, Law Professor Obama?

Regards,

Todd

3.  It's been almost a year, three prime-time debates, and countless news stories, but I still don't know where John McCain stands on any issue besides gay marriage and abortion.  What's his energy plan?  What's that, reduce our dependence on foreign oil?  Well how? Give me some sticking points, man!  Don't douse me with campaign trail rhetoric and expect me to eat the lines you're feeding me blindly.  At least Obama was a little more specific!  Does McCain even have an energy plan?  When are we getting out of Iraq?  Did you choose Sarah Palin as your VP just to take the spotlight off yourself and your vague campaign promises?  

4.  Speaking of abortion and gay marriage, I don't know why anybody cares about how a candidate feels about those issues.  Marisa (my fiancee) says it's a good indicator of a candidate's moral compass, how he feels about the sanctity of life, his conception of family, etc.  That's true, and I know a lot of people base their voting decisions on who they're morally aligned with.  So I can see the value in addressing it.  That said, a president is effectively powerless to stop gay marriage (or legalize it) because at this point it's a matter of state marriage law, and each state is left to decide the question.  From there it goes to the judiciary branch, if it reaches anywhere into the federal realm.  It's not like the president can wave a wand and *poof* gay marriage is legal or illegal.  As far as abortion goes, the same idea applies.  Roe v. Wade merely set restrictions on when a state may impose restrictions on abortion (during the third trimester only, for those of you keeping score at home).  A president cannot legalize abortion (or criminalize it) and even if he could lobby the legislature to pass such a law, it would almost surely be struck down by the courts as unconstitutional on substantive due process grounds.  

5.  Is it bad that I don't want to vote because I have serious reservations about each candidate?  If you offered me a three-course meal at some ritzy restaurant, and the choices came down to snail excrement in a white wine sauce or mad cow cutlets and asparagus, could you blame me for just walking out of the restaurant to go to McDonalds?  I have a civic duty to vote, I suppose, so maybe the analogy is inapposite in that sense, but how can I endorse either candidate at this point?  I don't feel like I can in good faith.  Maybe I'll just write in Ron Paul or something, get out of it that way.  

Voting for Race--Just an Issue for Obama?

The beauty (or danger) of Facebook is that your opinions tend to come out to everybody who can see your profile, even those you don't hardly know. For example, I knew a kid back in high school named Callum, who recently posted a link on his page that took me to this segment of the Howard Stern Show that suggests that many black voters support Barack Obama simply because he's black. From this I can make the inference that Callum supports John McCain, even though I've talked to Callum maybe once in the past six years.

In my mind, it warrants contemplation that nowadays you can find out somebody's opinions and persuasions without really talking to them, where before you would probably have to have some sort of extended interaction or correspondence with the person to figure that stuff out. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, but it's just food for thought.

But back to the clip from Stern. I'd suggest listening to it because I can't accurately describe how very ironic it really is, but basically one of Stern's correspondents goes into Harlem and asks people (presumably black) who they support, and invariably they all support Obama. The correspondent asks if they support him because of his position on a given issue, but they ascribe John McCain's stance on the issue to Obama. For example, they ask people if they support Obama's pro-life stance (when he's actually pro-abortion) and they all say they agree wholeheartedly. Shockingly, when asked if they thought Obama made a good choice selecting Sarah Palin as his VP (which McCain actually did, obviously), they said they thought it was just fine and she'd be a great VP.

The inference Stern wants to illustrate, of course, is that many black people support Obama simply because he's black, not because of his stance on the issues. I think the clip is hilarious and a particularly biting indictment of the role race is apparently playing playing in the election. Although I would propose a counter-example. Let's say we take a trip down to the deep South, say Alabama, Mississippi, or wherever. Go to some typical white-bread town that could be described as Harlem, only for white people instead of Afro-Americans. Swap the experiment so as to attribute Obama's policies to McCain and ask the white folk if they support McCain on those issues. I'd bet dollars to door nails that the results would be fairly similar to Stern's social experiment.

My point is, despite the fact that most Americans say they would vote for a candidate without considering race, I think it's fair to say that in communities where race is closely identified with the community identity (like Harlem), voters are nevertheless likely to vote along racial lines rather than ideological, and that applies not only to minority groups, but to whites as well. I don't know if Stern brought that up or not, but I think it warrants mentioning to prevent any idea that it's just blacks who do this. If you live or grew up in a community whose identity is based heavily on race, I think it's entirely possible that you'll vote for a candidate based on his race without even bothering to find out about his politics, no matter if you're black, white, brown or purple.

And quite frankly, that's a very unfortunate conclusion.

Voter education would go a long way in eliminating this phenomenon, in my opinion. People should step past broad generalizations about a candidate based on appearance or party support and vote based on issues and, to a lesser extent, character. I invite all who read this to really examine their candidates principles and ideas if you haven't done so already, and see if you still come out on their side.

Those Nutty Leftists

If you've read the stuff in the news today about allegations of voter registration fraud, you probably already realize that this post title is a pun. For those of you who don't know, allow me to explain.

The Association of Communities for Reform Now, or ACORN, as it's more commonly known, is under investigation in Missouri, Connecticut, and Ohio for alleged voter registration fraud.

Go ahead, Google "Acorn voter fraud." I'll wait...

*Toe-tapping*

*Stretching*

*Looking at my watch*

Ok, are we good? Great.

Did you catch the one in the NY Post about the guy in Cleveland who was paid in cigarettes and petty change to register 72 times? Really? How does this happen, especially so close to an election? The guy's name is Freddie Johnson, a 19-year-old kiosk worker in a mall. According to him, he told ACORN activists that he was already registered to vote, to which they simply replied, "Oh, well, can you sign up again?" The article also mentions ACORN is under investigation in Connecticut for registering a 7-year-old to vote, according to the State Elections Enforcement Commission.

CNN (they of the left-leaning reporting ilk) reports that ACORN, while officially non-partisan, puts particular emphasis on registering low-income voters who tend to vote Democrat. The same report says that in one county alone (I don't know where) out of 5,000 ACORN voter registrations, a little less than half appeared to have been falsified. Bad addresses, names of deceased persons, registrations and signatures written in the same handwriting.

This, of course, comes on the heels of reports that the Obama campaign recently swept through Missouri towns (I think it was Missouri although I could be mistaken) scooping up scores of homeless people and taking them to registration stations to register to vote. While that may not be illegal, it's definitely shady to me, something I hope Obama personally wouldn't stand for. Vote-mongering is pathetic and especially damaging to a candidate who maintains he's not like other politicians.

I had a very interesting conversation with a staunch Obama supporter the other day. I told him this vote-mongering, coupled with the Obama truth squad I mentioned in earlier posts, and cries I've heard from Obama supporters for communist principles has made me very skeptical where I once was clearly in the Obama camp. I realized, though, in speaking to him, that my problem is not with Obama himself, but with his supporters. I still want to believe that Barack Obama is a principled, measured man who will work in a compromising, bipartisan position to unify the country across party lines and dissolve the acrimony that prevents our country from making progress. He's a unifier, a great speaker, and I think that's a desirable quality for a president, especially now when the country is so fracture along political fissures.

But I don't know if I can, in good conscience, vote for a man who is supposed to uphold American ideals when his campaign and his party sympathizers are engaging in behavior like this, trampling the 1st Amendment in Missouri with "truth squads" and abusing one of the most fundamental rights of American citizenry (the right to vote), engaging in a Machiavellian abrogation of Constitutional rights and principles in the name of getting their candidate into office. It's an affront to American dignity that reeks of hypocrisy when a group is willing to ignore and abuse the rights and privileges of its fellow-citizens to get a candidate into an office that is ultimately charged with protecting those same guarantees. The fact that they often display such religious zeal in doing so only adds to my concern.

The question I would ask is essentially this: is it worth it to disregard constitutional freedoms in the name of getting your candidate into office? If so, how is that in any way justifiable? And if not, even if Obama himself didn't approve or participate in these tactics, how can you substantively separate Barack Obama from the actions of his campaign or those who support his party?

The reason I don't post any articles I've mentioned in this post is that I understand that my last few posts may be seen as, if not merely skeptical, outright anti-Obama and Republican. I take great pride in maintaining my distance from either party's ideology, so I'm merely going to repeat what I've heard and read, ask you, dear reader, to look it up yourself, and tell me if you can find anything to the contrary or anything that might ease my concerns.

Subprime Lending and Avoiding Consequences

I'm no economist. I don't carry cash because If I do, I spend it on needless stuff. The fact that I'm incurring large debts to finance an education when the resulting job market is consistently shrinking is not what financiers might call a "sound investment." So the nuances of this whole "bailout" thing is far and away out of my grasp. But I do know one thing, and that is that the subprime lending issue is at the center of the problem. Now people are defaulting on thousands of mortgages because subprime lending is an all-around absurd proposition that was destined to fail throughout its inception. And I know enough to understand that if a lot of really bad mortgages are piling up, and someone's buying them all, then great shall be the fall thereof.

What I do know, however, is that most problems, be they economic, social, political, or personal, have a common solution. See, with every choice comes a consequence. This is simple stuff. If you do X, you get Y. In the case of subprime lending (which is the practice of making high-interest loans to high-risk individuals) if you give someone a loan where they traditionally would not qualify, you take a sizable risk that they will default on that loan. And in a market where $600 billion is tied up in these high-risk loans, that's a recipe for disaster, which is a good term for what's currently going on.

The problem is that all the proposed fixes to this problem seek to avoid consequences. The $700 billion bailout was predicated on the bare assumption that if the government eats up all those bad mortgages, the market will recover and those mortgages can be sold several years down the road. Basically, the American taxpayer puts $700 billion of his taxes in escrow while we wait for the market to recover and gain ground, the government then unloads the bad mortgages, and we get our money back. And who gets bailed out? The guys who made these loans in the first place. They're trying to avoid the choice-consequence paradigm I mentioned earlier. The problem is that such a scenario poses an even greater risk to the economy. What happens if things don't go according to plan? Then the crap really hits the fan, taxes go up to compensate, and pretty soon a bigger chunk of my paycheck is going to Congress while corporate executive retain their lifestyles.

This is not good policy. Again, you don't need to know anything about economics to state that if you do something, attempting to evade the consequences usually makes things worse. The safest bet is usually to accept the consequences, take your medicine, and be done with it. If you lie to a friend about one thing, you normally don't (or at least shouldn't) keep lying to maintain that first lie. You sack up and tell the truth. If you smoke crack, you shouldn't go through your mom's purse to steal coke money; it'd be better to stop and check into rehab. It just makes the situation worse to avoid the consequences of one's actions. Which is exactly what Wall Street and Congress are trying to do. And who picks up the tab? The American taxpayer, many of whom understand this principle and live by it.

I've said this from the beginning. The answer is not to bail these companies out, but to let them fail. Cut off the cancerous limb to save the body. Let them spiral into bankruptcy. Sure, there will be hard times for all of us, but we're in a "damned if you do" scenario anyway. The only thing this bailout would do is trade one financial crisis now for another one years down the road. How long can we keep running from ourselves?

I've got backup too. Check out this opinion piece from Harvard lecturer Jeffrey A. Miron. As blasphemous as it might sound to the ears of capitalists continually seeking to avoid the messes they make, I hope there is no bailout. I hope those golden parachutes get shot down. I hope we just take our medicine now and ride it out.

Mizzou Gov. Slams "Truth Squad"

Just a follow up from my post the other day. Missouri's governor, Matt Blunt (what a cool name) had pretty strong words for Obama's proposed wrangling of law enforcement officers to help him in his quest for "truth" in the presidential campaign. I've reprinted the text below, which I found on the Missouri state web site:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Contact: Jessica Robinson, 573-751-0290

---

Gov. Blunt Statement on Obama Campaign’s Abusive Use of Missouri Law Enforcement

JEFFERSON CITY - Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics.

“St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign.

“What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment.

“This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson’s thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights. The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet, blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election.

“Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false things about me and my family. Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them. Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts - not a free society.”

Nice to know sane voices exist so high in government, and more importantly, that they're being heard. Maybe I'll move to Missouri.

This is Awful...

This is terrible. Barack Obama's campagin is asking Missouri law enforcement to "target" anybody who spreads "misleading information" during the campagin. I guess John McCain had better watch his back if he ever sets foot in that city in the video. Because, you know, he's obviously one of the evil misinformation culprits and Barack Obama never lies.

McCain also eats puppies, sources say. And Barack Obama would never lie about such things. In fact, Barack Obama is so concerned about telling the truth in the campaign that he's getting law enforcement involved! What a committed guy!

This is absurd and more than a little scary. Barack Obama is advocating the "thought police" concept. I can't think of something that is more contrary to the tenets of freedom of expression in the Bill of Rights. He's basically farting on the First Amendment here, people. Any media lawyer worth his salt would be all over this in a heartbeat.

I'd write more but I have to go. I just had to post this before I forgot about it. The Barack Obama Kool-Aid is getting a little sour if you ask me, folks.

Dear Hewlett-Packard...

Name please?
Todd Bluth
Phone number?
XXX-XXX-XXX
You do have service ticket number?
8017359345
Ok, and I am speaking with Todd..Bl...Bl...Blut?
*sigh* Yes, Todd "Blut"
Tank you Mr. Blut, what seems to be the problem?

Well, If my prior experience with your customer service department is any indication, I can probably expect you to take one look at this letter (a crapshoot in itself), and toss it on the bonfire you must have raging constantly in your main office, composed entirely of customer complaints and probably used to sacrifice puppies and small children to the Prince of Darkness.
In order to be clear (since nobody at your fine company seems to understand plain English without two or three repeats) I'll repeat myself again, in simpler terms: I hate you. You are a blight upon your industry and an utter shame to American business. But why, you ask?

1. Let's start with the products that you release to blindside the American public. I updated my system like Windows often asks me to do, only to find out that the most recent system update caused the motherboard to stop recognizing my wireless card. So, in essence, an innocuous system operation permanently cost me my internet connection. I'm no computer scientist, but it doesn't seem as though computers were meant to operate that way. But that's just me. Did I mention this happened a week before school started?

2. Outsourcing your call centers. I understand cost-cutting. I understand there are a lot of people in India who need jobs and are willing to work for beans. That's fine. But is it worth it when your customer service department becomes a bastion of incompetence? You took these poor people and told them to read a script which would somehow magically resolve every issue? Not working. It took me no less than 3 calls to figure out that my computer had been recalled, and even then I didn't find that out until I was transferred to somebody stateside who was able to actually comprehend my problem and give me a direct answer. It's not their fault. It's your fault for putting them in that situation. And by the way, stop telling them to say they have American names like "Roman" or "Shawn." I kid you not, an obviously Indian woman answered the phone and called herself "Ryan." You really think the majority of your customers are that dense? It's demeaning, really. Not a positive customer service experience when you realize the company invariably assumes you have an IQ comparable to a sea sponge.

3. The box you all were supposed to send me didn't arrive on time. I had to call again to ask where it was. Somebody apparently made a mistake and asked me to fax in my warranty information. It's a recall repair. There is no warranty information. What should have taken 3 days at the most took a week. By now school was starting. Finally got my box, shipped off my computer.

4. Got my computer back real fast thank you very much! If only you had made repairs. You didn't. Let me reiterate: Your repair department didn't make any repairs. I wiped my hard drive for you, did everything you asked, and you sent me back a computer that worked correctly for a total of 12 hours before the exact same problem crept up again. Your excuse? Ooooh, looks like someone didn't make the right repairs. They should have replaced the motherboard, not the wireless card. Are you kidding? What kind of raging idiots do you have working in your repair department? I mean, where did these guys go to school, DeVry?

5. Sent my computer in again after no less than three calls to your customer service people (because they didn't understand me the first two times). Another transaction that took twice as long as it should have.

6. I never saw my computer after that. I can only assume it was lost somewhere in your ugly underbelly. I called to complain numerous times and was abjectly blow off by your case managers. They sincerely did not give a crap about any problem I had and were absolutely not willing to work with me or even attempt to understand my situation or my concerns. When the due date for my computer came and went, I called to see where it was and was told I'd need to wait another day to find out where it was. When I called back, I was cryptically told "We're going to send you a new unit." What? Why? I asked you to do that 3 weeks ago and you wouldn't! Why now? Did you refurb it and sell it to some unsuspecting poor soul? Did one of your bonehead techs try fixing it by hitting it with a sledgehammer? I'm willing to believe anything at this point.

Even then, that was fine. I'm getting a new computer, right? That's all I want. Great. How soon will it get here? 1-4 weeks. What? It's been 4 weeks already with you people. You want me to wait another month to get a computer when you could easily ship it tomorrow? No, not doing it. I bought a Toshiba. On my student loans. That's money I need for food and rent. But no. You took it from me.

I will never buy another HP product again. I wish nothing but ill and evil upon your malicious little corporation.

Ok sir, I understand that, thank you. Let me check on the status of your order. Please call back tomorrow to follow up.

Ugh...

Master of Muppets

I thought this was fun...

Confused

I feel like I'm different somehow than I was at the beginning of the summer. I've become quieter and, I fear, less stoic than I was before. Things are happening to me and for me, big things. Some great, some not so great, but their momentous natures have me feeling a bit like a life raft in the middle of a hurricane. I'm just hanging on for dear life to see if I'll get out alive, and what shape I'll be in.

Law school is picking up again, I've got interviews coming up with law firms, even though my grades aren't the best. Somehow I've got to wow them by sheer force of personality (if you're not in law school, you can't possibly understand how nerve-wracking that is). I'm feeling less-than-confident about my interviewing abilities at this point.

I'm getting married in five months. Nerve-wracking. Exciting. Scary. It's a completely new and unique mixture of feelings for me. But it's wonderful. Still, though, it's emotionally draining. Proposing to Marisa was ten times harder and scarier than I feel like it should have been. And it still hasn't hit me that I'm going to be a married man. I really can't put into words how great it is and how awesome Marisa has been to me. I'm madly in love with her. Other than that, I'm just wonderfully mixed up on that front.

I spent ten weeks in a public defender's office this summer, dealing with lowlife scum and the lowlife crimes they commit. Also spent time dealing with authority figures who abuse their power and discretion at the expense of harmless, well-meaning citizens because they happened to be the wrong color or were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's a hard pill to swallow, looking at our society from such an all-around disheartening angle.

And now I'm alone. The only person I've had any extended contact with in the last week or so has been my fiancee. Most of my friends are out of town and I've been working in my room for the past 7 days on a freelance project to get some extra cash. And, as much as I love my fiancee, and even though she's my best friend, for a guy who thrives on the company of others to be deprived of it for so long, it has a funny effect on you. Numbing, really.

So, consider this a disclaimer to all of you who might at some point in the near future find yourself thinking "Todd's acting weird/preoccupied/strange, something's up with him." I promise, it's not you, and I'm not trying to be offputting or weird. I'm in a mental and spiritual spot I've never been in, and probably won't be ever again. Just taking some time to sort it all out.

A Conondrum

I was so happy with it, I really was. It makes so much sense after all.

I take pride in my moderate viewpoints. I like to think that I separate myself from the narrow-minded tautologies of the major political parties. Pro-choice vs. pro-life? How about abortion under a few outlined circumstances? Guns for all, or none at all? How about a concealed weapons permit that's just harder to obtain? State sovereignty or consolidated nationalism? Depends on the situation. Some would say I just can't make up my mind. I say I think for myself and take the bits and pieces of common sense that eek out of both parties occasionally and streamline them into a workable solution that nobody would ever vote for, of course, because it doesn't toe a particular party line. It's an odd thing to see a government that's more concerned with party theology and pissing off the other side than common sense solutions that will make everybody happy.

I was particularly pleased with my personal views on the energy crisis. We need to get off foreign oil, we can all agree on that. Face it, we suck the stuff down like we were college students at a kegger. So, it would seem logical that if we can get the same stuff on our own land, that's a cheaper solution. There are massive oil reserves in Alaska, Montana, Texas, and copious amounts of natural gas along the gulf. It would make total sense to mine the stuff. Of course, the liberal environmentalist types will inevitably whine about raping the land and destroying the habitat of some spotted owl or something. Fine, I'll grant you that we don't want to do that...but does it make a lot of sense, even from an environmental viewpoint, to pay another country more money to rape their land and sell us the fruits? So, it's not ok to destroy the environment in America, but it's ok to turn the Persian Gulf into a cratered wasteland? I don't buy that. Bottom line, as green as the collective consciousness is these days, I have a hard time believing we couldn't come up with a more environmentally friendly means of getting the stuff out of the ground ourselves than we could, say, 10 years ago. There has to be a way to do it while keeping our precious spotted owls alive.

But hold on, you say! Even if we keep using so much of our own oil, we're still choking the environment with our massive SUVs and evil, polluting private jets! And besides, how long will our reserves last us? Two good points. Pollution levels are still rising and contributing to global warming (though not to the extent the alarmists would have you believe, if you ask me). And the reserves, say, in the Gulf of Mexico would last us maybe 30-35 years tops. Clearly this isn't the whole solution. The answer, my friends, seems to lie in alternative energy. Wind, solar, electric, even nuclear. Ideas like the Pickens Plan (which Texas just implemented, putting legions of wind turbines on its oh-so-barren plains) make good sense because they promote clean, renewable energy sources. The knock on them is that they cost a pretty penny, especially when talking about hybrid cars and such. How is an average, middle class family supposed to afford a $60k Mazda fuel cell car, to say nothing of repairs that will be inevitable, because first-generation products always have kinks to work out.

So why not use both ideas? Drill for oil here in America and offshore, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, funneling the savings to alternative energy R&D, and providing tax and other incentives to hybrid car producers, vendors, and consumers. That way we get the short-term relief of offshore drilling ("short-term" being relative, I know) and the long-term benefits of renewable energy research.

I was so happy with this. Then I saw Paris Hilton respond to John McCain's use of her celebrity in an anti-Obama ad. You can see the response here.

The unthinkable has happened. Paris Hilton agrees with me, or rather, I agree with Paris Hilton, of all people. I am now at a personal impasse.

Paris Hilton is a moron. A grade "A" bimbo from the word go. She represents everything that is wrong with society, Hollywood, and pop culture. When I think of reasons for expatriation or lighting myself on fire (like everyone else does, right?), "Paris Hilton's celebrity" is always in the top 10. That said, Can I allow myself, on principle, to agree with anything she says? Do I have to now renounce my beliefs and form new ones? Why, Paris? Why must you do this to me? Why did you have to go and be all sensible like that? Jerk.

Of course, there's always the possibility that she was just reading a script written by someone else. Maybe she doesn't understand, much less give a crap about, all this energy stuff. There's a good chance that as long as she can jet around in a pink Ferrari with that stupid dog and bottle of Bacardi, she couldn't care less about $4/gallon gas.

Yeah, that's it, she's just doing that to be funny. That must be it. She doesn't really believe it, or understand what it even means, does she? I can safely keep my beliefs without being ashamed, right?

Right?

The Obligatory Internet Rant

"You know what Stewie? If you don't like it, go complain on the Internet."
--Brian the Dog, Family Guy

Allow me to put one of my favorite one-liners to literal use. The day has been long. My mood is foul. My nose is currently running at half capacity, as my allergies have decided to drop by for an extended visit. As such, the day has been filled with hacks, coughs, and the kinds of sounds that a horse usually makes when it sneezes.
Normally, this does not get me down. If anything, the allergy meds make me extraordinarily entertaining if you mix a little caffeine in there. I can be the life of a party if you hand me a Coke and a couple Claritin-D. But today was different. Today was a bad day.
I usually dive into things when I really want them. The upshot of this, of course, is that my learning curve in such endeavors is about as gradual as that cliff that the roadrunner always gets the coyote to fall off of. I hit a lot of branches on the way down, too. Eventually, though, everything settles out and I wind up doing well. My mission only got better as time went on, the second semester of law school was markedly better than the first. My mistakes gradually tapered off after I started working at Finale. Good ol' Father Time has been my savior in this sense, as I imagine he is for everyone, save those few maddening prodigies who look at something for 2 seconds and then proceed to do it perfectly. Given time, I can pretty much do anything I set my mind to.
Even with this in mind, however, the learning curve doesn't get any less painful. There's always the lingering doubt in the back of my mind that wonders if this time things will never get better, that this time I've bitten off more than I can chew and I'm just not cut out for what I'm doing. This time, after hitting all those branches on the way down, I'll hit the ground and immediately get crushed by the 10-ton Acme anvil that fell off the cliff with me.
I've always wanted to be a criminal attorney. I was going to be a prosecutor, I just knew it. Nothing was going to stop me. It was a foregone conclusion. The law was my muse. And then I came to work at CPCS.
Oh sure, I can do a client interview, I could even do client intake if I had to. I've found homeless clients in the middle of the city, and batted legal theories around with people years ahead of me. But my reasoning and my arguments, more often than not, suck. I know I've only taken one very broad criminal course up to now. But for whatever reason I felt like I should be able to come to the same conclusions my bosses come to when we do motions or look at cases, despite my lack of experience. This morning my boss wanted me to look over a case before a motion to amend hearing. I had maybe 20 minutes to do so. I told him I didn't think the case applied to our situation because of some differences in the fact pattern. And after 5 minutes of looking at this case the guy says no, it totally applies, and yanks out this crazy inference, and I had no idea where he was getting it from until I heard him argue it. And it makes total sense. Oh sure, I wasn't as familiar as he was with our present client's situation; I don't know the nuances of a criminal proceeding like he does, and where and how to poke holes in an argument. Maybe if I did things would have been different. But I don't know that for a fact. I could just be an idiot. As it stood, I walked out of court feeling very out of place in a hall of law.
I went back and looked over some past memos I had written up. Admittedly, they were hastily thrown together at the behest of an attorney who didn't want a formal memo so much as a quick overview of the law. But I still looked it over and saw problems with organization and clarity, and it pissed me off even more. Then I looked at the present assignment I had to do. Like most assignments at this office, there's very little (read: no) case law expressing a clear answer to the question at hand. I absolutely did not feel up to the task. I knew I was just going to mess it up again. I was abjectly demoralized. Fortunately, I spent the rest of the day on a field trip to the house of corrections to visit a client, so I could avoid the problem for the rest of the day.
You might say I'm being too hard on myself, and the thing is, you'd probably be right. I inflict a lot of this mental punishment myself. I'm extremely hard on myself, expecting miracles while at the same time exacting very little from those around me. I suppose it's better than being the opposite, but it still makes those branches I hit on the way down sting a lot more than they probably should, by all rights.
The most frustrating part is that I know all of this. If this were someone else, I'd absolutely tell myself to chill out, calm down, it'll all be fine, you're still learning and you will be for a while. Yet I can't follow my own advice. For whatever reason, I expect to be perfect when I'm not, and I won't be for a long time, if ever. And so, I wind up at the end of the day feeling like a failure, like this time, I'm in over my head.
Only now, the thing I'm struggling most with is my lifelong dream. The inevitable what if questions arise. What if I've been mistaken all along? What if I can't do what I've always wanted to? Throw in the fact that an ADA makes about as much as a McDonald's manager (quite literally) and a change in goals seems altogether necessary and devastating.
I've heard it all before. The things we want most take the most effort, it's always darkest before the dawn, etc. etc. I've said all these things to others. Yet they offer no consolation in this instance. Only the slight spark to trudge onward. Does that make me a hypocrite? I hope not. I sincerely believe in the veracity of those maxims in the lives of everyday people. Yet for whatever reason I won't let myself accept them, as much as I want to.
I've always said that my view of the universe and the grand scheme of things is what keeps me going. And it's true, even in times like this where I just want it all to go away. No matter what, I keep going. But it doesn't make those branches hurt any less.

Whap!

Whap!

Whap!

Top Ten Reasons I Love the Public Defender's Office

So, when I got the offer to work at the Public Defender's I took it, mostly because it was the first place that offered me a position. When I got the invite to interview with the State office, I was, of course, kicking myself for having taken the job. But, as it turns out, I love this place. And here's why, in no particular order:

1. Strict 9-5. And by strict I mean, "come in at 9, leave whenever you want."



2. Most interns spend their days buried in paperwork, writing memos about dreary legal theories (see: the awe-inspiring "mailbox rule" or "adverse possession). I interview clients in jail. Ooo-rah.



3. Eating Herrera's on the Common. Best Mexican in the city, says this Texan.



4. Some people just think cops are jerks. We prove it.



5. I've gotten a crash course in Evidence before taking the actual class. If I don't get an A in that course now, it'll be a massive disappointment.



6. Actually using my Spanish.



7. The greasy-spoon pizza joint 3 doors down.



8. Traipsing around downtown looking for a homeless man to tell him to be in court the next day.



9. Going back to the same place to find said homeless man when he doesn't show up to court.



10. If I liked criminal law before, I love it now. This place is awesome.

Understanding the Bible

Let me be the first to admit that I do not have a theological degree. Most religious scholars spend years of intensive study in seminary. My "seminary" consisted of sleeping through an hour of scripture study every morning throughout high school. My only legitimate claim to cannonical understanding is two-fold: first, I lived the monastic life for two years in a barren wasteland with my scriptures as my only reading material. Second, as Paul teaches us, true scritpural interpreation can only be had through the reception of the Holy Ghost. I claim that privilege so long as I live worthy of it.
That being said, I do know one fundamental thing about the Bible, and with my dearth of knowledge and experience in relation to the rest of the world, it distresses me that the majority of Christianity, and certainly most of the media-hogging ones, do not understand this one thing. Allow me to expound by example.
I once heard a man say that practicing a homosexual lifestyle was acceptable in the eyes of God. (Tangent: To my understanding, being gay, as in having homosexual tendencies, is not blasphemy, nor is it sinful. But living and acting on those impulses, and pursuing such a lifestyle is offensive to God.) It's fair to say that most of Christianity condemns the homosexual lifestyle because the New Testament clearly takes the stance that it is offensive to God and sinful. His rationale in justifying homosexuality, though, was that even though the Bible condemned it, it also condemns eating shellfish, and Christianity doesn't poo-poo that idea, now does it? Essentially, if X and Y are both bad according to Z, then if one becomes acceptable, the other must as well. Convincing logic, no? (Actually, not really, but it's still persuasive, I'll grant you that.)
I heard Obama taking the same kind of approach with some recent comments he made about scripture and its place among our mixed society. Now, unlike a lot of people, I don't expect my civic leaders to share my spiritual views or even claim a religion. So I'm still voting for the guy even though he's exemplifying the same tattered logic I've just outlined. It's the same logic that sectarians use to marginalize the Bible and downplay its importance or relevance. And unfortunately, it's also the argument many Christians use to reconcile their own thoughts and desires to the mandates of Holy Canon.
But I digress; on to my main point. It's a fundamental fact contained in the Bible that the prohibitions of the Mosaic Law (eating shellfish, wearing your hair a certain way, etc.) were completely eradicated with the Atonement of Jesus Christ, insofar as the doctrine of Christ did not repeat them. The end of the Mosaic Law was foretold as early as it was given, and Christ proclaimed as much during his ministry. The whole Bible centers around that distinction! I have no idea why more people don't understand this. It's extremely unfortunate and more than a little aggravating.
If we accept that fact (THE big fact of the Bible being Jesus' Atonement, if you ask me), it's perfectly fine for "the Bible" to condemn things like eating shellfish in the Old Testament because the doctrine of Christ does not prohibit it in the New. Whereas, things like murder or adultery are expressly prohibited in both laws, so in that sense, the Mosaic mandate is still in force by virtue of its extension in the doctrine of Christ. As to the homosexuality theory, I put living a homosexual life in the latter category as still being in force.
And for all of you who love calling people "intolerant" when we express our personal religious views, let me remind you that I have no problem with gay people. Many are my friends and they're wonderful individuals. These are my views and mine alone, I don't speak for anybody else or any group. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong and I'm willing to change. I don't hate anyone, I don't wish ill upon anyone. Save your outrage for Don Imus.

I Don't Know Which Makes Me Happier...

This...



or this...



Either way, this was one of the greatest playoffs of my life.

6/17/08. Boston 131, Los Angeles 92. Rock on.

The Greatest Game of My Life

A few things you should know so the following is put into proper context:
1. I'm a rabid sports fan. Despite the metro movement, I still think an innate sense of sports kinship exists within the male genome; that's just how it is. And as a sports fan, you always hear the older generation wax nostalgic about certain games, most of them playing on ESPN Classic by now. "I was at my friend Mikey's during Game X of the 19XX Finals/Super Bowl Whatever/etc. I was at X game and the atmosphere was unreal, X player was just amazing that night." This is the sorta stuff your dad or grandfather tells you while you go fishing together or while he dandles you on his knee.
2. I've never experienced a game like that, something that, 15 years from now, I'll recount to my kids. Yeah, I saw my Bucs win a Super Bowl in 2002-2003, saw the Boise State-OU game, watched BYU win a bowl game on a blocked field goal as time expired in 2007. I watched Jordan in his prime (still get chills when I see him shooting over a prostrated Bryon Russell). And up until last night, the 2006 Rose Bowl was the greatest, most transcendent game I had ever seen live. But the teams I really liked, my Mavericks, my Rangers, etc., were perpetual disappointments. Even the Bucs' championship wasn't all that dramatic (I don't know how to describe it). Even when my teams seemed like they were about to do something great or memorable, it would just come crashing down. The 2006 NBA Finals still haunt me when I watch a Mavericks game. As a sports fan, I've spent most of my life waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Now that that's out of the way, maybe you'll understand the gravitas of the following statement:
Game 4 of the 2008 NBA Finals was the greatest sporting event I have ever seen.
And it wasn't just the game. It was the circumstance. I was born in the mid-80's, so seeing a Lakers-Celtics finals is a real treat for me. I feel like I'm somehow getting a taste of history, what it was like back in the Bird-Magic-McHale-Kareem glory days. Granted, maybe the talent level and star power aren't as momentous as they were at that point in history, but seeing the green and yellow on the court is memorable in and of itself, in a way that the socialite-cum-sports-fan (yes, I'm talking to you, the blonde with the Gucci clutch texting during the game while wearing a $120 custom-made Rajon Rondo jersey) just can't fathom.
Game 4 found me in the middle of one of the most historic cities in the world sitting at a table at The Fours, across the street from an arena with perhaps the greatest sporting legacy in history. The bar was a sea of green and white, dimly lit and buzzing with an anticipation that you could almost smell. We talked sports and random crap for a solid hour before the game, during which time I mentioned to my friend, "The one thing I'm afraid of tonight is Lamar Odom coming to life. People have been calling him out all series and he could have a monster game."
Eight minutes into the game, amidst a cacophony of frustrated sighs, shouts, exaggerated gestures, and a spike in alcohol sales, I felt like Nostradamus. Odom was 4-4 from the floor and the Lakers had staked a dizzying 22-7 lead. The C's were down 24 during the second quarter and my only thought was that I could have watched the game from home and saved a few bucks on food. We were all despondent, collectively miserable. Sports is an interesting creature like that. It causes bonds between complete strangers that you would never see outside that context. Inside The Fours, though, we were all commiserating as a whole, apart in our own parties and booths, sure, but somehow sharing in a collective sense of disappointment and frustration.
The C's mounted a little run late, and then Jordan Farmar (who we all decided looks like a complete douchebag) hit a trey at halftime to put us down 18. We threw around the idea of leaving. One of my friends actually did leave. And as my friend Ryan went to the bar for another drink, I was reasonably sure we would have to keep him on suicide watch throughout the night. The bar was dead quiet.
If you don't know the story by now, the C's mounted a huge comeback to win the game, 96-91. Biggest comeback in Finals history. But what really made the night for me was the way the place changed as we watched James Posey nail a three from the corner, then Eddie House with a couple big buckets. Fists began pounding tables, cheers got louder with each successive basket. People lined the aisles, violating both the fire code and the concept of personal space, drinking and slapping five with complete strangers. Then we cut it to 6 and the bar was throbbing. We started pounding the tables on every defensive sequence, yelling "DE-FENSE!" as if they could hear us on the opposite coast, and screaming wildly with every point they scored. The clock expired and the bar erupted, as total strangers embraced like long-lost brothers, and we reveled in what we knew was a truly unique moment.
I like to think The Fours that night was an apt microcosm of the life and vitality you can only find in a place like Boston, where the ebb and flow of life is everywhere to be seen and heard. We were inconsolable and depressed one hour, exultant and excited the next. The entire night had me fascinated for exactly that reason, and I won't soon forget it.
But what I'll never forget is the night the home team actually came through, won the big one in dramatic fashion, and I watched it all, caught up in the swells of a dingy Boston bar on Canal Street by the Garden.
I love Boston.

Since Facebook "status" is a line or two at most...

I just had my birthday the other day which means, aside from the obligatory cake, gifts, and trio of rented midgets in leiderhosen following me around town and singing my praises, several old friends (and some people I hardly know) came out of the woodwork to wish me a happy 24th in the time honored tradition of posting on my Facebook wall. (Although I actually got a real-live email, a text, and a couple phone calls too! Who says we're getting too impersonal as a society?) Anyway, I realized that I haven't kept up with many of my friends as much as I would have liked, and a few expressed the same sentiment as well. After all, we're all busy working, studying, and so on, some of us are thousands of miles apart, etc. It's an understandable (however unfortuante) aspect of growing up. So I figured I'd take a little time and post my recent significant goings-on on my handy dandy blog for all the world to see (mostly because I'm legitimately sick of going over the monstrosity of a medical report sitting on my desk.
First off, for those of you who are exceptionally far out of the loop, I just finished my first year of law school, perhaps the most distressing, hellish, unnerving, yet wonderfully beautiful experience of my life. I moved to Boston to go to Boston College Law School, taking up residence with ten other Mormon dudes just outside downtown in a house in Cambridge affectionately referred to as the "crack house" by my local church congregation, due to its exceptionally dreary appearance (which is largely thanks to an absentee landlord who doesn't give a crap about the place). But it was insanely cheap, and for a law student on loans, cheap=awesome. My first year went all right, I'm about in the middle of the pack as far as grades go, and I was fortunate enough to land an internship with the Boston Public Defender's Office, doing assorted research assignments and errands. I'm learning a lot and loving every minute.
I also moonlight a few nights a week as a manager at an upscale desserterie called Finale, located in the Coolidge Corner district. Great place, great people, and enough chocolate to make Willie Wonka wet himself. I'm pretty sure more than a few people have come in healthy and left diabetic, but at least they have smiles on their faces. Really good stuff; if you're ever in Boston, definitely drop in sometime.
I love Boston. If houses weren't so expensive they required my firstborn and a pint of blood as collateral to a down payment, I'd say I found my new home. Yeah, winter can be a bit brutal, but if you can take Texas summers, you can take Boston winters like nobody's business. Besides, the snowboarding here isn't nearly as bad as everyone says it is. It might not be good per se, but it's not bad. Plus, there's just so much to do here it's mind-boggling. The amount of American history I pass just to get to work is staggering, Fenway park and the Garden are just surreal experiences, Boston Common is beyond a great place to hang out, and you could eat out at a different restaurant every day for 3 years and not get halfway through all the fare this town has to offer. Throw in some great forests, mountains, or beaches, many within 3 hours of town, and there's enough to keep you occupied here for a very long time.
And finally, the one thing everyone asks, yes, I have a girlfriend. Marisa and I have been dating for over 8 months now and it's been a great experience beyond what I could have expected. I wouldn't be nearly as positive about everything without her around, and I'm grateful we're together.
So there you have it my friends. Give me a shout if any of y'all wanna catch up at some point.

A Picture Definitely Worth 1,000 Words

You know it's true.

From: The Assimilated Negro

Pay No Mind to the Crazy Senator Behind the Podium

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) has spoken, presumably while we all held our breath. And by "we all" I mean anybody who knows the first thing about Congress and professional sports. And by "held our breath" I mean tried to keep the stench of all that B.S. from entering into our noses. Apparently, a man charged with representing a part of our country in its lawmaking assembly thinks that NFL commish Roger Goddell didn't handle Spygate properly, and that there ought to be a full investigation into the matter. Even held a press conference to say so, saying he wasn't quite sure that the NFL's destruction of the Spygate tapes rose to the level of the recent destruction of CIA tapes. Whew, thanks for that clarification sir, I was getting worried for a bit. Because, you know, national security and football are right there together on my list of priorities.
The more sensible among us might ask, "what could be farther from the realm of senatorial duty than the sports-related affairs of a professional sports team?" An apt question, indeed, dear reader.
Let's take a trip back a few months to when MLB comissioner Bud Selig asked Congress to appoint a special committee to investigate the use of steriods and performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. A few months later, viola, we have the Mitchell Report, a much-ballyhooed and ultimately disappointing report that told us everything we already knew (Everybody was on the Juice! Shocking!)and named a few names. And all it took was a few million of your tax dollars and thousands of senatorial man-hours, while a couple hundred more died in Iraq. Just another day at the office.
Now, I know Congress likes to wrap its authoritative paws around whatever it can like the selfish kid at day-care screaming "MINE!" And I'm fully aware that Selig asked Congress to investigate this whole thing. But I still have to wonder what it is about performance enhancers in sports that makes it fall under Congress' so-VERY-capable investigative authority. As if we didn't have enough on our congressional plate already with a dollar that's more inflated than Roseanne at a Vegas buffet, to say nothing of Iraq, campaign finance reform, dwindling social security funds, and an oil crisis that we haven't faced since the Carter administration. Miguel Tejada? Human Growth Hormone? Cancel my meeting with the U.N., I have to get to the bottom of this! The only plausible argument I can see for Congressional involvement in this whole thing was that some of the substances in question were subject to federal regulation (at least, I think some of them were). But I digress.
Unless I'm mistaken, Specter was on the Steroids in Baseball Committee. Or maybe he wasn't. I'm not positive, but it doesn't matter anyway. It looks like this good ol' boy hasn't had enough. Now he feels that a full investigation should be made into Spygate, which apparently involves the New England Patriots filming pregame workouts and play-calling signals, in violation of NFL rules. Nevermind that NFL rules clearly do not fall under federal jurisdiction (you don't get remanded to Leavenworth for a holding penalty, after all). Nevermind that we have an election coming up. Forget about our crashing economy and the millions who live below the poverty line. And screw all those people who died in China and Myanmar. We have know what Bill Belichek knows! We don't know what he has! (And by the way, doesn't that sound similar to what we heard before we started dropping bombs over baghdad?)
This is absurd. Sen. Specter, do your freaking job. Represent your constituency. Cast your ballot in Congress. Figure out how to help our nation on the road to recovery. How much did it cost you in time and money to prepare a statement and hold a press conference? And how many children and senior citizens died during that time from starvation or an inability to procure adequate health care? You can help fix the latter, senator. But nobody (repeat:nobody) with a shred of common sense gives two turds about what you think about Spygate or what should be done about it. You have no right to go there. Nobody asked you. You weren't invited. Stop riding Roger Goddell and go ride Nancy Pelosi and maybe you and your little congressional playmates might actually get somewhere on an issue for once instead of sitting around arguing partisan rhetoric with your thumbs up your butts.
Screw you, Senator Specter.