El Pocho Abogado

Livin' in the 1990s

2011-08-18T00:49:00.000-07:00

Slate Culture Gabfest, which should be in my sidebar but I suck as a human being, and the New York Times had a discussion about nostalgia for the 1990s. The Times had this fascinating quote from Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill, “[We] were so freaked out about documentation then . . . that people were going to misrepresent you . . . we didn’t really honor what we did very much.”

I remember things slightly differently, everyone and their sister seemed to photograph shows or write a zine about them. I guess zines weren't really supposed to last very long, but any self respecting punker had at least a shoe box full of zines stashed under their bed. I had several half rack boxes of zines. I still have one.

Anyway, the part I do agree with Kathleen about is that we thought there was some corporate spy hanging out to steal our culture. So what would they do with the youth culture? We knew they would misrepresent us, but what we were really worried about was being co-opted. We didn't want our own culture watered down and sold back to us ala Hot Topic, the stupid Emo fad thing, Warp Tour, and on and on.

If you flip through an old issue of Maximum Rock N Roll, by old I mean when Tim was still alive, you'll see endless discussions about the co-opting of our culture (I'm sure those arguments are still going on but frankly if MRR didn't become completely unreadable after Tim, you must have been a Heart Attack reader). We worried endlessly about selling out. When Jawbreaker "sold out", i.e. toured with Nirvana and signed to DGC, I about went apeshit.

One interesting contrast between then and now is that there no longer seems to be amy concern about selling out. Just about every band I like has a song in a commercial. That would have been unthinkable in the 90's. Converse has a series of summer songs that are almost always wonderful. The latest, by Matt & Kim with Andrew W.K. and Souljah Boy, is super fun.

I was thinking about what's changed since then. One thing is, we used to think the big music labels were evil masterminds. They basically fucked over anyone they could. Steve Albini wrote this great opinion piece that was basic reading for music fans for my generation. The big labels were evil. You could watch them ruin a band in a single record cough Dear You cough.

Now, after watching the labels basically eff up every opportunity they had during the conversion to digital formats, we know that the labels are run by idiots. They complain about how expensive it is to promote a new band, and what we all know is that a good band will promote themselves. We know that the labels can't choose good bands, thus Ke$ha has a youtube channel with a bunch of her videos. The labels are so poor at running their business they have to constantly lobby congress and bully people with stupid lawsuits to try and keep their crappy business model running. WooHoo for free markets.

But the latest music generation has watched this failure of imagination, business sense, and ability from the major labels. It's pretty clear that the major labels are not evil genius. They're not even evil sort-of-bright guys. So who cares if the Born Ruffians get paid to plug a credit card or the New Pornographers are in a phone commercial? They can't co-opt the culture b/c they can't navigate social media. Making a good facebook site is above most of their ken, let alone co-opt it.

2011-07-24T22:26:00.001-07:00

I like Kathleen Parker. I think she's the most intellectually honest of the conservative op ed writers at the post. Normally she doesn't engage in apologetics, but her column today did that. It's one of her weaker columns. My first problem is that she calls Herman Cain's bigoted statements against Muslims and Islam as rhetoric. Calling his comments rhetoric elevates them to too high of a level. His statements are inane, especially in regards to sharia.

My second problem is that she says that people who object to his statements are looking "for a nugget to chew on". By trivializing his critics as people solely looking for a political opportunity she fails to stand by some of our basic american principles. The case could be made that maybe his critics take the 1st Amendment and Article 6 of the constitution seriously. It could be said that maybe they've read and understand the founding principles of our government and believe any one casting themselves as a serious political candidate should do the same. It's not demagoguery to denounce bigotry, especially when the bigot could be in a position of power over those he's bigoted against.

Herman Cain, if he were elected, would be required to swear an oath that he would enforce the constitution. His comments about mosques and having religious tests make it clear that he does not know what is in the constitution and what it means. It is clear, even when you have the full quote, that he is prejudiced against Muslims.

Cain hasn't just said one bad thing. He's repeatedly made statements that show his prejudice against Islam and his misunderstanding of it. Cain is a bigot. He has an irrational dislike of Islam based on incorrect assumptions. He is wrong about Muslim's desire to convert Christians. He does not even remotely come close to know what sharia is and does not know anything about what happens in mosques. He does not try to find the correct information about these matters and attributes evil intentions to Muslims. It's bigotry.

My last big gripe about Parker's column is that she focuses on the comments and not what they show about his fitness for office. Being ignorant of Article 6 is bad, but not understanding the 1st Amendment is unforgivable. In his comments about the courts invalidating the Oklahoma law, he also makes it clear he doesn't understand the role of the courts and why the Bill of Rights was added to the constitution.

The court can strike down laws that the people enacted when they violate the constitution. That's what the Oklahoma law did and so the court fulfilled their duty and struck down the law. As nefarious as Cain tried to make it sound the case, basically a man wanted to write his will in accordance with his religion. The Oklahoma law invalidated his will, and any other Muslim's will who chose to write their will in accordance with their religious beliefs. This law discriminated only against Muslims, in that it prevented only Muslims from being able to fulfill their religious duties when it comes to estate planning. The court was right to strike it down and anyone who has a high school civics education would understand.

Cain is obviously smart enough to understand basic civics, the fact that he refuses to demonstrates that he is not able to control his bigotry and has no business being in an elected office of any kind.

Fake Populism

2011-07-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

I was listening to Slate Culture Gabfest and they endorsed an appearance by Steve Coogan on some BBC show talking about the News of the World scandal. The Guardian has a running news page about the scandal here. News of The World were hacking peoples cell phones illegally and the people they hacked ran the gamut from celebrities to soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan. The hack that has most offended the public was the hack of Milly Dowler, a 13 year old murder victim.

Anyway, while watching the Steve Coogan piece there was a link to a Hugh Grant piece. After watching those videos and a couple others I noticed that Murdock's people are using populist arguments to defend their actions. I think this is basically a smoke screen, but their argument basically goes "A bunch of rich people are telling poor people what to read". You can see this argument really clearly on this video of Hugh Grant in the commenter's explanation of the video.

It's kind of amazing to me that they would even try this b/c this isn't a class issue at all. Rupert Murdock is a whole lot richer than Hugh Grant and Steve Coogan put together an multiplied by 10. This article says Murdock is worth 5.6 billion. That maybe overstated b/c some articles are saying that he's lost a billion dollars since the scandal broke. This isn't some laborer demanding to read hacked voicemails from a murdered school girl versus Hugh Grant's annoyance at being caught with a hooker. It's an issue of whether or not Murdock should be allowed to profit by breaking the law and invading people's privacy.

In contrast to that, although they did hack celebrities and politicians, Murdock's people were hacking people like Milly Dowler, victims of the 7/7 bombings, and soldiers who died at war. Clearly these people aren't wealthy celebrities or people who have chosen to throw themselves in the spotlight.

The argument is a complete red herring. Most of the readers don't want these people's phones hacked, that's why advertisers left the NOTW in droves. They didn't want to piss off their customers who are not going to reward anyone associated with a scumbag outfit like NOTW. So, the argument is really about whether or not the freedom of the press incorporates the right of the press to hack into phones. The majority consensus is that the press does not have that right, and that's why there are laws against it. It's further evidenced by the disgust shown by the public.

The question of an individual's privacy is a completely different question than whether rich people want to tell poor people what to read. I also think it's funny that they used this attack on Steve Coogan. I don't think there are any interesting tabloid stories about him (the best a quick google search came up with is that Courtney Love accused him of some stuff), so he really doesn't have a dog in this fight.

Now, the reason I think this is interesting is that Murdock's shown a willingness to break the law, a desire to distort the debate, give specious arguments, and a disregard for the truth. At one point Fox News insinuated that Fox itself had been hacked. The reason the press is granted freedom is to prevent every single one of those things from happening. It should clarify debates by providing facts and information, it should regard the truth, or the attempt to find the truth, as its highest ideal. If it works contrary to that then there is no reason to have freedom of the press. So if Murdock's businesses do not share the goals of the press, is it still press?

Peltzman Effect

2011-03-30T21:38:00.000-07:00

I learned about the Peltzman Effect today. It's when people react to a safety measure by engaging in riskier behavior. That riskier behavior leads to outcomes that offset the benefit of the safety measures.

Today, there was also this article in the NY Times about TARP. The article talks about the unfinished work of TARP, but I see the problem more as the unfinished work of financial reform as a whole. There were some bills introduced and passed that enacted some small measure of financial reform, but the regulations in the bills are small compared to the power of the institutions that they regulate. The uncompleted nature of this work is clear from the conflict that Elizabeth Warren is having with republicans right now. The idea that the consumers don't need some protection from the predatory practices of the financial sector is astonishing to me.

I finished No One Would Listen by Harry Markopolis and The Big Short by Michael Lewis recently. If these books made anything clear it was the total failure of regulation by the SEC or the private sector. The rating agencies appear to be no more than a joke. Ideally the negative outcomes of poor decisions are supposed to cause the financial institutes to self regulate, but that clearly did not happen. We factually know that this does not work because we witnessed it repeatedly during the Bush II administration.

I believe TARP eliminated the idea of moral hazard, which didn't work anyway but was supposed to have some effect, and now might be causing a Peltzman Effect. Markopolis argued that it would be better to have no government regulation than the current system because it misleads investors to think there is some form of competent oversight, but as Madoff showed, there isn't. So it would be better for investors to understand that noone makes sure the information they receive is accurate and correct, that statements they get are forged, and that the investments they make are real. If they went in knowing at any moment all their money could disappear b/c the whole thing was cooked up, it would be more honest and give investors the opportunity to assess the real risks of their investments.

But we haven't done that. The SEC seems to be amazingly incompetent, and somewhat corrupt. Its legal counsel was recently investigated b/c his investments in Madoff may have created a conflict of interests. It seems in the case of Madoff specifically, and CDO's in general, that there is an actual Peltzman Effect going on b/c of attempts to regulate the industry.

I don't think this means there needs to be less regulations, but I think regulatory agencies should lose their immunity from suit for failure to perform their jobs. I think there should be more ways for private enforcement of these regulations, and I think we need a new regulatory regime with people like Elizabeth Warren running them.

Victim Blaming?

2011-03-13T15:33:00.000-07:00

There was an op-ed in the NY Times last week about the way the media is portraying the women that were living with Charlie Sheen since his melt down, or whatever you want to call it. I find this op-ed interesting because based on the argument laid out I agree with the author entirely. However, where she stops, I realize that more conclusions can be made.

Her main complaint is that Charlie Sheen, a known woman beater with a serious history of domestic abuse, is getting a free ride for his terrible behavior while the women, aka goddesses, are receiving a significantly more negative portrayal. The author makes the argument that the media assumes the negative treatment these women receive at the hands of Charlie Sheen is deserved b/c of their chosen professions.

It’s these sorts of explicit and implicit value judgments that underscore our contempt for women who are assumed to be trading on their sexuality. A woman’s active embrace of the fame monster or participation in the sex industry, we seem to say, means that she compromises her right not to be assaulted, let alone humiliated, insulted or degraded; it’s part of the deal. The promise of a modern Cinderella ending — attention, fame, the love and savings account of a rich man — is always the assumed goal.

I don't disagree that this may be the reason the media is portraying the women in this manner. However, there is another explanation of why the media is portraying the women as bimbos. It might be that despite the clear history and overwhelming evidence that Charlie Sheen is prone to violence and not particularly stable right now, they still choose to associate with him.

This might be an instance of victim blaming, but they are playing with fire and it is probably going to be sooner than later that something bad comes of this. I'm not saying they deserve to be assaulted or that Charlie Sheen should not be held accountable for his actions. I'm saying associating with him is clearly a bad idea and when you make a terrible decision you shouldn't be free from the blame of making that bad decision. If you walk through a bad neighborhood alone, flashing money and you get mugged, I can only be so sympathetic.

Clearly these women should not be beaten, but it's not a question of what should happen. It's that there is an obvious and high probability of what's likely to happen. Just like announcing your flush with cash in a crime ridden neighborhood is likely to lead to a mugging.

There are probably arguments to be made that because of these women's prior abuse or mental health issues they're not capable of making good decisions about these things, but this argument would work just as well for Charlie Sheen.

So, I think the author of the op-ed has valid points all around, but I think there is an argument to make about the failures of these women as well and that is going to deprive them of sympathy but not of culpability.

This is a problem for a lot of issues in feminism, racial equality, or social equity. The factors in all these problems are complex, but just like you don't want to blame the victims of bad schools, date rate, or prejudice, there is a factor of culpability that has to be faced. If advocates against sexism don't honestly address the dangers that women should be aware of when they get wasted at frat parties, parents of failing children don't address regarding the educational climate in their home, or advocates of diversity address about societal norms for employment, then it allows their opponents to dismiss their arguments for failing to take personal responsibility for their own role in these problems.

2010-09-20T17:57:00.000-07:00

I saw this NY Times article today and was horrified. The gist of the article is that a woman (4th generation U.S. Citizen btw) went and talked to border patrol about getting her baby daddy deported after they had a fight. The baby daddy was wanted in connection with a murder. In exchange for information on him, she wanted border patrol to return her baby (a 5th generation U.S. citizen), which baby daddy was apparently keeping from her. Border patrol thought this sounded like a good idea and agreed to help her.

Border patrol took the information she gave them, went and got the guy, renneged on the deal, and deported the baby b/c it would have cost too much to keep the kid 24 hours so that mom could get the proper court order. How much is too much to keep the border patrol from deporting an US Citizen? Apparently $200.00.

Mom found out they sent the kid to Juarez, Mexico but wouldn't tell her more than that. Juarez isn't the safest city in the world. This article from the El Paso times puts the death toll for this year at 2,000 people. The violence is so bad that the turn out for Mexico's Independence Day was bigger in El Paso than it was in Juarez. And border patrol sent her there with someone involved in a murder case, against the Mother's wishes.

So, when Mom got her baby returned to her she sued border patrol. And the court denied her case. They dismissed her motion under a federal rule that says the court doesn't have any power to hear cases like the one mom filed. That rule is 12(b)(1). Mom appealed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. They sided with the trial court and found for border patrol.

But three judges on the panel of 17 judges dissented. They said the court misunderstood the case law in this case. They say the court does have the power to hear this case. The federal government isn't immune from lawsuits when it does something as spectacularly wrong as deporting a US Citizen. They say it was a violation of both fourth and fifth amendment rights of the child. The dissenters said that it was an abuse of power to deport a U.S. Citizen.

One dissenting judge says technically the child wasn't deported b/c she went with dad, but border patrol may have violated some other right of the child and for that reason the court had the power to hear the case. I disagree with him b/c dad did not have the power to take the child to Mexico without mom's permission. You can read all about it at the State Department's website. It's in this section here. So, if Dad didn't have the legal power to take the child to Mexico, and mom objected to the child going to Mexico, that leaves only the border patrol imposing their decision on a US citizen.

The opinion is here.

But that's not the worst part of this. The worst thing about this case is that if the Supreme Court rules for border patrol, it will limit our recourse if border patrol deports us. Border Patrol can go around deporting any US citizen it wants to and no one can do anything about it b/c their lawsuit will be dismissed. This was actually a problem during the Chinese exclusion era. The government would hold people in jail or deny them entry to the U.S. and nothing could be done about it. Some of these cases were used as justification for Guantanamo by Bush.

I think the SCOTUS might actually rule for border patrol too. The court's history of protecting minority rights comes and goes. The court's history of protecting immigrant rights, or even treating them like human beings, is terrible. Just read the Chinese exclusion cases.

The court also likes to strengthen sovereign immunity (a legal doctrine that says the sovereign, i.e. the government, can't be sued) whenever they can. If they rule that way they'll try and say the facts in this case are so peculiar that it probably won't apply more broadly than in this instant case. The problem is once there is a case in existence, there is always the opportunity to expand the powers created under that case or limit your rights to challenge government's violation of your rights. That's where it gets dangerous. If there are three or four outlying cases like this, pretty soon you have a new legal doctrine.

Another problem is that they'd be wrong about the likelihood of this happening again. Anyone familiar with the family court system knows that there are a large number of families with mixed immigration status. There are frequent attempts to get the non citizen parent deported. If that parent could just choose to take the kid with them it would cause all sorts of problems. International parent abduction is already a big problem with no real solutions. If the court lets ICE or border patrol off the hook here, they're only inviting the problem to get worse.

14th Amendment

2010-09-02T19:18:00.000-07:00

So, a bunch of Republicans are calling for hearings to study whether or not the 14th Amendment should be repealed. If you don't remember, the 14th Amendment does a whole bunch of stuff, like guarantee due process and equal treatment before the law, get rid of the 3/5th's clause, and prohibit state governments from paying back debts they incurred to wage insurrection.

Overall it's a pretty popular amendment. Most people enjoy that they can't be forced to ride in the back of a city bus based on their gender or skin color. That's not the problem these Republicans have with the 14th Amendment, at least that's not the problem they're currently focusing on. They want to eliminate birthright citizenship. The 14th Amendment grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States of America. The Republican's objections to this is the usual crap about anchor babies and immigrants sneaking into the country to get benefits. One especially off kilter congressman believes immigrants might even be having terror babies!

Anyway, when they started this crap up I thought about all my cousins who are in the military. At one point I had 4 cousins in Iraq or Afghanistan. These are children of immigrants. These are the people who's citizenship they want to take away. Then I wondered how many Latino troops are in the gulf? It turns out quite a few. According to this website, before we even get to the children of immigrants, there are about 65,000 foreign born people serving in the military. And Mexico seems to be providing the most of those foreign born troops.

Another article from U.S.A Today says that Latinos make up about 9.5% of the total military force, but are 17.7% of combat troops. According to wikipedia we're only 15% of the total population of the U.S. This is a projection, the last actual data the census has is from 2000 and at that point we made up about 11% of the U.S. population. And if you're wondering where Latino's are serving, apparently it's in the harder jobs. The Marine Corps has a disproportionately larger number of Latinos than other branches, and a higher casualty rate.

Now, I know not all Latinos are the children of immigrants, but most of us are. I found this statistic that says 58% of Latino children live in a family with one or more foreign born parents. So, has congress thought about the impact hope of repealing the birthright citizenship would have on the military? It's not easy to replace over 10% of your front line troops, and that's just rough extrapolation. There could very well be a correlation between the children of foreign born parents and the likelihood that they end up as combat troops.

Someone needs to ask these congressmen how they plan on fighting their wars without the children of immigrants? And, how it is exactly, that they support the troops when they're here safe and comfortable and trying to undermine the legitimacy almost 20% of the frontline troops citizenship?

What to do with Glen Beck

2010-08-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

Charles Blow had the most intelligent comment about Glen Beck's rally to restore American honor. In his column, he suggests that instead of getting angry about the obtusive nature of Glen Beck and his rallys, we should go back and listen to Dr. King's speech and reflect on Dr. King's message. I think that makes sense. You can't win an argument with Glen Beck with reason, logic, or facts, but I think the truth that is evident in Dr. King's speech might work.

I'd also recommend reading his letter from the Birmingham jail. And, one last thing that I think is important to remember when reflecting on these things is that they happened in 1963. Brown v. Board of Education had come down in 1954 saying that segregation was unconstitutional. Almost ten years later, Dr. King was fighting these illegal laws.

So, I agree with Charles Blow and I encourage you to share Dr. King's speech and letter with anyone who's interested in Glen Beck.

Clash of the Titans

2010-08-19T22:41:00.001-07:00

I rented the new Clash of the Titans. I'm somehow amazed at how bad it was, even though everyone had warned me before I saw it that it was bad. It was terrible. And, I understand that some of the problems were that it was filmed in 2D and the conversion to 3D blah blah blah.

No, that's not my problem. My problem is that basically the screenwriters took huge liberties and made fundamental changes to the basic story. And those changes sucked. So, I was thinking "These writers must be awesome, because the myth of Perseus has only been a crowd pleaser since about forever ago. It's only been retold since before there was Jesus." And I started seriously wondering how old the myth of Perseus was. And it looks like it's pretty old. I looked around wikipedia and the web and the myths were be depicted in artwork around 900 B.C.E. It must have been in the oral tradition for a while before that. So, conservatively, this has been retold from generation to generation, painted from one pot and copied to another, transcribed onto vellum and then copied onto more vellum, etc. for around for 3,000 years and it has successfully entertained people. It's got your pathos, ethos, catharsis, and all the other terms I learned in Comp 101.

Well then, how about the writers of the new movie? They must have some real chops. They must transcend generations with their story telling prowess. They must forge masterworks of true genius from mere ink and paper to think that they could improve on such a classic story. Did they adapt Gone With The Wind? Citizen Kane, perhaps? Or maybe even one of the good Indiana Jones movies?

No. They wrote Tuxedo and some movies that don't have pictures on IMDB. You remember, Tuxedo, where Jackie Chan gets a magic tuxedo and does kung fu and stunts. Obviously a classic. According to IMDB it won two blimp awards (that's an award that Nickelodeon gives out, so sayeth the google). Certainly it's a tale that will be told 3,000 years from now on cybernetic holo synth linkups or whatever medium they're using in the future. So, with your wealth of expertise, go ahead. Rearrange Perseus's family tree. Add a new pointless character. Change his love interest, the entire kingdom of Mycenae won't mind. It'll just spontaneously generate or something since you split up its parents.

Idiots.

Sigue Sigue Sputnik vs. Devo

2010-08-17T19:13:00.000-07:00

I'm a fan of Sigue Sigue Sputnik. I don't think there's a whole bunch of us out there, but there are enough. I was pleased that the Kinky Wizards in High Fidelity were caught shoplifting a copy of Flaunt It. I think every new band or musician should listen to Flaunt It. Sigue Sigue Sputnik's contributions to modern music have been overlooked because they were over the top and cartoonish. But one place their influence really pops up is in Devo's new record, Something for Everybody. Devo, even though they predate, clearly influenced, and, to an extent, preconceptualized SSS's schtick, borrowed from SSS's example in promoting their new album.

If you're unfamiliar with Sigue Sigue Sputnik you can read the wikipedia article above or check out their official page. But it boils down to Tony James from Generation X being kind of ticked off and looking to form a new band after Billy Idol ditched the group to go off on his own for big money. Looking at the examples of people like Malcolm McLaren and seeing that the music industry was basically a big shake down, Tony James decided to take it to nth degree. Tony was able to use hype to start a bidding war between the labels that were trying to sign the band. He got the band a big advance from EMI and then auctioned off advertising in the album itself. One song promotes Atari and Vidal Sassoon commercials pop up throughout the record. It was a nice statement about the commercialization of the industry and the art. They frequently refer to themselves as a corporation and prophesize a distopian monopolized future. They released a second record that didn't do very well, and in my opinion they shouldn't have. They were a one trick pony. But the important lesson was that the music industry has nothing to do with art, it's just a money making venture that hides behind claims of creating art, etc. We all clearly see that no one is promoting Justin Beiber because they believe in his artistic vision. They promote him because they can sell overpriced t shirts to tween girls.

Sigue Sigue Sputnik made their point in an artistic, ironic, and compelling way. And the music on Flaunt It was engaging, even though commercials for hair product popped up in between songs. Conceptually it was great, and important.

I got the new Devo record, Something For Everybody, about a month ago and I'm very happy with it. It is a logical follow up to The New Traditionalists and has none of the self indulgent "we're just here for your money" that other recent come back records(cough cough The Weirdness cough) have had.

I participated in a lot of the run up hype to the record. You can still see some of it at Devo's website. What I found interesting about Devo's marketing is how much more it relies on Sigue Sigue Sputnik's distopia than Devo's own. Instead of focusing on the devolution of the species, incessantly mired in some form of World War III waged by the dumbing down and monetization of culture, the new record comes from the point of view that that has happened. We are not fighting some post Reagen society of devolved conservatism. It's here. Most people in their early thirties, late twenties, think adbusters is kind of tired and Noam Chomsky is passe. It's over, we lost, now pay up.

So there are goofy surveys, "focus groups", etc. to create a meme of consumer participation, that is real, but is also poking fun at the lack of actual choice or real options available to people who have devolved beyond the point where they can make any meaningful choices. Does it really matter that people responded more positively to blue power domes than red ones? But they'll let you click your mouse and voila, blue power domes. You, the consumer, win!

Devo now seems to be saying, "The way we are marketed to is hoky crap, and you put up with it." The corporations have won. There is no longer a way to fight back against the corporate co-opting of culture. And so they're poking fun of it. The world/market they're now operating in is post devolutionary. It's the world of Sigue Sigue Sputnik and all that's left is to give you a wink and nudge while they market to you. It's a world where they run through the procedures of the governing corporate structure to create "art" for the youth market.

It's fascinating to me. Here's the video for the single, Fresh, off of Something for Everybody.

The news is doing a crap job

2010-06-13T14:01:00.000-07:00

I've been watching the news coverage of Arizona's SB 1070. The news has done a crap job of providing any context and I think this is born out by the recent shooting of a boy by border patrol in Juarez, Mexico.

The media keeps explaining that this law may lead to the harassment of people with legal status, or citizens, but then provide no further information. What they fail to mention is that U.S. authorities have a pretty crappy track record of distinguishing undocumented immigrants from anyone else who's brown. There was a little coverage of a truck driver who was taken into custody until his wife could bring his birth certificate, but there has been no coverage over previous "mistakes" by law enforcement.

Roundups of citizens go back at least to the Great Depression. California notoriously rounded up anyone who had Mexican ancestry and put them on a train back into deep Mexico. In the late 90's authorities in Chandler, Arizona arrested numerous citizens in an attempt to round up "illegals". What's sad is that if you do a google search for roundups in California or Chandler, Arizona, at best you can find fringe articles about these round ups. The Latino community knows about them through first person accounts and word of mouth.

You can't have a reasonable conversation about SB 1070 if you aren't aware that the government has tried these methods before and failed. They have violated the Constitution each time. In the Chandler raids, the government had to settle a lawsuit that cost tax payers, on top of what they paid for the failed raids.

This lesson doesn't hold just for Latinos, you can look at the treatment of immigrants all the way back to the founding and see accusations that they were "too French" and would destroy the colonists' way of life, even though France had just helped them gain their independence. Or you can look more recently to the round ups of people of Arab descent after 9/11, or even more recently, look at racial and ethnic break down of police stops and searches. Every jurisdiction that has dared to look honestly at this information has found that police were at least twice as likely to search Latino's and blacks, but more likely to find contraband on whites.

The media fails to provide any of this context when talking about Arizona's bill or immigration policy in general. That brings us to the young kid that border patrol shot in Mexico.

The U.S. has also had problems with shooting Mexican children while trying to "enforce the border". I didn't read every article, but I didn't see one mention of the incident back in the late '90s when a marine, who was stationed at the border, shot a young shepherd on the Mexico side of the border.

And, once again, when I google various search terms for this incident all I can find are forum comments.

When the media fails to adequately report these things in the first place, it controls the discussion for a long time after and the picture that is presented is totally distorted.

You can watch the video of what happened to the kid in Juarez. I don't see any rocks landing near the border patrol agent. If the rocks were big enough to be dangerous they would show up on that bleached out concrete. I also don't see the agent or the guy he's collared flinch because a rock got close. All I see is a guy shot at some kids.

2008-01-29T00:39:00.001-08:00

70%

An Actual Hearing

2008-01-27T23:57:00.000-08:00

Judge: Don't Rise! Mr. Gonzalez do you have your notepad ready?

Me: Yes, your honor.

Judge (flipping through the court file): I don't see any responsive pleadings or affidavits.
Petitioner's Motion paragraph 1, granted. Paragraph 2, granted, at least until respondent replies. Paragraph 3 (bites his lip and moves his head back and forth), are you keeping up Mr. Gonzalez?

Me: Yes, your honor.

Judge: Granted, Paragraph 4? We'll leave attorney's fees pending until trial. Thank you counsel. We're off the record.

Verbatim, that is the entire hearing. It took less than two minutes. Now I'm glad I won, but what if my client expects that kind of performance in the rest of our hearings?

Overheard in open court.

2007-12-13T19:17:00.000-08:00

Attorney: How many times have you been convicted of a felony?

Respondent: About ten or so.

Attorney: What were those convictions for?

Respondent: Failure to appear, some driving stuff, possession of a controlled substance. I was trying to self medicate my narcolepsy.

Attorney: What drug was the possession of a controlled substance for?

Respondent: Meth.

Attorney: Let me clarify this. Your testimony is that you were self medicating your sleeping disorder with Methamphetamine? Is that what your testimony is?

2007-11-30T17:27:00.000-08:00

I've been listening to a little M.I.A. lately. I heard the song Paper Planes and it stuck in my head like glitter on a crafter. I took me two weeks to realize the sample was from The Clash's song Straight To Hell. Now both are on constant rotation in my head.

I actually didn't mind the songs stuck in my head after sitting through restraining order hearings the other day. It was nice to hear something blocking out the testimony.
Now, this isn't legal advice but it's probably not good to mention that "she makes me so angry I just lose it sometimes" when you're trying to get rid of a restraining order.
Some other phrases that don't go over well are "I didn't threaten her, I mean, yeah I said I'd kill her, but I didn't shout it. My voice was very calm."
"Yeah I threw her over my shoulder and dragged her up the stairs, but she lied to the cops when she said she was screaming at me to put her down. She wasn't screaming, she was just saying it."
"I didn't hit her, I might have pushed her a little, but it wasn't hard. She just fell down because we were so drunk."

2007-09-23T13:13:00.000-07:00

A moment of silence...

I know, I'm going to hell. It wasn't even that funny.

2007-09-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

So, I was in court the other day. The case was crazy messy. There were four attorneys. Kids, grandparents, parents, the dog, etc. Just about everyone had an attorney. We had to pull in extra chairs and counsel tables.

The Judge is giving us a "Don't you dare try this mess" look/settlement talk in chambers. We hash out an agreement, we haggle, we talk to our clients, we come back make a few tweaks and we have a sausage, I mean, a settlement (cough sausage sausage cough).

The Judge reads the settlement onto the record, we all chime in with our pet provisions etc. I've filled up two legal pad pages with notes.

Then the Judge asks, "Who wants to prepare the judgment?"

Crickets.

I'm thinking there's no prevailing party so I don't necessarily have to write this ugly bastard. Maybe someone will volunteer.

Crickets.

I start thinking, "Shit, I'm the petitioner, the moving party." If no one volunteers this ugly bastard will be my baby.

More analytical thinking kicks in, grandma's attorney doesn't give a rat's ass about the property division. He's not taking the judgment. Kid's attorney is the same fucking story. It's me or respondent.

That's when I look at respondent's attorney. He's doing his best impression of a certified expert pencil examination expert as he stares down into the pencil in his hand. It looks like he's trying to will it, or himself, invisible with just his mind/ mastery of the force. It's a technique I'm sure he first mastered in law school when he hadn't done the reading and thought he might get called on.

At that point I realized there was no walking out of this situation with all limbs intact and I through myself on the judgment. I told the judge, "As the moving party you're going to assign it to me so let's just pretend I volunteered to write it."
He smiled and said, "Fine with me, We're off the record." And he was out of his chair and back into chambers.

I'm realizing as I write this that there are four attorneys who have to sign off on the thing. Four of them. There's no way I'm walking out of here without a bunch of objections and another hearing.

Damnit.

2007-09-21T23:35:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit of a Kurt Russell fan. I was over at WFMU's Beware of the Blog when I found this post comparing Patrick Swayze to Kurt Russell. I had never thought about it before but I guess Patrick Swayze is the Duane Eddie to Kurt Russell's Link Ray. The analogy is clear and I think the outcome is clear too. Link Wray kicks Duane Eddie's ass.

I will give them the point that Swayze was pretty awesome in Donnie Darko.

My only complaint is that the analysis of Big Trouble In Little China was lacking. Jack Burton is probably one of the greatest action heroes of all time. What was Swayze's name in Point Break or Roadhouse? I didn't even bother to see the other one.

So anyway, from someone who watched Sky High and enjoyed it, Russell is way better.
Checkout the Krautrock tribute to Kurt at the end of the post.

2007-09-10T23:28:00.001-07:00

When you win a hearing in family law the Court usually orders you to write the judgment or order in that case. I recently had a spate of hearings and trials where I won. It’s always nice to win but after the fourth one I started thinking about how I don’t have time to write these all these judgments. I started to think about how maybe I shouldn’t win the next couple.
I could just sit down with my client and explain “I know your children mean a lot to you but maybe you should just have a really special time with them this weekend. I really don’t have time to win your hearing so this is probably going to be the last parenting time you have for a while.”
Man, wouldn’t that be great!

I guess I’ll keep working weekends then.

2007-08-02T22:17:00.000-07:00

Say you have a case in family court. Say you’re not sure how your case is going. The average person would assume if they are getting more parenting time than they had before the case then they’re doing pretty good. If they have about the same amount of parenting time then your case is going about average. If you have less parenting time then your case is not going so well.

If you somehow manage to get your self taken into custody and put in jail you can be certain that you need to shut the hell up and hire an attorney and do everything that attorney says.

This isn’t legal advice. This is common sense.

2007-07-29T23:38:00.000-07:00

I had a hearing in a different county on Friday. Their procedures are a little different from the county I normally practice in. I had to call in on Thursday to find out what court room and judge it was in front of. To my delight, or maybe dread and terror, I find that my hearing is in front of a pro tem judge. A pro tem judge who was a judge for a long time and then retired. Retired from the F'ing Supreme Court of Oregon. Not actually a judge but a Justice. Shit.

This wasn't any plain old justice either. This happened to be the one who wrote four or five of the major opinions on the area of law that was being argued that day. You could see the stress pulse in my veins as they throbbed on my fore head. Shit.

So, instead of sleeping that night I read, and reread and then read them ten more times for good measure, every opinion he wrote on the subject. I was so prepared for court that I could recite his opinions verbatim. I could probably belch the distinctions between Roshto and Cottingim. Maybe I was a little over prepared, over anxious, and over stressed. Shit.

And what happened? The mutha fucking opposing party fired their lawyer and no showed. I got a freaking default. Christ. Double Christ. Shit.

I guess at least I won and now I know the case law. I guess the Justice got to watch me sit and sweat like a mule in heat for half an hour while I tried to figure out what the hell was going and was super impressed and will recommend business my way. Whatever. Shit.

2007-07-02T23:42:00.000-07:00

I went to starbucks this morning to get a bagel. I was out of bagels. At starbucks there was an attractive brunette woman with big brown eyes. She was wearing open toed black suede high heels.
I kind of noticed her.
As I was ordering my bagel and coffee I could see her checking me out. She leaned over to her friends and whispered. Her friends looked me over and whispered back.
I was feeling pretty proud. A beautiful woman, with really great taste in shoes, was paying attention to me.
I was nonchalant. I played it cool. I watched her get up with her friends and walk off towards the court house.
I hoped she was a new file clerk or judicial assistant. Then I would see her again! Then I could work some of my charm on her. When it comes to charm the term, "pants off" has been known to apply. At least in my better daydreams it has applied.
I strut back to my office, high on the idea that a beautiful woman had just checked me out.

Later this afternoon I go to ex parte to have the Judge sign a final judgment in a case. I'm feeling doubly good. A hot woman checked me out and now I'm finally closing a case I started back in December. It is a good day.
I'm waiting in the hall when suddenly the attractive woman walks by and gives me a long glance. I quickly think why she might be in that hallway. Maybe she's on the restraining order docket and she's an advocate for survivors of domestic violence?
I get up to read that days docket.

There's a former clients name on the docket. I won his case. I realized that the woman wasn't "checking me out". She was giving me nasty looks.
She was the opposing party in a case that I won back at the beginning of the year. I got her protective order dismissed. (I was pretty awesome in that trial, not that I'm bragging.)
She wasn't looking me up and down in the "He's tall, dark, and handsome" sort of way. She was looking me over and whispering to her friends in the "That's the douchebag that represented my ex husband and fucked up my life. What a dirtbag. Choke and die motherfucker" kind of way.

When I got back to the office I told the legal assistant what happened. She said "It's not okay to hit on your former client's victims."

That's good advice, but she had pretty eyes...

2007-05-28T12:02:00.000-07:00

I read this article in the times and can only say that I'm a little bereft.

I once met a guy who worked at IMDB and I asked him why there was no picture of Charles Nelson Reilly on his IMDB page. The guy said that he never thought he would be asked that. Here's the webpage with IMDB's contact so that you can also ask them to put up a picture of Charles Nelson Reilly and that they should add his one man play/movie, The Life of Reilly, to his credits.

Here's where you can add Mr. Reilly to your myspace friends. He should probably be in your top eight.

You can find out more about the guy at www.charlesnesonreilly.com, which is pretty much the coolest website in the world.

Up on the hilltop where the vultures perch,
That's where I'm gonna build my church,
Ain't gonna be no priest, ain't gonna be no boss;
Just Charles Nelson Reilly nailed to a cross.

I hope he's finally getting some relief.

2007-05-25T19:37:00.000-07:00

A lot of fancy lawyers look down on my '06 bar number. They look at it and think "I'll steam roll this guy" and then don't do their prep work.

Last week I got to sit in Judges chambers and hand Opposing Counsel my finished paperwork. The Judge got to hear him apologize for not finishing his on time. I got to stare at the wall and not smirk while the Judge lectured him. And I got to thank the Judge while he made a comment about how much he appreciated how hard my client was working and that my client must really love his children.

This happens a lot. Almost every week. I love it, even when the attorney calls and screams at me later. At that point he can't intimidate me, even if he is charging his client 5X the amount I charge, because I know that shouting sound is desperation and fear. I'm gonna beat him and he knows it.

He knows he's going to lose to an '06, a lawyer with 4 months experience, a lawyer that he told his client he would mop the floor with, and it's only been the first hearing.

2007-05-08T23:43:00.001-07:00

Alberto Gonzales.
He creates a complicated problem for me. It has a lot to do with race. As the news reports more misstatements, inaccurate statements, potential lies, probable lies, and outright lies I feel more and more embarrassed.
The less competent he looks the worse I feel it reflects on me. He’s currently the highest ranking Latino in the U.S. government. The fact that he’s a Latino has fortunately not been mentioned in the press except in the context that everyone has been great about not mentioning race when they talk about how incompetent he is.
This is one of the weird ways racism works. I’m both relieved and troubled that race has not been mentioned. Hopefully it’s not mentioned because it’s not a relevant to the fact that he can’t do his job. But I worry that it’s not mentioned because it’s what all the white people are thinking about him.
I know that’s a piece of stereotyping, but b/c I don’t know what big chunks of the white population are thinking, I worry that it might be the worst.

Now, as a Latino, on top of worrying about how the white people are thinking about Alberto Gonzales, I worry how much they associate him with me. I’m one of the few Latino lawyers in Oregon. I’m bound to be associated with him. I didn’t go to Harvard and don’t have a fancy job but it still concerns me.

This is the interesting way that racism currently works. I have a fear that is probably semi rational, but I have no way of verifying how rational it is and I’m suspicious that I’m being judged by his actions.

There’s an old joke, “What do you call a Mexican in a suit?”
“The defendant.”

Most attorneys of color I’ve talked to have mentioned at least one experience in court where they were mistaken for the defendant. As Alberto becomes more and more like a defendant I feel like he’s undercut the advances everyone of color have achieved.

He’s someone I’m in no way associated with except for some skin color, and he embarrasses me.

White people aren’t embarrassed about being associated with Bush.

2007-04-20T00:10:00.000-07:00

I was talking to a friend about a case today. She works in the same area of law I work in and serves generally the same population. I told her that one of my client's Ex used a new form of harassment against my client. It was nonviolent but a huge headache. It went well beyond getting a restraining order first or the general methods of screwing up my client's life. I was surprised by it and a little impressed. It was clever and I will have to reevaluate how I approach him in court.
My friend said it's screwed up that this method of harassment surprised me. We've become so used to people beating up our clients it's shocking when they can get at them without using violence. I wouldn't have been in the least bit shocked if I found out that her Ex kicked in the door and beat her with a stick. I would have felt bad but not shocked.

2007-03-31T19:47:00.000-07:00

I lost a hearing. I consider it a loss because I didn't get everything I want. I got about half of what I asked for. I felt I had the statutory law on my side. It wasn't until I had the chance to drive home about 4 hours later that I realized that although the law may have been on my side I probably wasn't asking for something very fair. The judge did what was fair when the law was unclear.
It's interesting how my mindset will get so one sided. When I told my roommate he didn't understand what my position was. I explained it and he wondered why I thought my position was reasonable. He asked why I thought my client deserved it.
I got to keep my head clear of that kind of client support because it can blind me to the other sides argument.

2007-03-26T23:13:00.000-07:00

If you were to choose to tell a lie in court, and I would recommend that you don't, don't make it an obvious lie. When you make it an obvious lie you give me the opportunity to look at the judge in a sort of "I don't believe I caught that" sort of way. Then I'll look at you in a "Did you really just say such a stupid lie" way. Then I'll look at the ceiling to make sure lightning isn't striking you. Last, I'll look back at the judge in an "I'm going to pretend that stupid lie was not said b/c it's so dumb that it will just bog us down" and I'll say "Anyway, on the merits...".
Really, just don't lie. Everyone knows it. Lawyers live solely to sniff out and exploit these kind of lies.

2007-03-10T11:45:00.000-08:00

I had a hearing on Tuesday. I filed a motion with the court asking that my client have exclusive use of the family residence. Basically I'm asking the court to make the other party leave the house b/c the couple is fighting too much.
I won my hearing and the judge was laying out the terms and then I realized that I had just had this woman kicked out of her house. I made that happen.
It was necessary and for the good of the kids. She'll be able to find a place to live. It'll help speed the divorce along. There are some positives to it.
However, the psychological impact must be significant. I don't know how I would react if some stranger hauled me into court and had me thrown out of my house and away from my children. It's hard not to think that it would be devastating.
While writing the order up yesterday I realized how completely inadequate legal ethical education is. I had been happy that I won. What I did was necessary but I should have been more cognizant of what I was doing and not get tricked by language like "motion for exclusive use of the family residence."
Lawyers use language to hide the impact of what they do as much from themselves as from anyone.
No cheering when I kick people out of their house from now on.

2007-03-07T12:55:00.000-08:00

If I have to call a client and the hold music is especially bad it may effect my decision to bill that phone call.

2007-03-02T19:26:00.001-08:00

One of the wonderful things about being a new lawyer is that even when you try and do a good job you are going to screw up. Some times those mistakes will be large. So you may win and the Judge may feel it necessary to point out some large mistake. You then have the best of both worlds. You get to win but you can still feel like a loser! I can’t encourage you enough to apply to law school.

2007-03-01T22:22:00.000-08:00

If you make a motion to the court that the other party should submit to a hair follicle drug test then expect the other party to ask that you submit to the same test. If this happens and you don't think you can pass there are some ways to go about handling it. The best would probably be to withdraw your motion. You might also try settling.
The worst plan would be to have your entire body waxed. When you show up at the testing site and they can't even pluck an eyebrow to do a test they probably won't think it's a strange coincidence. They'll probably call the other party and say, "I don't fucking believe that this asshole showed up with his entire body waxed. I couldn't even get hair out of his ass crack."
The judge probably won't believe your lame excuse for waxing your entire body, no matter how casually you try and present that excuse.
This isn't legal advice, I'm just saying...

2007-02-28T15:34:00.000-08:00

On a scale of 1 to 10 I think this rates Chilango.

2007-02-26T00:14:00.001-08:00

So, I was asked to give a talk at a fundraiser. I work at a non profit legal clinic helping people with family law issues. There are a lot of domestic violence victims who come to us for help. I was asked to talk about the money raised at the fundraiser helped us provide services to people.
They wanted me to give a talk that would show the donors that they were doing good things. The first case that jumped to my mind was the guy who I successfully defended on a stalking protective order. Once I got the order dismissed he asked me if that meant he could get his guns back.
When I told the fundraising coordinator about that story she turned pale. I guess not everyone shares my sense of humor.

2007-01-18T21:46:00.000-08:00

I just learned that I have comments going back for 2 months that I needed to approve so that they would show up. I don't think I ever turned on that feature. Whatever. I've got that fixed now, I think. The fact that the comments all show up in October and that new comments have appeared is reassuring.

I was pretty thrilled on Tuesday when Barack Obama announced the formation of his exploratory committee. As a general rule I don't like to believe in politicians. They're all kind of dirty to me. However, I really like Obama. I think after 6 years of listening to Bush stutter lies I would fall for anyone well spoken. If they sound sincere while they're correctly pronouncing words I'll fall hard. Obama does both things, and he does them extremely well. I think he might be the kind of candidate I wouldn't be embarrassed by later on.

The other thing about Obama that I think is important is that because he's an individual of color, and his father was an immigrant, that he can respect my point of view and how it is formed. He has the experience to understand how varied experiences create varieties of opinions and that those opinions are valid. The current administration seems to label everyone a coward or a traitor if they disagree. I don't think Obama will do that.
Most importantly I think Obama will stand up for people like me. There was an article in Slate about how Justice Marshall stood up to Rehnquist when he called undocumented students in Texas "wetbacks". Marshall immediately confronted him and didn't accept any lame excuses. He pointed out that Rehnquist's comment was unjustifiable. As long as Justice Marshall was on the court you knew there was one guy in the government you could trust, who was on your side, and who wouldn't twist the truth to benefit the wealthy or the empowered. I don't think there's anyone in the government besides Obama like that right now. I think it's important to support someone who is going to support people regardless of their viewpoints, someone who is going to stand up to racist/sexist/backwards remarks. This may not be the traditional civil rights leader, but times have changed. I love Al Sharpton, he speaks truth to power, but no one wants to work with someone who's going to turn them into a punchline. Obama offers respect and that's going to get true equality closer to reality in the long run.
Personally I could give a crap about religion. I don't think it says anything about an individual. There are moral and altruistic atheists and corrupt, lying, selfish god fearers. Obama strikes me as someone who is going to talk about religion in the terms of mercy and compassion. Kind of like pretty much every religion claims it does.

I'm ready at this point to throw my lot in with Obama. The only legitimate criticism is that he doesn't have a lot of political experience. I think what he may lack in political experience he makes up for in actual experience and intelligence. Obama can learn on the job, he can figure out why he might have made a mistake, and he can take steps to do better in the future.

Obama's collection of attributes encourages me to think he's worth supporting. As we find out more about him I hope that I have reasons to maintain my enthusiasm.

2007-01-17T22:44:00.000-08:00

I'm totally thrilled with this new band Los Abandoned. I bought their CD and have been listening to it non-stop. It's got the perfect mix of poppy new wave and power pop, Latino and Anglo. This band shines with the beauty of cross cultural pollination. This is the reason I became a pocho in the first place. I've never heard Spanglish sound so hooky.

Here's the video for Van Nuys Es Very Nice. I think she's reading Ingles Por Dummies.

2007-01-17T22:29:00.000-08:00

One of the many treasures I brought back from El Paso was the exclusive Chico's Tacos Coffee Mug. It's so beautiful I even photographed it. I feel one is obligated to shine joy into the darkness of other people's lives whenever possible. That is why I am sharing this picture of my Chico's Tacos Coffee Mug with you.

I was totally thrilled to get my coffee cup home and pour some fine Stumptown coffee into it. When I unwrapped my mug I found a warning label on the bottom of it.
Apparently the lively colored paint, meant to bring the festivity of enjoying the El Paso tradition straight to your coffee, is lead based and has some other chemicals in it. There was a list of health issues that the paint could cause. Small stuff like birth defects, neurological disorders, testicular cancer, a large goiter, impotency, and so on. I thought, "Shit, all that can happen to you just from drinking the tap water in El Paso."
After a little thought I decided that I should use my mug as a pen holder in my office. The mug is like the double order of tacos. It's something that should be enjoyed sparingly, maybe just around Christmas Time or every other year. If you ate them everyday I can't imagine what would happen to you. You'd probably look like Fat Cousin Memo, and just like testicular cancer, nobody wants that.

2006-12-28T12:06:00.000-08:00

I've gone to two movies recently that had, what I felt to be, significant errors. First was Apocalypto. There was a solar eclipse and the Mayans became scared and shocked. This bugs me because the Mayans were expert astronomers and were able to predict eclipses. This information might not have been widely known by your average lay person but the priest class definitely knew about it. The formula or method for calculating and predicting eclipses was found in the Dresden Codex.
So the Mayans weren't bumbling superstitious fools when it came to predicting astronomical events. I understand it was a nice dramatic touch but they should have been able to find something else, like a jaguar Steele collapsing or something.

Second, I took my young cousins to see Night At The Museum. Attila the Hun wasn’t Asian. He was a Hun, modern day Germans. That’s why we called Germans "Huns" during both World Wars. I think who ever wrote the movie didn’t know the difference between Attila the Hun and Ghengis Khan and apparently didn’t know shit about 20th Century history. This bugs me only b/c the movie is about a history museum and there were some minor mouth service to learning history. They should have done some basics. Other than that it’s acceptable.

2006-12-28T12:04:00.000-08:00

I had consumed a double order of Chico’s Tacos within 30 minutes of landing in El Paso. Since then I’ve had a few more orders of Chico’s, chile verde, tamales, barbacoa, tamales, huevos con chorizo, tamales, chile con queso, tacos, tortas, and tamales. Tomorrow I’m going to get my ass to Hamburger Inn to get some menudo and one last order of Chico’s before I get back on the plane to go to Portland.
I don’t know where the tamales keep coming from. After I ate my first order of Chico’s and unpacked there was a bag of tamales in the kitchen. Since then tamales have appeared in containers varying from brown paper sacks and Bud Light half rack boxes to fancy Rubber Maid containers. I think I’ve eaten over 100 tamales since last Wednesday. I’m not exaggerating, at least 100.
I figure I’ll eat a few more tamales on the plane home b/c I can’t take Chico’s on the plane with me. The juice they’re served in is over the 3 oz limit and won’t make it through security. They probably are semi hazardous. Maybe I’ll take some Chico’s juice and have the guy’s swab with the chemical detectors. I bet they set it off.
I have been eating since I got here but haven’t been hungry since that first order of Chico’s. When I get home I plan on eating a vegetable of some sort, maybe celery. The closest thing to a vegetable I’ve had is the masa around the meat in the tamale. I can feel my heart struggling to beat under weight of all the tamales.

2006-12-20T10:01:00.000-08:00

My roommate’s grandfather has a saying that makes a lot of sense to me. “If you’ve never missed a plane then you’re spending too much time in airports.” I tend to get their at the last minute, sign the form that says my luggage isn’t going to make it, run through security and get on the plane. I spend almost no time in the airport.
Today is different. I’m excited to go to El Paso. The fine taste of Chico’s Tacos is just a few hours away. I couldn’t sleep. I ended up at the airport early. This turned out to be a stroke of luck.
I plugged my confirmation number into the little self check-in kiosk thingy and it said to go see a customer service person. I do that and she watches me try to check in again. Then she sees the message and says, “Ohhhh, I need to get my manager.” That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. I’m important damn it. I shouldn’t be talking to pissant customer service reps, bring me a manager.
But this wasn’t “get my manager” in the good way. This was “get my manager” b/c you are apparently an evildoer and your name is on the goddamned no flight list with Ted Kennedy and that 3-month-old baby and other terror threats. It turns out it’s not actually me who’s on the list but one of the few other Antonio Gonzalez’s in the world. Christ, double Christ.
For the 20 minutes when they were trying to figure out how I got on the list and I was wondering how many TSA agents will be in the room when I’m asked to strip. Would they have warm fingers?
I wondered if it was my membership in the extremist group MECHA in high school and college. Was it my interest after reading the El Puro Pedo article on forming my own militant Chicano group? Maybe it was the fact that I checked out On Bullshit from the library and am now on to Karl Rove. Maybe it’s b/c they knew I would write this post…

2006-12-18T15:18:00.000-08:00

I was researching an issue I don’t know very much about when I came upon a website explaining the basics of succession, who gets what first, under Oregon law. As a sub-header there was a section titled “Oregon Intestate Succession Fun Facts”. Just the idea that there is anything fun about intestate succession made me laugh. “Woohoo, people dying and their family is fighting over the scraps! What fun we’re having!”

The fun facts included killing the decedent gets you kicked out of the will and unborn children still count as born children. But my favorite fun fact was “Relatives of the half blood inherit the same share they would inherit if they were of the whole blood.” Man, you lucky half blood relatives, you still get a full share even with your diminished mongrel half blood. So go give your relative by half blood a full hug.

2006-12-17T15:31:00.000-08:00

I applied to get my student loans consolidated last June. The process is still ongoing. Meanwhile all my loans have come due. I don’t have the money to pay them so I’m trying to defer them. Since I work at a non profit and help people who actually need it I don’t get paid very much and therefore qualify for a hardship deferment.
I sent out all the paper work and it’s started coming back saying I didn’t include a paystub. I knew that would happen but I wanted to get the process started and I’ll send in the paystubs on Monday.
However, one of the loans sent me a long letter saying that I didn’t qualify for a deferment. The other denials had a form letter with a list of reasons why I didn’t qualify and a box checked by the appropriate reason, usually no pay stub. This specific letter said that I didn’t qualify for the following ten reasons. Not one of the following ten, but all ten of them. They didn’t want to give me any false hope and say, fix these three or four things and we’ll see. It’s a flat out “Snowball in hell” scenario. There are so many reasons that I don’t deserve a deferment that they can’t narrow it down to just one or two.
I wonder if people stood around the office laughing at my request. Maybe it’s been photocopied and is hanging up in the break room. Maybe there was an intern who had to research my file just to make sure they couldn’t find two or three more reasons to deny me the deferment.
Bastards.
These are the same bastards that sent me a birthday card last week.

2006-12-07T22:11:00.000-08:00

This isn't legal advice. It's more like common sense but still I need to say it.

If you have a trial for domestic violence it's a good idea not to show up with the woman who has a restraining order against you. That's a violation of the restraining order. It makes for a short trial.

If you've just negotiated a parenting plan it's understandable that you may have some questions. When you submit the parenting plan to the judge, he may ask if you have any questions. That would be an okay time to ask a question, but asking if you still get your parenting time if you're in jail isn't the one to ask.

2006-12-03T15:43:00.000-08:00

My friend Mr. B. forwarded me a link to this essay. It refers to an op-ed piece written about the Muslim congressman Keith Ellison. The congressman asked to swear his oath of office on a Qur’an instead of on a bible. The op-ed is written by Dennis Prager and published in Town Hall. Prager insists that Ellison should be forced to swear on the bible. I would link to it but the site is full of a bunch of pop-ups and crap. You can google it if you care.
Normally I would ignore this article b/c it’s so asinine but this problem has come up in other circumstances. Not that long ago a North Carolina judge refused to let a Muslim swear on a Qur’an before testifying. He insisted that the Muslim swear on the bible.
The feeling is that somehow this undermines American values. But this totally misses the point. The point has nothing to do with American values. The point is that we want the oaths solemnized. We want to encourage people to uphold their oaths. It is in no way to promote the bible or any other book or to officially enshrine it in the U.S. government.
Lying under oath hinders the court’s pursuit of the truth and deprives the community of justice. When a congressman forsakes his oath it can have even broader consequences. Go back and look at the civil war for an instance of a number of congressmen forsaking their oath to the Constitution. These oaths are important and we want to do all that we can to ensure that people uphold them.
This country has always had a Christian majority. Christians have held the majority of public offices and given the majority of the testimony in court. It makes sense for a Christian to swear an oath on the bible. The bible is a sacred text to that religious tradition. By swearing an oath on something sacred the person is then encouraged to live up to that oath. To violate an oath would be a sin in and of its self, but to violate an oath sworn on a bible would be a second and more significant sin. To avoid putting their immortal soul in jeopardy a Christian would be extra scrupulous in upholding an oath sworn on a bible. This is the point. We want to encourage people to be extra scrupulous in upholding these oaths b/c of their impact on the public at large. Since the majority of people are Christians, the bible is the easiest thing to find that most people can agree on and will serve the purpose of solemnizing the oath.
Now, with that understanding, does it make sense to have a person swear on something that does not hold meaning to them? Would you take something more seriously if you were forced to swear an oath on Mad Magazine? Of course not, that’s why the courts long ago realized that it makes sense to let atheists or non Christians swear oaths to tell the truth without the bible or saying, “so help me god”. In that instance the bible would actually trivialize the oath.
You may say, “Antonio, you heaven bastard, prepare for the fires of hell. But while you do that how can you be so sure that a secondary reason for swearing an oath on a bible isn’t to uphold American values?”
That’s easy to answer. First, read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. There is no mention of the bible as enshrining American values. The Declaration of Independence laid out American values. As I’m sure everyone remembers those values would be “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. You won’t find that phrase in the bible. You find something pretty close to it in Locke’s Second Treatise on Government ("life, liberty, and estate" I think) and Adam Smith used the phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of property”. Second, the oath doesn’t say anything about the bible. The oath, in the context of congressmen, specifically is to support the Constitution. Check out Article VI, Section 1, Clause 3 of the Constitution.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

I think if Prager or this Wildmon joker had bothered to live up to some of those American values and had actually read the Constitution they would have noticed that little religious test section. It’s that little phrase at the end of the Clause 3 that prohibits a religious test, a test like forcing people to swear on the bible.

2006-11-29T14:26:00.000-08:00

This article in the NY Times is fairly interesting. It deals with an article written by Prof. Richard Sander from UCLA law school. Basically he found, and his research is apparently solid, that elite firms hire minority students with lower grades. He says this sets up minorities to fail in big law firms.
The evidence of minorities failing in big firms comes in two forms. The first is that there are very low numbers of ethnic minority partners in elite law firms. The second is that most of the minority associates leave the firm early on.
Sander’s claim is that they leave b/c they feel inadequate and aren’t up to the work in the firm. Critics claim that minorities are given less attractive assignments and less mentorship. They claim it’s not the lower grades that set them up to fail but the lower level of support once they are in the firm.
Another set of critics of Prof. Sander say that minorities are leaving b/c they have more options and are in effect choosing not to “hire” the elite firms. They are moving to in house counsel positions.

This is just my two cents, I didn’t go to an elite law school, didn’t get stellar grades, and only applied once at a big firm. This is based solely on my impressions. But I kind of agree with everyone on this and see a few different motivations for the low number of partners at elite firms.

First, it’s true that if law firms are hiring minorities with lower grades they may not be ready for the kind of work at elite law firms. Elite law firms tend to have a culture that does not understand minorities. They probably are bad at figuring out who would make a good associate at their firm. So they look at several minorities and can’t tell who got lower grades b/c they couldn’t do the work and who choose lower grades but are still competent.
If you’ve only ever talked to a couple black people from Chicago you are not competent and do not have the experience to evaluate the differences among black people from Southern California, Cuban blacks from Miami, or black Dominicans from New York. So I think the firms pick the wrong people b/c they don’t have the experience and exposure to evaluate minority candidates yet.
I had an interview at a big firm and as soon as a tattoo popped out from under my sleeve. The interviewer’s eyes were as big as dinner plates. They didn’t want to recognize that not all Latinos are going to be polished Jimmy Smits types. Some of us are proud that we are still a little pachuco. I may not have had the grades to work at that firm, but the choice wasn’t made on that basis. It was made on the basis of a cultural difference that had no correlation to my competency. How happy could I have been working some place where I had to hide myself all the time? I never applied to another big firm and never will.

Second, I don’t think elite firms are very appealing to a lot of minorities. Minority students at elite law schools are extremely talented and motivated people. After a couple years at a big firm they are smart enough to figure out that they could have more control, less work, and get a bigger share of the money they earned if they dump the firm and set up shop for themselves. Why give a partner a portion of your money so he can spend more time golfing? You don’t have to. Minorities just flat out don’t need the big firms. I see a lot of minority attorneys setting up their own firms.
Going along with this is that when you reach the level of a student from a top law school there is a little bit of ego. When you’re that smart and talented it’s hard to work for other people. I’m not nearly as bright as anyone who went to Yale or Harvard and I still would rather work for myself over the cache of working at some fancy firm and being some partner’s monkey.

Third, the reward or getting good grades aren’t really rewards to a lot of minorities. I realized first year that if my reward was to go work for a big firm then I didn’t want it. I would not have time to work in my community and help my neighbors. Worse I wouldn’t be in a position to reject clients that I found reprehensible. I would have no control over who my clients were.
I know a Latino lawyer who is very smart and ambitious who works at a big firm. He often represents large corporate interests that clash with the working class people of our community. He worked for a national retailer that was hiring contractors to avoid the legal implications of underpaying (I call it wage theft) their janitors who were mostly Latino. Those interests have rights to competent legal representation and that’s his choice, but I know very few other minorities who would find that kind of work fulfilling or enjoyable. I know I’d rather be working for the janitors.
A lot of minority law students go to law school to empower themselves and their community. We want to fight back and help the oppressed. I want to work for La Causa. I want to be a guide in the legal system for Latinos and help them become a part of the melting pot of the U.S. I want to make sure they can access the legal system just like any one else.
If good grades are going to reward me with a job that helps the big retailer screw over my neighbor who works 12 hours every night to take care of his family then I don’t want them. I can use the time I was going to spend studying volunteering or working and learning how to be a better lawyer when I get out. A lot of my minority friends choose to start helping their community immediately over grades. A lot of my white friends choose the same thing for that matter.

The lack of minority partners may just reflect that elite firms don’t offer enticements that are attractive to minority lawyers. They offer money. Speaking for myself, I would rather have control over my workday, over who my clients are, and over the type of work that I do. I would rather be my own boss. I would rather build my prestige by actually making an impact in my community than by how much I got paid. I would like to do justice and not just represent the people that they paid me the most. Looking at other minority law students and attorneys I meet, I think that feeling is pretty widespread in the community.

2006-11-12T20:46:00.000-08:00

There were two things in this month’s Atlantic Monthly that I found interesting/commentable.
The first was an obituary for Steve Irwin. I want to preface this by saying I don’t know anything about him. I’ve never seen his shows or movies or anything. I just have a perception of him as a kind of caricature of an Australian bushman. The obituary was titled “Unfair Dinkum”. It wasn’t very informative but that doesn’t matter b/c it was the title that struck me.
I hope that when I have an obituary written about me it is not titled with some sort of goofy colloquialism. I can’t think of what it would be, maybe some Spanglish thing, “Este Vato es dead, guey” or nineties punker slang, “Rode the last wohl whip”? It doesn’t quite have that whole dignified thing that obituaries should have.

The second thing in there is about creating video games that have more interactive characters. They would be driven by an AI engine that could have life like conversations and reactions to your character. At first it sounded interesting. Instead of talking to someone and having them say, “The princess is missing! No one ever goes in the haunted castle.” you could have a real conversation with the character. This sounded great until they began talking about what they planned on doing with it.
The programmers want to create short sitcom style games. To me that’s not all the interesting. If you look up sitcoms on Wikipedia it points out the fact that there are only really like 10 sitcom plots anyway, not counting the “a very special episode” or Christmas special plots.
So anyway, the first game they designed involved you going to dinner at a friends and getting sucked into their argument. It’s an interesting concept, but it doesn’t exactly sound fun. Woohoo, can I play Awkward Moment again?! After going to an awkward dinner party in real life I always want to let off steam by reenacting it on my computer at home!
My roommate and I started brainstorming sequels like, “Why is my girlfriend pissed at me?”, “Surly customer service rep”, or “Is the boss hinting he’s going to fire me?”
Screw escapist fantasies like drag racing in the streets of Tokyo or blowing up secret terrorist organizations. I want to relive the most uncomfortable and stressful aspects of life in a virtual enviroment!

2006-11-10T05:38:00.000-08:00

While I’m waiting for my job to kick in I’ve been trying to do all the stuff I won’t have time to do when I’m working. One of the things I decided to do was to catch up on all the reading I didn’t do during law school. I’ve got stacks of law review articles I never read, I’ve got piles of books on the history of the Court or the Constitution, a couple books on philosophy and justice, and some biographies of famous lawyers and jurists. I found out about most of these books through a reading list one of my professors made. You can find a copy of it here.
I also wanted to catch up on some literature and try and improve my vocabulary. I’m hoping to go through the works of Messrs. Dahl, Lewis, and Snicket. I started with Snicket. I cranked through the first twelve books over the last week. I’ll go get the last one tomorrow.
One of the things the Series of Unfortunate events does that I like is that the youngest character speaks in baby talk and only her siblings understand. Sometimes the baby talk has little subversive messages. Once when the children were caught by the villain of the story the baby said “Merde” which the siblings understood to mean, “Oh no.”
In the last book, during a trial with a bizarre procedural rule there was this paragraph.

"Scalia," Sunny said. She meant something like, "It doesn't seem like
the literal interpretation makes any sense," but her siblings did not
think it was wise to translate.

That’s right, the next generation is on to you Nino! Snicket’s going to take your Originalism down!

2006-11-09T04:20:00.000-08:00

After reading all the articles of voting machines in Florida marking votes for democrats as votes for republicans, letters in California aimed at intimidating Latinos to keep them from the voting booth, the misinformation campaign against blacks in Georgia, and all the other dirty tricks the republicans did I was kind of dreading this election. When you added George Bush’s and Karl Roves’ smugness and certainty about winning these elections I started to get paranoid.
All the conspiracy theories about stolen votes, hacked voting computers, and police intimidation at the polls started to sound really credible. I was starting to believe that the exit polls would be mysteriously off and the republicans would somehow hold on to a majority.
Happily I was way off and wrong. I spent most of the day doing the “Rick Santorum is a soon to be unemployed asshole” Dance. Then I got to do the “Virginia looks locked up” Dance. Finally as I lay panting and exhausted I caught a second wind and did the “Don Rumsfeld is gonna meet Santorum down at the unemployment office” Dance. I’m still doing that one.

As I thought about it and read several op-eds I am cautiously saying that it might have been better if the republicans held onto the senate. There are still going to be a lot of problems investigating Bush. There will be a lot of court cases and they will take time to be decided. It’s going to take a while to restore the office of independent counsel. It might take two years just to get the ball rolling. I wouldn’t mind have the republicans to blame for that again in two years. When the next third of the senate seats go up in two years it might swing a wider majority.
But who knows what will happen in the next two years. If the dems do something about Iraq then it’s for the better. Political gamesmanship can’t justify dragging that out any longer than it has to last. And maybe there will be even more republican indictments.

2006-11-04T03:11:00.000-08:00

The current big event in my life is that I got a job. It’s not in criminal defense. You will no longer be treated to stories of people cranked up on coke doing the hokey pokey at the defense table while I try to talk the judge out of throwing the book at them. On the upside I will no longer have to refer to the coked up monkey dancing fucker as “my client”.
I’m going to be doing family law. I hope I’ll have lots of stories about how stupid the spouse on the other side is. I’m going to be working at a non-profit, which is good b/c I’ll be able to help people who actually need it. One of the ideas I came into law school with, and the one that actually got a lot stronger, is that rich folks don’t need any more goddamned lawyers. There are two Spanish speaking attorneys in the office and it’s amazing to see how far people come to get their help. Clients show up from two or three counties away because they need the help of an attorney who can speak Spanish. My Spanish isn’t very good but I hope to do my part and pitch in. It’s kind of scary to try and learn the whole “lawyer” thing while trying to learn enough Spanish to help clients, but who wants to work at some easy job?
One of the great things about working at a non-profit/legal aid outfit is that you don’t get paid very much. The place I took a job at actually offered me a little bit too much money. There is a loan repayment program for people who work in public interest areas but who don’t make very much money so that they can pay back their loans. This helps diffuse the whole “the law is overly complicated preventing the poor, who can’t afford an attorney, from seeking redress from the wealthy, who can afford several attorneys, who wrong them” and “law school does nothing but crank out elitists who serve as the lap dogs of the rich in their attempts to take even more from the working class”. If you say that poor people can’t get lawyers someone always pipes up about legal aid. So anyway I almost made too much money to get loan repayment, but not enough to off set the loss of not getting loan repayment, so I had to talk them down on my salary. It’s a weird situation to say I won’t work for you unless I can make less than $X a year. It’s a bizarre negotiating stance. “I’m going to write down a number on this piece of paper. You either pay me less or I walk away right now.”
Nothing boosts the old self-esteem like arguing to get paid less. It almost makes you want to go and defend Walmart on some wage theft claim.
The best thing so far about the job is that the interview wasn’t that bad. The manager of the clinic where I will work out is a very touchy feely type person so I got a hug at the end of my interview. When was the last time you got a hug at the end of an interview? Hell, when was the last time you got a hug, period? I think that was my last hug…

2006-10-26T00:22:00.000-07:00

I volunteered to participate in this program with at risk youth. We read stories and write letters to the kids to get them interested in reading. One of the things we’re supposed to read is an Emily Dickinson poem. I remember when I was in high school and trying to establish a rep so I wouldn’t get beat up everyday. I used to read Emily Dickinson and talk about it with my homeboys all the time.
We’d hang out in the parking lot of the high school comparing how Bustle in a House was like when my cousin’s suegra died or how Single Hound got to the heart of your inability to escape yourself.
Yeah, after I exhibited my fierce ability to analyze the poetry of Emily Dickson no one ever kicked my ass in the gym locker room again.

2006-10-18T03:37:00.000-07:00

So roller derby ended on a high note. The Heartless Heathers ended up winning the championship in a nail bitter of a match against the Guns N Rollers. My favorite team, The Break Neck Betties, came in third and the High Rollers finished last. You can check out the standings at the Rose City Rollers webpage.
I wish the Betties had done better but they skated some really good matches. Next season I think they’re really going to shine. You can imagine how much fun I had cheering for them in their final match of the season. There’s just one thing. I didn’t cheer for them. I cheered for the High Rollers.
Now you may be asking, “What’s your ass worth if you turn on your favorite team at the end of the season?”
In my defense there were several extenuating circumstances. First, one of my friends, Farah Loathing (yeah, I'm dropping names), made the High Rollers. She’s a hell of a skater and locked up skaters who were twice her size (cough D. Konstructor cough). Second, she got me tickets. Roller derby tickets will pretty much win my loyalty 9 times out oft 10.
You may dismiss this as my friend Miss A. did and say I’ll chase anything thing in a pair of sweaty fishnets and roller skates. I would argue that’s not the case. I’m not chasing this particular roller girl and Farah Loathing is quite a bit more than a pair of hot legs in fishnets and roller skates.
With this double whammy of High Roller goodness I figured I could swallow it and just cheer for the High Rollers, and how often would they be playing the Betties anyway. It won’t be long before I was back chanting “Break Their Necks! Break Their Necks!”
So I went to the match and happily cheered for the High Rollers. I even bought a T Shirt. They did a hell of a job and I was sorry to see them lose but thankfully if someone had to win it was the Betties.
I’ve heard through some grape vines that there may be some shuffling of players and that the High Rollers are going to be a different team next year. I also heard I might not have this conflict with the High Rollers and the Betties next year.

I can’t tell you how excited I am for next season.

2006-10-13T02:10:00.000-07:00

If you’ve never seen Pennies From Heaven I recommend it solely for the Christopher Walken tap dance strip tease. It’s pretty much the greatest thing ever.
If you’re at the liquor store and you see a mason jar full of Georgia Shine Corn Whiskey, don’t buy it, even if the sales pitch that it’s been aged less than 30 days lures you. It’s bad juju.

2006-10-09T01:30:00.000-07:00

My roommate likes to garden in the springtime. He usually grows a bunch of stuff and kind of loses interest by the time it’s all grown. That means there’s usually a crapload of chili peppers at the end of the year that no one is doing anything with for me to play with.
I decided to do something with them. I froze a bunch of the Habaneros but before I did I tried to make a couple things. The first thing I made was some salsa. It was tasty stuff but it hurt. This is just a tip from me to you. If you’ve already got 10 Habaneros in your salsa you don’t need to add any more. It’s already got that Habanero flavor, along with enough heat to strip your intestines. Getting that balance right is really a lot like playing with fire.
My mom would make some good stuff. I took some of her salsa to work one time. I kept it in the refrigerator and would just add a little to my burgers and stuff. I came to work once and my co worker said he would never eat anything I brought to work again. My mom’s salsa was so hot his stomach was screwed up all night. At my house we call that kind of heat “Love”. My mom likes to pack a lot of love into her salsa. She thinks it’s kind of funny if she can make something so hot that I get the hiccups.

I made a BBQ sauce also. That stuff was pretty good. A tip from me to you, if you’re going to BBQ chicken brine it first.

2006-10-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

I got my bar number the other day. The number always starts with the last two digits of the year you were accepted in. Since I was accepted in 2006 the first two numbers of my bar number are 06. The bar number is a total of 5 numbers long. I was really hoping to get 06660. I could be the advocate of the beast, kind of like Keanu Reeves in whatever that movie was. Unfortunately 660 people didn’t pass the bar so the bar numbers didn’t go that high. The people at the bar also said “This isn’t the DMV. We don’t do vanity bar numbers.”
So I figured if I didn’t get 06660 I didn’t really care what my bar number would be b/c it would probably be lame anyway. It turned out I was wrong. I got 06336. Now notice that if you add the two 3’s together you get another 6. It’s almost like I got the bar number 0666, but it’s in code.
I honestly think that I got the most metal bar number you can get.

I'm also going to start mentioning my friends small bar numbers. "You know Mr. X, yeah it had an especially small bar number. It was in the low teens. I don't know what client is going to stay with someone who has a bar number like that."

Rock on.

2006-09-26T02:08:00.001-07:00

I love the sun in Portland. It’s been out shining and making everyone happy. People practically skip to the coffee shop to have cute barista’s pour out the blackest Stumptown coffee they can squeeze out of a French press.
I get to go down to Salem for a swearing in process on Wednesday. I believe the bar will use the occasion to shake us down for more money. My understanding is that anytime I meet around the bar I’ll be shook down for more money.
Speaking of the bar the best comment so far about my passing the bar was when my friend Ms. J. said, “It’s not like you to pass a bar.”

I’m reading this book called “The Great Deluge” about Katrina. I’m basically unable to look away. It’s fascinating with a good time line of what happened. It has a good explanation of why FEMA was such a failure.

On the topic of New Orleans, one of the things I like best about NOLA is the music history. You can drive around some shitty neighborhood and see some lean to shack with a historical plaque. It’ll turn out Ray Charles or Quincy Jones lived or hung out there at one point. The duplex in this picture is where Jelly Roll Morton used to live.

2006-09-18T22:21:00.000-07:00

I’m back in Portland now. I had so much junk mail I’m thinking of becoming a paper mache sculptor. I have enough scrap paper to last for years. I have this nagging idea that I should apply for a personal loan today. I don’t know where it came from. Oh wait, maybe from this bucket of junk mail telling me I need to go deeper into debt. Sounds like a good plan. What’s a $100K in student loans? Maybe I should get another credit card too.
I actually kind of want to apply for the discover card and after I get it call them and tell them what a bad decision they made.

I’m happy to be back. After a week in Texas I’m kind of overstuffed. My family insists on over feeding me. I’m going to live off of granola for a week to metabolize the chorizo and Chico’s brand mystery cheeze.

I’ll tell you though, I do miss the French Fry Po’ Boy. It’s a po’ boy that’s French bread, shredded lettuce, mayonnaise, a fistful of French fries and gravy. It’s delicious. I don’t understand why everybody over 40 in New Orleans hasn’t had a heart attack.

2006-09-17T23:50:00.000-07:00

I’ve still got about 1100 miles until I’m back in Portland. I don’t plan on doing that much night driving. But still do me a favor. When you see my truck coming up the highway hit your dimmer. There’s no freaking reason why you can’t turn them down when you see the glow from my headlights coming up.
What the hell is wrong with people? Who’s licensing these drivers? I knew about dimming my lights when I was like 10. Christ double Christ.

I finally got out of the stupid thunderstorms that have been following me since San Antonio. Why the hell has it been raining so much in the desert? I’m hoping no rain hits again until late October.

I’m also thrilled that a mosquito, or any other kind of bug hasn’t bitten me, since I left New Orleans. I’m no longer bumpy and red. I no longer itch.

2006-09-13T09:40:00.000-07:00

I got to see the new Spike Lee movie, “When The Levees Broke” last night. It’s interesting and a good place to start to get a feeling for New Orleans after Katrina.

It’s been a week since I left New Orleans. I’m still in Texas. The state is that big. Actually I’ve been eating tacos. I didn’t have a single taco the entire time I was in New Orleans. I’ve needed to recharge. I’ve had breakfast tacos in Austin, tacos de carne y pollo in San Antonio, and Chico’s tacos in El Paso.
I’ve had enough that it’s now safe for me to head out of Texas. I’ll head back to Portland today. I hope to stop in Albuquerque and get some hashbrowns at Frontiers. After that I hope to stop in such exciting places as Manti, Utah and Boise, Idaho. I should be in Portland by Saturday night. After a good nights sleep I’ll be able to get a good solid strong cup of coffee from a hot barista again.

Then I have to get a job.

2006-09-08T14:28:00.000-07:00

A few minutes ago I was just some unemployed slob with a graduate degree and a hangover.
Now, I'm a freaking lawyer. Jesus Christ in a chicken basket, I'm a friggin' lawyer.

2006-09-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

This is one of those things that I’m not real proud of. I lost someone’s cat. I was checking out Craig’s List for someone to split gas from New Orleans to Austin and ended up giving someone’s cat a ride. When I got to Austin it was late so I put the cat up and went to sleep. When I woke up the cat was gone.
The cat got away into a yard that is full of bamboo groves in a neighborhood where people regularly leave food out for cats. This cat has no reason to come back to the house of the mean guy who locked it in a cage and then stuck it in a car and drove for 9 hours.
I called the owner and told him what was going on and he freaked out and called all these other people who showed up at my friends house and conducted a search party. I personally didn’t think it would do much good b/c the cat is kind of pissed at people right now and is not likely to come just b/c a bunch of people are out calling its name.
My genius idea was to leave food around and let the cat come to me. When I woke up in the morning the raccoons had taken the food, and the food bowls. There’s no chance in hell the cat is going to show up and duke it out with some fat ass raccoon to come back to some house he doesn’t even want to be at in the first place.
Anyway I feel really bad but I’ve learned a lesson. Anyone who will pay to have a cat driven across two states is probably too crazy to really deal with. The guy is upset about the cat but it was a Katrina rescue cat, it’s not like it was his pet. Still he won’t stop calling and organizing search parties. It’s annoying. The cat will do what the cat will do. Anyone who deals with cats knows that’s true.

2006-09-08T10:43:00.000-07:00

So I’m finally on my way back home to Portland. I’m going to miss the driving most of all. I came across this intersection the other day. I don’t know which way the one way street goes. I figure it’s just easier to drive where ever you need to drive and signs be damned.

On the way out of Louisiana there was some guy just walking down the middle of I-10 outside of Baton Rouge. I thought, “That’s strange”. About half a mile up the road there was a pickup truck on fire in the left lane. The flames were about ten feet high. Then I thought, “Well that makes more sense now.”
After that little train of thought I realized it was about time for me to get going. When you start thinking things in Louisiana make sense you really need to get out.

2006-09-01T14:09:00.000-07:00

I’ve spent the last couple of days legal observing. At one protest the police made a series of arrests. Since then I’ve been in a state of horrified awe at the inefficiency and incompetence of the local criminal justice system.
The low level administrators in the sheriffs office, who run the jail and security for the courts, seems to thrive on abusing what little bit of power they have. They make arbitrary decisions and then change their mind. They make amazing decisions that hinder their purposes and seem to have a limited idea of what the correct procedure actually is..
I watched them randomly chew some poor girl out for wearing a shirt that was too low cut even though it was as no lower cut than several other shirts that came through. They instituted several rules that make it much harder for poor people to go to court. You can’t have a cell phone in a court building. They say you’ll be arrested if they find you with a cell phone. So if you were unfortunate enough to have been dropped off at the court house and had planned on calling for your ride when you’re done at the court you have to leave your cell phone outside somewhere. Hopefully somewhere where no one will find it and steal it.
You also can’t have your kids at the court. As long as you can afford childcare this isn’t a problem. A helpful fuck you to everyone else, straight from the New Orleans Municipal Court.
Also, you can’t wear a sleeveless shirt. Forget the fact that it’s hotter than hell outside, if you’ve got a court date and you didn’t know about this rule you need to beg someone for an extra t-shirt. Sure sleeveless shirts can be tasteful and are a common part of women’s clothing but if you drove and don’t have child care issues they had to have something special for you.
The whole system is set up to hinder poor people, people without cars, and people with childcare issues.
Then the D.A.’s don’t bother to show up for arraignments. What happens if the Public Defender moves for a dismissal of charges? Who objects?
I actually got thrown out of the court today b/c I told someone that they didn’t have to talk to the D.A. without their attorney. The D.A. must have “forgot” that he had a duty to tell this person that he was the D.A. and that they should have their counsel present.
If anyone but Gonzales was the Attorney General I would say the court system down here needs immediate federal intervention. The local D.A., Eddie Jordan, just embarrassed the city more in this interview.

2006-08-31T14:17:00.000-07:00

You may be wondering about the Barista status of New Orleans. It was of great concern to me. Are they back at work, are they fairing alright with the huge rent increases, are they cute?
I haven’t actually seen that many and almost all of them are males. I started wondering why. Yesterday at the coffee shop by my house I scoped around and tried to figure out why there was just some skinny guy with overstyled hair as the barista instead of some cute alterna girl.
It was then that I realized that I was hanging out at the gay coffee shop. This place is not subtle or discreet at all. There are pictures of guys in underwear all over the place. There’s a sign that says “Come for the Java, leave with Joe”. So how did I spend three weeks wondering why they didn’t have any cute baristas when I was obviously at the wrong coffee shop for that sort of thing? No idea, I’m just not very functional in the morning and b/c of the heat I don’t drink coffee in the afternoon like I do in Portland.

2006-08-31T08:29:00.000-07:00

You know what turns me on? Okay, you get partial credit if you said 1Ls or Baristas, but that’s not what I’m talking about this time.
Class turns me on, the kind of class that led the woman sitting a couple of tables over from me to wear a low rise jeans and a belly shirt that shows off her C-Section scar. That’s what gets me hot.

2006-08-29T09:01:00.000-07:00

In a press conference on Monday I read this quote from The Decider™
“Mississippi removed about 97 percent, 98 percent of its -- what they call dry debris. We're now in the process of getting debris from the water removed. Louisiana is slower in terms of getting debris removed. The money is available to help remove that debris. People can get after it, and I would hope they would.“
I’ve got pictures springing out of my ass of debris on the streets. Maybe money’s available. I don’t know. But the fact of the matter is that Louisiana isn’t just slower, debris removal isn’t happening. They’ve bulldozed some houses in the 9th Ward but the place is still a total mess.

Outside of the 9th most of the houses still aren’t gutted. Some haven't even been moved out of the streets. Houses that don’t need gutting still aren’t occupied so they haven’t been cleaned out.

There’s no regular garbage pickup. For some reason the garbage company won’t pick up my neighbor’s garbage. Their full cans have been there since I’ve moved here. It makes no sense. They pick up our garbage but not theirs. The neighbors joke that the garbage men know they’re black.
The NY Times has had a couple of interesting articles the last couple days but they don’t really convey how the city is and I think it’s really hard for most Americans to understand how dysfunctional the local government is.
Katrina wrecked huge amounts of infrastructure. There are huge sinkholes all over town because the sewage system is falling apart. Telephone poles keep falling over and power goes out about once a week. The post offices are only open a few hours a day. I’ve only found two grocery stores in the entire city.
Recovery isn’t a little slower. It’s barely moving. The city council is actually trying to fix a lot of the problems in the way the government is set up but they’re not getting much help from the mayor. He doesn’t even bother to show up at important meetings.

2006-08-26T09:33:00.000-07:00

I went out last night to try Sazerac. It’s a local drink made with Pernod and rye whiskey. It’s a traditional classic New Orleans drink invented back in the 1880’s by some guy at some hotel. If you’re really that curious google it.
Anyway I had to go to a bar in the quarter to get it. I went to the Carousel Bar on Royal. Do you want to know why it’s called the Carousel Bar? I’m going to tell you anyway.
The bar rotates. I didn’t take a picture b/c it’s a classy place. The bar is circular with the bartenders in the middle serving up drinks. The stools are on a conveyor that rotates around the bartenders.
I only had one Sazerac, and it was pretty refreshing, because the rotating motion was making me kind of car sick. I imagine if I drink four or five whiskeys there and then tried to get up I’d either vomit or fall over. It really doesn’t seem like the best gimmick in the world. It doesn’t even compare to the dollar beers you can get on the street.
It also made me feel kind of like sushi.

2006-08-23T19:49:00.000-07:00

So, I’ve been having a little bit of car trouble. The starter was going out. At first I thought I could just let it slide until I got back to Portland. Then on Sunday it wouldn’t start on me. I got it running and thought I would “just park on a hill” until I could get my starter fixed.
There was only one problem with my plan. New Orleans is built on one of those alluvial fans. There aren’t any hills. You could go nuts with a can of WD-40 but you’ll never lube the axles on your Big Wheel enough to actually coast. So I had to get my starter fixed. The cost set back was not budgeted for and may require a premature return to Portland.

2006-08-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

While shooting around town in the hopes of “getting my tourist on” I went out to Chalmette State Park. It’s the site of the Battle of New Orleans. Here’s a little tip from me to you. Before you go anywhere in New Orleans call and make sure they’re open. If you can’t get through ask someone about it.
When I got to the park it was in fact closed. It wasn’t closed in the sense of “Our office hours are 9 to 5 Monday through Saturday”. It was closed in the sense of it just being a big flat field that was mostly wiped out.
So anyway, lesson learned.

2006-08-22T15:37:00.000-07:00

I found out where Johnny Thunders died. It kills me that I have to type this but the kids today have no sense of history. Johnny Thunders played guitar for the New York Dolls. They were a foundational band. Most rock and roll as we know it today can trace its history to them. The Ramones were big fans. DeeDee wrote Chinese Rocks with Johnny Thunders. The Ramones claimed sole writership but it was both of them. If you see the documentary, “Is DeeDee Home” they talk about it a little. The manager of the Dolls later when on to manage the Sex Pistols. Basically all punk rock and heavy metal, glam metal, grunge, etc. trace their roots to that band.
They did one of the most famous covers of Pills. They also did Bad Girl, Just Lookin For a Kiss, and Trash which have been covered by so many bands and so many times I won’t begin to list them here.
Anyway, after the Dolls broke up Johnny Thunders went on to do his own thing. He had the famous hits, Born To Lose and One Track Mind. His record L.A.M.F. is a must listen for any band. He was honored in “Go Go Johnny Thunders” by the Murder City Devils.
So I went to where Johnny Thunders died. The clerk working there didn’t even know who he was. There were no plaques. They’ve got a plaque for everything in the French Quarter. Houses where Edgar Degas didn’t even live have plaques about him. There is jack shit for Johnny Thunders.
This is the St. Peter house. All I got to say is that I never had his poster up on my wall but I still say Go Go, Go Johnny Thunders.

2006-08-21T22:41:00.000-07:00

I went out this weekend to get my tourist on. I took a cooking class in the quarter with a bunch of people from Minnesota. It was funny to watch them choke on semi spicy jambalaya. They all looked pretty hung over so it’ll probably help them sweat out the poison.
Anyway, the instructor gave us her opinion on the Latinos coming to New Orleans to do the rebuilding work. It was along the lines of, “If they come to this country they should learn the language.” Usually this doesn’t bother me. I can understand why people think this. Usually they don’t know that Latinos are following the normal trend of three generations of language competency.
But in this instance it is the Latinos who are rebuilding this city. The reason why the few houses that are livable have been repaired is b/c of these Latinos. So when they aren’t busy working 10 to 15 hour days in horrible heat and humidity I guess they are supposed to be taking ESL classes. That would be nice if the fucking contractors and homeowners who they work for would pay them. Then they could maybe afford to take the classes.
So besides that pissing me off, and I won’t even get into how lazy the people who live here are compared to the Latino day laborers, she had just described her family history.

Apparently they were some of the first Acadians to come down to Louisiana. So her family has been down here at least since the late 1700’s. She then talked about how her grandma never learned English and you could tell she thought it was charming. Her ancestors lived here when the Spanish held Louisiana and when the Americans bought it. But they still spoke French. They didn’t learn the language or assimilate to either of the dominant societies.

The obvious dichotomy of standards for her family and the standard for Latinos was what bothered me. Why is it okay for her family to not have learned any of the languages of the nations they lived in except for French? Why, when her grandmother lived here her entire life, should she not learn English but the Latinos who showed up to help rebuild should. She probably would have said this had nothing to do with race but when it comes down to it the new immigrant groups are being held to a completely different standard. The only real difference between these two groups of immigrants is race. The attempts of Latinos to form a better life are held to only be deserved contingent on their ability to first learn a language. Her ancestor’s flight was romantic even though they stubbornly refused to assimilate. Both groups are Catholics, both want to build a better life for their families, and both groups were not proficient in English when they first arrived. What is different about these groups besides race? That the Cajuns were here before the U.S. bought Louisiana doesn’t work if you apply the same standard to the Mexicans who lived in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. I find it hard to believe that race isn’t the basis for the difference in treatment.

When this happened I was in this class full of tourists. I started to argue with her. Then I stopped and let it lie. I was angry but I swallowed it. My rational was, “Why should I make everyone else feel as uncomfortable as I feel now.” Some may have agreed with her but others might not have. Maybe I should have, these tourists are all going to eat at restaurants that are run behind the scenes by Latinos and stay in hotel rooms that are cleaned by Latinos. They should realize where their privilege comes from. But if they don't stay and spend money or go home and say they had a bad vacation it won't help the people here, and that's why I'm here.

2006-08-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

One of the interesting things I’ve found since I’ve been down here are the back area of some of the bigger houses. They have a set of servant quarters that tend to be skinny. I asked a guy at the National Park Service about them. I thought they were probably slave quarters at one time. He confirmed that and told me that the Spanish and French wouldn’t sleep with the slaves under the same roofline.
There are several different methods of doing the servant’s houses; some of the bigger and wealthier houses have three separate quarters branching off the house. Apparently they kept the kitchens on the bottom floor and the slaves lived on the top floor. It must have been hotter than hell in the summer time.

2006-08-19T11:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had a pretty big thunderstorm. As I was driving around looking for a used bookstore, never found it, I discovered a new driving obstacle. There are downed power lines all over the place every time we get a halfway decent storm. So on top of streets with no names, tiger trap sized potholes, non working traffic lights, and cops who just want to harass you, we now add downed electric cables. Sometimes getting around the city feels like a game of Pitfall.

2006-08-18T08:49:00.000-07:00

I’ve walked and driven all over New Orleans. I’ve taken pictures of the search and rescue X’s on houses all over the place. I’ve seen police and fire departments from California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida. I’ve seen federal law enforcement agencies like the DEA and ICE. I have not seen a single New Orleans Police Department mark. I’ve talked to locals and they say I’m not going to find one.
I was in the quarter last Friday to check out Bourbon Street. I wanted to see what the big to do was about. Possibly it was about the moderately priced strippers, I’m not sure. After seeing a bunch of wasted frat boys and hearing bad cover bands I cut down to Rue Royal, which is less busy, and started walking home. I passed a cop with his cruiser parked on the sidewalk. When I slid around his car to stay off the street I could clearly see him watching a DVD. The police one block over were busy keeping drunks from getting in fights and this guy was watching a movie.
I saw a sheriff so fat he probably got winded moving the lever on his lazy boy.
A police officer at a demonstration yesterday told someone that they couldn’t hand out fliers on a public sidewalk. That’s about the dumbest thing I ever heard. The cop more than likely swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. I guess he read all the way to the 1st Amendment.
I don’t have a very high opinion of the NOPD. No one else does either. But I went and legal observed, or LOed if you’re hip, at another demonstration against a dump. The police from the 7th Precinct showed up. They were all pretty upstanding and got along with the demonstrators who were mostly normal people from the neighborhood.
I can’t say that all the NOPD are jokes. I have to hand it to these police officers for being professional and interacting in a positive and respectful way with the community. I just wanted to say that because I don’t think it will be long before I shit talk the police again.

2006-08-17T15:11:00.000-07:00

The bar that I’ve adopted is a full service kind of place. Besides getting to drink beer and listen to music they also show movies. They have several lovely bartenders to develop crushes on and a lot of neighborhood people who will explain how things are pronounced or what exactly is wrong with New Orleans, the mayor, Bush, the police, etc.
They don’t serve food, but they have unique amenities to make up for that. My new favorite thing is that on Monday nights I can get a haircut and a shot for $10. It’s a decent haircut too.
I’m not totally sold on sitting in a bar and feeling kind of itchy but I’ve got used to sitting in a bar and sweating non stop so it probably just takes some getting used to. The hair in my shot was a little gross too, but how can you complain when you just got a haircut.

2006-08-16T09:49:00.000-07:00

There’s a saint’s shrine around the corner from where I’m volunteering. It’s in a really pretty cemetery. It’s St. Roch, pronounced Rock with a kind of gagging sound at the end. I looked him up on the Internet and apparently he’s the patron saint of diseased cattle, knee problems, skin rashes, tile makers, dogs, and afflicted persons.
The reason there’s a shrine here is because some time way back when there was an outbreak of yellow fever in New Orleans. A priest decided to pray to St. Roch and people were miraculously cured. So they built him a shrine.
The shrine is pretty cool. There are the 12 Stations of the Cross around the cemetery. The tombs are catholic so they represent German, Irish, and Italian immigrants and they go back to the early 1800s.
There’s also a triptych on the altar and a spooky statue of a dying guy, I’m guessing St. Roch.

In a little room off to the side of the altar there are a bunch of leg braces and prosthetic limbs from people that were cured. I don’t really know how the prosthetic limb people were cured. I kind of doubt they grew back their whole arm, but whatever. There was no holy water there but I might check the chapel on Sunday. So if you’re feeling afflicted let me know and I’ll score you some patented St. Roch’s holy water™, specially blessed for people with knee problems trying to milk diseased cattle.

2006-08-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

Driving in New Orleans is an adventure. I went out last night to get some groceries. Driving at night is more fun b/c you can't see the potholes. Some of them can be pretty deep. The city tried to fill some of the potholes with sand. That didn't work to well. Everytime there's a storm, which is every day, the rain flushes the sand out of the pothole. The good thing is whenever you turn down a street covered in sand you know it has potholes. The city also hasn't gotten around to putting street signs up. Generally you have to kind of guess which street you are on. For instance, if you need to turn at St. Claude you get on a kind of busy street that goes east/west and drive a few blocks until you see a street sign or business name that indicates you are on St. Claude. But don't drive too far. If you accidentally go past Canal Street they change all the street names. So Decauter becomes Magazine street suddenly and without warning. It keeps everything fresh. The street lights also don't always work. An interesting set of lights only worked in one direction and were completely out on the crossing streets. So the traffic across the intersection had a green light while I had no light at all! Man, that was a surprise.
So while you scan the street for potholes you also look for street signs to figure out where you are while watching for possible traffic lights that aren't working. I like to also adjust my radio and talk on my cell phone while doing this. I haven't hit anyone yet but I've only been here a week.
To add one more obstacle to your ability to get anywhere the city has reposted all the no turn signs. Once you see that street sign and find out your on the wrong street, swerve past some potholes and dodge some oncoming traffic you realize you can't turn anywhere. Before you know it you're on the other side of Canal Street and totally lost. I usually drive down to the Mississippi river and follow it back to the Quarter and then try again.

2006-08-10T17:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I saw the fattest sheriff I've ever seen in my life. I kind of wonder if he just shoots people in the back b/c he didn't look like he could catch you if you walked away at a steady saunter. It did reassure me about the food I was getting. There are no grocery stores open in New Orleans. You have to go to Metarie and I haven't felt like it yet. That means I've been eating out a lot. Most of the gas stations and corner stores have some sort of food, gumbo or beans and rice, so that's what I've been eating. I figured if that sheriff was eating the gumbo it can't be that bad.
One thing I'm finding interesting about New Orleans is the number of Latinos. I don't know how many were here before Katrina but I'm pretty sure a lot of them came after. Most of the Contractors license plates are Texas plates. There are Latinos waiting for work on a lot of corners but if you don't get there soon they're almost all gone. One more American city is being built by undocumented Latino labor.
You see some signs of resentment about it. There is some derogatory graffiti here and there. There also T-Shirts at all the tourist shops that say "FEMA Find Every Mexican Available". I've talked to a couple guys who weren't working and they told me there were problems with getting paid. Contractors won't pay them at the end of the day or will threaten to call INS.
I'm trying to get into contact with Legal Aid in New Orleans to see if I can spend some of my volunteer time there to help these guys. It makes you mad.

Bush's plan of giving a big contract to the Halliburton subsidiary KBR has really damaged the local economy so far as I can tell. Instead of the local people being able to come in and do the contracting work for their neighbors and hire local people a bunch of Texans came in with Texas labor or undocumented workers and make a bundle while the locals struggle.
A lot of the local people I talk to say that Texas has made a lot of money off the whole thing and that was Bush's intention all along. I don't know if that's true. It seems like a pretty crafty plot for Bush to think through. It is true that FEMA gave a lot of people money to spend on Texas hotels and at Texas business, helped Texas employers hire the best evacuees at lower wages b/c of the competition between the evacuees, gave the contracts to a Texas company, and didn't do anything comparable in New Orleans.

2006-08-08T19:50:00.000-07:00

There are gigantic cockroaches here. Earlier one ran across the sidewalk in front of me. It was the size of my cat. Sweet Jesus. The good thing about that is you can see them a block away and cross the street before they get to you. My roommate/ common law husband has issues with roaches. Back in the day when we lived in Austin I went to his house, it was more of a shed than an actual house, and his couch was in the front yard.
"I was going to Casino, you want to go?" As I nervously eyed the couch.
"Sure, let me get some shoes." Without making an outward sign that he is aware of the couch.
"So, what's up with your couch?"
"A roach ran under it."
"I can help you move it back in." I thought I understood now.
"Nope, I'm done with that couch."
"You're just going to leave it out in the yard b/c a roach ran under it? Didn't you kill the roach after you moved it?"
"No, never found the roach, it might be in the couch. I'm done with that couch."
And then we went to the Casino. I don't know whatever happened to the couch but it never did go back inside.
Anyway my roommate is much better writer than me and he seems to be updating his blog more often. It's worth checking out.

It’s incredibly muggy. There seems to be a continuous haze in the city. It also might be the fact that my glasses keep fogging up. I’m not really sure.
I also smell terrible. I have not stopped sweating since I had that shower this morning. I need to start taking an afternoon shower. My shirt was soaked in about 4 minutes. Sweet Jesus. Someone told me that you stop sweating once you dehydrate enough, so I have that to look forward to.
I keep seeing spray paint on buildings. I described it as graffiti but a resident told me it wasn’t graffiti, I think that spray paint on the side of a building is only graffiti if a Hispanic youth does it. Very confusing. Anyway the spray paint is in the shape of an X. There is usually a series of initials, a date, and then a number in the different quadrants. In the aftermath of Katrina different groups went through the neighborhoods checking houses. The date is when the house was checked. The initials represent the agency that did the check, usually they’re LSP or CHP. That stands for Louisiana State Police and California Highway Patrol. I’ve also seen initials Dallas Fort Worth and the ASPCA.

The other number represents either pets or people. In my neighborhood the paint is usually on the porch or on the street in front of the house. I saw one that said there was 1 survivor found and I saw some that listed pets. Sometimes with the pets there would be information about where the pets could be found.

There is also a marking that says TFW, Toxic Flood Water. I went to the 9th Ward today. You can see water lines 7 feet high on the houses. The dates are ridiculous too. In my neighborhood most of the houses were checked on 9-11, the hurricane was on 8-29. In the 9th Ward the dates are in November. I also haven't seen a single NOPD spray painted. They apparently didn't do a goddamn thing during the hurricane. You can find T Shirts all over town that say "NOPD, Not Our Problem Dude".

As I was driving around tonight to find handkerchiefs so that I could mop the continuous cascade of sweat off my brow I could see houses where these X’s weren’t on the porch but on the top floors of two story houses. That was kind of chilling.
I’m staying in the Marigny, not pronounced Meringue in case you were inclined to say that in public for some reason, and the area is known as the “sliver by the river” because this neighborhood didn’t flood. The houses are all in pretty good condition. But all you have to do is go 4 blocks north and everything is completely different.
My neighborhood has a lot of people walking around and it’s fairly busy. Outside this neighborhood there will be maybe one house in four or five square blocks with a light on. Most of the city is still pretty empty. The mayor wants people to move back but there's no place for them to live. The trash isn't being picked up and the mail delivery is spotty. The USPS still doesn't deliver mail in most of the neighborhoods. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of night, just total government incompetence will stop the mail.

2006-08-07T16:21:00.000-07:00

I made it to New Orleans last night and began sweating. I stopped sweating shortly while I took a cold shower. That's about all there is to report. I check in at Common Grounds tomorrow. I don't want to hear any hippy jokes. Just b/c I'm involved with a collective does not mean I'm a hippy or an anarcho punk or any of that crap. I eat meat. I bathe.
When I got here my legs needed stretching so I walked around. I live pretty close to the quarter. There's a lot of trash out on the streets. People are remodeling their houses and there's sheet rock scraps and slatting everywhere. There's also a crapload of broken appliances.
When I walked around last night I passed 3 separate voodoo shops. Voodoo is apparently like coffee down here.

The weather was nuts in West Texas. They were evacuating neighborhoods when I left El Paso. I wonder how much worse it is in Juarez b/c they don't have near the infrastructure and all the shacks that people live in could easily be washed away. I imagine there are a lot of broken foundations.
I was walking around last night I found a hipster bar. They were playing Murder City Devils when I passed by so I popped my head in. They had a shot of Jameson's and a Miller High Life for $5. They were also showing Dead Man. That seems like a fortuitous start.

2006-08-07T10:37:00.000-07:00

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” Lao Tzu.

“Only generals and postmen enjoy straight roads.” Paraphrasing Richard Flannagan.

“And I’m paraphrasing myself here…” Eric Stoltz in Kicking And Screaming

I don’t think I’m that much fun to go on a road trip with. I like the driving part more than the sight seeing part. I get excited about making good time. I like the straight flat roads of I-10. I made it to San Antonio from El Paso in less than 8 hours. I did that without speeding. The speed limit was raised to 80 MPH in Texas. They did that because the cost of gas went up. I don’t exactly understand the correlation. It’s kind of like, step 1 underpants, step 3 profit. Whatever, I’m not complaining.

I liked driving through New Mexico because the roads were almost empty. Lately when I’ve done any road tripping I’ve been going to California or Seattle on I-5. The roads have seemed more congested. I thought it was just because of where I was driving but I-10, I-15, and I-84 have all been pretty packed.

I’ll be in New Orleans tomorrow. I’m pretty excited. I have a lot of work to do to brush up on the laws and procedures I need to know but I think it will be a good way to spend some down time and I’ll get to meet a circles of people that I would never have met before b/c of geography. I hope I’ll learn to cook a couple of interesting things and eat a whole bunch of interesting things.

2006-08-03T14:10:00.000-07:00

I made it to El Paso. It's raining. I said it's RAINING. In El Paso. It is the "monsoon" season but it's really raining, hard. It's kind of nuts. The town flooded. I'm going to San Antonio tomorrow. I went by Chico's Tacos already. I went to the nice one, the one with indoor bathrooms. There's a Chico's with INDOOR BATHROOMS! I still wouldn't use them, but it is an improvement.
I'm staying with some family. They have a Xbox machine. I would never have graduated from law school with one of those. I may have beaten the Germans back at the Battle of the Bulge, won the NCAA basketball tournament or led my HALO unit to victory, but not law school.
I took some pictures to bring a little more feel of the road to my readers. Unfortunately I don't know where I packed the cable so that I can download them on to my lap top. I know you're saying, "A lousy USB cable is 5 bucks you cheap bastard." You would be right but gas is freaking expensive and I ran out of the cheap untaxed reservation gas so I need to save my pennies.
Maybe when I get to San Antonio tomorrow you will be treated to a picture of me celebrating in Cuba after Castro temporarily handed over power to his brother.

2006-08-02T06:53:00.000-07:00

Every region in the country has bad drivers, but they all seem to be bad in different ways. In California they tend to tailgate and drive fast. In Oregon they drive too slow and block the passing lane. In Utah they can’t do 4 way stops. It’s amazing to watch them. They just flat out can’t do it.
I woke up in Salt Lake this morning to a huge torrential storm. It delayed me at least 3 hours. When I finally decided to leave half the power in town was out. That meant that a lot of traffic lights were out. Watching people trying to negotiate an intersection without a working traffic light drove me up the wall. No one knew when to go. People sat there, other people drove out but froze halfway through the intersection. It was madness.
I finally got out of Salt Lake and made it down to lovely Aztec, New Mexico. I actually don’t know if it’s lovely or not. I got here in the dark. The countryside on the way down was greener than I’ve ever seen it before. I used to drive the stretch between Salt Lake City and El Paso a lot. I’ve done it at least 20 times. It’s really bizarre to see everything so green. The rivers are bright red too from all the run off.
I got lost in Monticello. Usually you hang a right at Monticello and get on Highway 666. Everyone calls it the “Triple 6”. I made the turn and found out I was on the 491. It’s been five years since I’ve driven through there so I figured I made a mistake. I flipped the bitch and drove through town a couple times. Monticello is not a big town. I still couldn’t find the Triple 6. I asked at a gas station and they told me that they renamed the Triple 6 the 491 because people were always stealing the signs. It confused the bejeezus out of me. I also got another mosquito bite.
My odometer flipped the 1000 mile mark. I think I have about 1500 miles to go. I should be in El Paso tomorrow afternoon. Maybe I can find an internet connection.

2006-08-02T06:52:00.000-07:00

I made the first leg of the New Orleans drive today. I’m spending the night in Salt Lake City. It’s kind of hot and there are bugs. I’ve been in town for two hours and my whole left side looks like mosquito brail.
I would also like to point out that the entirety of I-84 in Idaho stinks. It seems the state has decided to put every cow within its borders along side this highway. The second you cross into Utah the smell goes away. Idaho’s a weird place.
When I got into town I was surprised how much Salt Lake has changed since I lived here in ’93. Fault Line Park near my old house has been renamed Fault Line Gardens. I hate to be the one that points this out but there was really nothing wrong with the “Park” part of the name. It was the “Fault Line” part that was intimidating and should have been changed.
Salt Lake has got light rail, a new highway system, an English style pub by the university, some coffee shops, and a new library. It looks like it wouldn’t be so bad to live here anymore. There’s also a big white mystery building downtown. I’ll try and find out what it is tomorrow. The building is huge but I think people are so used to it that it doesn’t register in their minds. No one I asked knew what building I was talking about. It wasn’t there the last time I was in town, which was like 2001. It’s funny how you can become oblivious to something if you see it everyday. Either that or the whole town’s been hypnotized.

2006-07-29T13:14:00.000-07:00

I'm going to New Orleans to Volunteer on Monday. It'll probably take me a week to get down there. Post Katrina events have created a big need for legal help and since I'm not really doing anything until I get my bar results I'm going down.
The group I'm working with have advisories of what to bring down for hurricane season. The house I'm going to be staying at is a couple blocks from the river. My plan is to get my ass to Texas.
It'll be interesting to see "compassionate conservatism" up close. I haven't been to New Orleans in about ten years and can't really remember much of it so I won't be able to say how it's changed. I'm very curious to see how it is, the dynamics of local politics, who's making money off the hurricane and how the city is changing.
If you know of anything cool to do in New Orleans let me know. I just want to get some grits.

2006-07-27T23:23:00.000-07:00

I finished the bar yesterday. I went out and got rip roarin' drunk and had a good time in general. The test wasn't actually that bad. When your "entire future" depends on what you write on three essays an hour and half can fly by. It was the shortest ten hours of my life.
It was in a big hotel meeting room. There were about 400 people in my room. The air conditioning was cranked up. That was kind of nice because Portland had been in kind of a heat wave last weekend. I felt sorry for the girl who wore the tank top and short denim skirt. Her lips were blue when she left.
People were a little more collected than I thought they would be. Only one cell phone went off and that was in the other room. My computer didn't crash or do anything weird and I'm pretty sure I passed. The standard for passing the bar is "minimal competency". I'm not really shooting for the stars when I hope I passed.

2006-07-25T05:36:00.000-07:00

They told us at Barbri that you can't cram a cram course. I say cram it up your cram hole. I bet you I can learn federal income tax on the ride to the exam this morning.
They said if you don't know it the day before the bar exam you're not going to know it for the bar exam. Well I just learned me some Wills and Trusts and Administrative law.
I'm a cowboy. I'll climb onto anything with a saddle and ride it straight out the gate.
I also can't sleep. I figure the best way to go into this exam will be to get ripped up on coffee and just jitter the whole time.
In case I totally blank I have a back up plan. I've made up my own tort, the intentional tort of being all up in my grill, and if I don't know the rule of law I'll make up my own legal doctrine using Pig Latin. The Doctrine of Ellhay Ifay Iay Owknay.
Hopefully I'll be back this evening and in a posting mood. Good luck to everyone else. I don't need it, I just learned secured trans.

2006-07-07T17:08:00.000-07:00

I was talking to a friend, a very attractive and single friend, and she was telling me about some problem she had with traffic ticket years ago. I jumped up thinking, "This is my chance. I can help her with this and win her gratitude!"
So I tell her I can't do anything about it right now but after the bar when I get my license I would be more than happy to help her out with this little problem. She was thrilled. "Really, you'd do that?", she said.
I told her I would and as I took stock of the situation I realized by helping her out she would become a client. Then all the rules of professional responsibility would kick in and I wouldn't be allowed to have a relationship with her for a while.
Stupid ethics rules. What good is a J.D. if you can't use it to pick up chicks?

2006-06-29T01:17:00.000-07:00

It's a long drive to Fresno, California and it doesn't matter where you're coming from. I made it down to Fresno in time for the climatological equivalent of being dog piled by sumo wrestlers. It was hot and stuffy. Really hot. Just out of curiosity why does anyone live in Redding, California? There's a perfectly good town, Shasta, just 20 miles north on I-5. Why the hell would anyone live in Redding?
I got to see my family. They're great people. Collectively we're a pretty creative and varied group. There are chefs, artists, and musicians. Then there's the couple of us who are hyper analytical but cooky. One cousin is a Hollywood agent and another is a organizational consultant. One's good at math and the rest of us can't add. We all love bourbon. Weird how genetics pan out.
Anyway on the way home my airconditioner crapped out about Stockton. I couldn't get to the cascades fast enough. There was at least a 20 degree difference. I need to go camping at Lake Shasta someday though. The water looked really inviting as I sweated like a Chris Farley on a coke binge. I swear I smelled so bad that the sheets peeled off my bed when I finally got home and went to sleep.

Oh sweet barista

2006-06-22T02:46:00.000-07:00

I've been getting my hair cut by a new person. She's really pretty and cool and I think I may be developing a crush on her. When I say she's pretty I mean in the barista sense of pretty. I'd stalk her but I only need a haircut every couple weeks or so. Not like the coffee I need about 10 times a day.
I'm going down to Fresno this week. It's not too exciting but I will get to go through Manteca. I'd like a picture of myself by that sign. Maybe with a look of incredulity, an "I can't believe it's not manteca" look.
So I'm not blogging very much and I thought I would. The thing is, is that Barbri is burning me out. I generally just feel blah. It doesn't make for entertaining reading. It doesn't even make for entertaining thinking. I feel bad when I hang out with my friends because I just kind of sit there and stare ahead. Usually I feel guilty that I'm even there. I wish I knew more but whatever. I'll learn it. I just have to get better at learning it. Maybe after this weekend.

2006-06-14T17:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the bar review people handed out a letter telling us not to panic. It may not have been totally worthless. There may be some people who are beginning to panic. I can't tell from class. But that wasn't the tenor of the letter. The letter assumed everyone should be in a panic and if they weren't they were going to fail.
It seemed to me that the letter was trying to generate false panic. They want to whip you up into a frenzy. Oh no, you're scared b/c you haven't outlined enough, done enough practice essays or tests, you don't have a comprehensive understanding of the finer points of intergovernmental immunity. Sweet Jesus!
This then puts barbri in the position of selling their product to us. Barbri will help you deal with all this stress. They'll prepare you. Everything will be alright if you just do what they say.
My opinion is that at this point we have realized that a lot of the lectures are crap and that the program we shelled out 2300 bucks for is crap. If they wanted a good program they would focus on drills and practice essays and not on these stupid lectures. We're smart people and can pick that up from reading the mini reviews. But grading and coordinating essays and analyzing why we screw up on the bubble test takes labor. Actually hiring people to look over stuff is much more labor intensive and expensive than having one guy ramble off an outline at us. I know they don't pay the essay people very much. The comments on my essay were limited to "good job". It was obvious they didn't pour over my essay. They didn't bother to make a comment about how to improve my score, which is the entire point of the bar review class.
So we know we were ripped off. Barbri now has to resell us on their crap program. So they circulate a don't panic letter.
I'm not an idiot and I wish they'd stop treating me like one. The barbri fee is far and away the worst $2300 I've ever spent.

2006-06-07T16:40:00.000-07:00

"Antonio," you might ask, "What's it like to study for the bar? It's probably pretty chill, like studying for finals right?"
Bizarrely this is not the case. I'm actually touched by the stress. I don't want you to think that I've in any way blown my cool. My cool is unblowable (Except occasionally by women, or almost daily by a woman. Regardless it is not blown by multiple choice tests and essay questions.). My cool is like an immovable glacial monolith in the face of Number 10 Fujita Scale tornado cool blowing winds. Man, I'm cool.
Okay, none of that's really true. I was just looking at Men Without Hats videos on Youtube, but whatever.
Anyway, I'm studying and going to lecture. I tried this during first year and my grades sucked. I went back to my normal educational mode of going to class, blowing off the reading, and asking a lot of questions and my grades went up. Now at bar review they ask me to go back to the original non working method of learning. I don't want to do that but, there's no one to ask questions so my method won't work. I need some kind of hybrid method.
My hybrid method so far involves doing lots a multiple choice tests b/c I like the instant feedback and going to class. The going to class isn't working so well b/c, except for Prof. Whitebread's hilarious Crim lectures, I just end up pissed off.

So I've noticed I can go through my whole day without getting a phone call, an email, or a request to google chat unless I sit down to take a test. I got seven phone calls yesterday in the 50 minute period I spent testing. How does everyone know I'm taking a test? It's spooky.

Magazines and Bubbles

2006-06-06T04:42:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm unemployed and out of school I've started spending a lot of time at home. I'm not very good at studying in the library. There's too many people there and I kind of get distracted. So anyway I've been studying at home and I'm finding I'm going through magazines much faster.
Usually it takes me a month to get through an Atlantic Monthly and the various trade magazines I get. Now I'm going through 1 a week. I'm trying to figure out what the good magazines are. I have to recommend against Ready Made. There's only about 20 minutes of reading. I do recommend Juxtapoz but I must say that art criticism is not my favorite writing. I value writing that's clear, concise, and conveys an idea. Art criticism seems to do none of these things, but the pictures are great. So anyway, I'm open to magazine suggestions.
Bar review has improved. One of the instructors pantomimed bestiality the other day. I can now say I've seen the act of bestiality pantomimed twice. It was almost worth 2300 bucks.

Bar Review Of Doom

2006-05-25T16:28:00.000-07:00

So I've made it to my bar review classes. I paid $2300 against my better judgment and so I'm going. This is one of the ways that lawschool and its associated industries get you. They don't sufficiently explain what's going to happen or what the next appropriate step is and then offer you a product at an inflated price. No one knows if it's worth it or not but it appears to be the only source of information about whatever particular anxiety they're crassly exploiting. So you buy it b/c everyone else is and you don't want to fall behind or end up disadvantaged. Usually there is only one provider of the service, or if there are multiple providers they are all substantially similar, so they charge whatever the hell they want and you have to put up with it.
So I'm going to these tedious classes that waste three hours to cover 45 minutes of material. I've got nine work books, bound cheaply and made with low grade paper, I get the opportunity to watch these lectures or listen to CDs of them later, and I get practice tests. The practice tests and the books are actually worth something, not $2300 but something. Eventually they will grade our practice essays as well. I don't know if that will be worth it or not, but one can hope.
So, I paid $2300 for a product worth maybe $400. I'm feeling pretty good, now they just have to show a little respect and I'll bite down on my "MTC workbook" or whatever three letter acronym they're using. But wait, do they show me any respect or do they just bald faced lie to me right out of the gate?
They lie.
But Antonio, it must be a pretty good lie that only you are able to see through b/c of your work with criminal defendants and police who are constantly shading the truth. Right?
No, it was a dumb lie. A really dumb insulting lie.
They tell us that they want us to ship our materials back after we get our bar results. I figure fine. They're running a monopoly and the only way they can maintain it is if people don't have the opportunity to review their materials and evaluate their program. Fine, I've got no problem with that. You give me a refund of a couple hundred dollars and I don't make my materials available. You get to make another $2300 off of some sucker like me and I get a little bit of money to console me.
But that's not their reasoning. They say they want us to return the books so that they can recycle them b/c they care about the environment. Now I'm not one of the enviro geeks who took every E-Law class they could. So maybe I'm off on this but it seems to me that if that was their concern we could just recycle the books and they could give us our check instead of having us use extra packaging, probably made out of new trees that have to be cut down, and then shipping the package, probably on several trucks that burn diesel fuel, all the way down to California. I mean if the environment is the concern lets not burn more fuel and use more packaging. Just have us drop the books off in our recycling.
We aren't all idiots. We graduated from freaking law school. That takes some amount of smarts. Don't tell us a fucking dumb lie. I rank this lie on the stupidity scale with the guy who told me that someone must have forgotten several thousand dollars worth of drugs at his house after a party or that the 20 bindles of heroin were for personal use.
Anyway, I'm pissed and insulted and they want me to evaluate the class. Christ, double Christ. I'm going to write that when I'm in a better mood.

Bar Review

2006-05-23T14:20:00.000-07:00

Bar review is not unlike finally stepping into the sun and having someone poke out your eye with an umbrella.

Free Puck Night

2006-05-11T21:07:00.000-07:00

I used to like to go to the hockey games when I lived in Salt Lake on free puck night. I showed up at school today to talk to Prof. Civ Rts Lit about my paper, which I'm still working on. They were giving out free black dresses! I was psyched. I also got a goofy hat.
Apparently I don't get to keep it. They hand these out every year and I'm supposed to wear it on graduation day. I'm looking at my black dress in a bag and it looks heavy and hot. I'm thinking "If I wear this outside in the sun and have on regular clothes underneath it I'll be sweating like a whore in church." How many people before me have worn the dress? How many of them were sweating like mad in it? Is this thing going to smell like the puffy leopard suit that the highschool mascot had to wear? B/c that thing stunk.
I don't need to be importing "stank". I'll smell bad enough just by sitting in the sun and sweating. My mom is probably going to spray me down with febreeze at graduation.

No L

2006-05-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

So I don't think I'm a 3L anymore. I just finished my last final. I've still got a little work to do on my paper but other than that I'm done. It's margaritaas and deck chairs for me.
So I plan on reading a bunch and watching as many episodes of Arrested Development as possible. BTW a little tip from me to you, to maximize your netflix membership it's best if you immediately mail your DVDs when you're done watching them. Putting them in the car and driving around for a week until you go right past a mailbox keeps you from getting anymore DVDs. Try and work on that.
Here's a bonus tip. If you're arrested for some kind of drug crime it's best to wait until you've detoxed, come down, sobered up, stopped tripping or whatever before you tell the police your lame excuse. So if the cops find 100 grams of coke in your apartment and you sobered up before making up your excuse you would probably be able to realize that "We had a party and someone must have forgotten all those drugs" is not a good excuse.

2006-05-04T12:47:00.000-07:00

One of the big arguments against more immigration or why it's so import to deport undocumented people right now is that they don't contribute enough in taxes to pay for the services they use. This seems like a pretty straight forward argument, they put in amount X and the schools, medical help, food assistance, subsidized housing, etc cost X+N, therefore there is a deficit of N.
Well, I was looking at the Department of Defense's website today. This is a link to the Fallen Warriors section of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This is only the army's casualty list. But look at it. I can't say that everyone with a Hispanic last name is the son or daughter of an immigrant but probably a lot of them are. If you just look really quickly at the A's, or browse down to the G's, you can see that at least 20% of the casualties have Hispanic last names.
If even half of those people are the sons or daughters of immigrants then they are contributing far out of their proportion in terms of their population. Only around 12% of the U.S. population is Latino and a big chunk of that, I think 60% but I can't remember where I read that, is under 18 years old. A smaller percentage of that are immigrants. Yet it looks like 20% of the casualties of Iraq are Latino.
I know this isn't very scientific but I think it's a more realistic way to look at how much immigrants contribute to the U.S. Maybe in dollars immigrants cost us but it's these other things, like providing soldiers for the army, that probably have more of an impact on the U.S. economy and culture. I've got three cousins in Iraq right now. Maybe there was a time when my family didn't pay as much in taxes as the services they used, I doubt it but maybe, but I think my family as a whole is now contributing more than most families.

2006-05-03T21:45:00.000-07:00

Well, I just finished a final. I've still got three more and a rewrite but I'm getting stuff done. It makes me feel good though to knock one out.
Anyway some students are getting disciplined at one of the schools for participating in the walk out. I'm going to a meeting tomorrow to see what I can do to help. Thankfully most student manuals are on the net so I can read that tonight and get a plan together. Maybe I can help some of these kids. This is why I'm becoming a lawyer. Money is for chumps.

2006-05-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

Here's some pictures from the Portland march. I tried to get a photo from the top of the march all the way down but couldn't do it. By the time I got to the middle of the march the top was turning the corner and the end hadn't turned the corner into view yet. Also b/c everyone was wearing white we all kind of blurred together. Anyway from what I'm hearing from organizers the Portland march had about 40,000 people. That seems high to me but I could never see the whole march and people who started didn't finish and lots of people showed up late. I'd probably put it around 17,000.

Now you might be asking, "Antonio, I appreciate your estimate but you suck at math. You're not even that good at counting. When you heard the Yogi Berra quote 'Half this game is 90% mental.' you said, 'Totally!'. So what's the official count?"
Well I went looking at the Oregonian, official newspaper 'round these parts, and they're saying 8,000. The march was over twenty blocks long. There's no way that's right. But, I guess we all do look the same so they probably just lost count. My second guess is that there were 8,000 people there with the last name Gonzalez and then another 9,000 people with other last names.

On top of lowballing the estimate it's in a small box underneath some story about the Trailblazers. Didn't the trailblazers finish last? How is anything they do more newsworthy than a huge march in Portland and a second, equally huge march in Salem. I'm going to go get a paper later on today. If the newsprint version is as crappy I'll be pissed. I might even write an angry missive. I just checked NY Times and the Washington Post and it didn't make either websites' front page.

The second order of business I want to discuss is Flickr as a form of political protest. I took a few pictures of the march, but nowhere near as many as Cindy did. She uploaded her pictures to Flickr and with tags you can see, now this is a technical legal term, craploads of photos. All the most popular tags today deal with the rally. Now I am not a member of Flickr b/c they are owned by Yahoo and I strongly disagree with Yahoo's policy of helping the Chinese government to lock up dissidents. But I think this is a legitimate purpose. I'm going to join up and post my few photos so that there's one more voice being heard one more way.

Estamos En La Lucha

2006-05-01T19:47:00.000-07:00

I finished my A paper last night at about 4 AM. I still have to work on a rewrite. But I'm done, it's like classes, and I guess everything else in law. The general rule is I'm done except for the exceptions.
I started studying for finals. I've got four finals. I'll be able to knock them out pretty quick. May 12th isn't that far away.
I went to the march today. The Portland march was pretty big. I'd estimate about 12,000 to 15,000 people. There was another march in Salem which was about the same size. I got some pictures. This is an exciting time. I love being a part of it. The energy is great. I saw a bunch of friends, some of my professors, people I hadn't seen in years. It makes the end of school that much more fun.