Below is a list of services with which you may subscribe to our news feeds:  

Link To Us:

Display Our Headlines:

We made a widget for you!  Just go here and copy the coding provided.  Registration is free.

Mobile:

mobile  

After a year on the B Team I got my chance to be a part of the Concert Band! at the eksmas concert.

Dat, dat, thump, thump, dah, dat, dat, dat, thump, thump, thump, dah, dat, dat, thump, thump, thump, thump, dah, daaaa.

Dat dat dat dat dat dat- Dah dah daaa!

I had strep and couldn’t make it and hated myself for being weak.  Turns out it was a good thing.

Band played in two acts with the Choir in between (I wasn’t part of school choir until senior year when I had to take a minimum of 4 credits and I only needed a 1/4 from Gym to graduate).  During the break when the curtains were closed basically everybody except the clarinets and the flutes snuck under the stands and got trashed.

The second act showed it and I don’t play my horn after I have a beer because you can taste it.

I did get to sit through the dressing down given in 4th period Concert Band the next day.

The director had got out in front of the audience the night before and issued refunds.  Chairs were absent and those of us who had been humming along got a chill of fear.

But we gave what you could consider a credible performance, or at least we pretended as much.

Nobody was gone for long and three months later at the Spring Concert it was hard to tell anything had happened.

cross posted at The Dream Antilles and Orange World

Eric Volz

Update (12/20/07, 4:04pm ET): CNN reports:

An American man held in a Nicaraguan jail was released Friday, four days after a court overturned his conviction on charges of murdering his former girlfriend, his family told CNN. /snip

A mix-up kept Eric Volz, 28, of Nashville, Tennessee, in custody after an appeals court reversed the ruling that found him guilty of the 2005 death of Doris Jimenez.

Thursday night, a Nicaraguan appeals court in Granada cleared up the confusion and signed release papers for Volz, said Maria Jose Oviedo, assistant to one of the judges on the court.

Once the documents were processed by the police hospital in Managua — where Volz was undergoing treatment for a variety of ailments — he was set free under Nicaraguan law, a court official said.

This probably doesn’t end the case.  CNN reports that the prosecutors may still appeal.

The original essay:

Back in March 23, 2007, I wrote an essay about Eric Volz, an American convicted in Nicaragua of a murder he didn’t commit.  The victim was his girl friend; he had proof that he was far away in Managua when the murder took place.  He was convicted anyway in what I felt was a classic, ugly miscarriage of justice.  And he was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment.  He’s been locked up ever since in Nicaragua.  Now there’s some good news and some bad news about the case.

The good news is that the conviction has been reversed.  The bad news is that Eric Volz is not free and that the government will apparently seek a further appeal in the case to the Supreme Court of Nicaragua.  He may be detained until that appeal is completed.

This from The Wall Street Journal:

Days after a Nicaraguan appeals court threw out his murder conviction and ordered him freed immediately, Eric Volz, a 28-year-old surfer-turned real-estate broker, is still in custody. His case is taking bizarre new turns that shine a spotlight on the unpredictability of the Nicaraguan legal system.

The delay also brought a fresh round of exasperation for Mr. Volz’s family members, who believed Monday that Mr. Volz was on the verge of walking out of custody and on to a jet home. “I feel like my son has been kidnapped,” Maggie Anthony, the man’s mother, said by telephone.

The U.S. Embassy in Managua issued a statement on Tuesday calling on local authorities to implement the appeals court order freeing him, and return his passport. “We trust that the Nicaraguan authorities will ensure the safety and well being of Mr. Volz while he is in custody.”

Mr. Volz’s lawyer, Fabbrith Gomez accused court officials of using illegal tactics to delay Mr. Volz’s release while they regroup and attempt to mount a new case, or a Supreme Court appeal. For example, under Nicaraguan law, before Mr. Volz can be freed, the lower court judge who first convicted him must acknowledge the appeals court ruling with a signature. That judge has so far avoided signing. She didn’t show up at her courthouse when the papers arrived, claiming she had a flat tire, members of Mr. Volz’s defense team have said. Later, the judge claimed to have returned the unsigned papers back to the appeals court on the grounds that the pages of the appeals court ruling weren’t numbered correctly. The appeals court, meantime, says the papers were never received – and the whereabouts of the ruling are unknown at this time.

It’s hard to imagine a legal system in which a judge’s signature on original documents can hold up release of a defendant and the documents are driven across the country to be signed.  This case has previously required a suspension of disbelief, so that may be appropriate again now.

CNN makes the procedure seem only slightly more rational:

Nicaraguan prosecutors are appealing a court’s decision that overturned an American man’s conviction in the killing of his former girlfriend and set the stage for his release, officials said.

Magazine publisher Eric Volz’s mother says she’s concerned for his safety.

The office of Isadora Ibarra, prosecuting attorney, said she had left Wednesday to deliver the appeal to Granada.

Eric Volz, 28, of Nashville, Tennessee, remains in custody despite the Monday ruling by a Nicaraguan appeals court that he should be released immediately.

His attorney, Fabbrith Gomez, has said the Managua judge who sentenced Volz — Ivette Toruno Blanco — was stalling on signing court documents, holding up his release. Blanco has said the documents were incorrectly numbered and returned to Granada, Gomez said.

So the craziness of this case continues.  Eric Volz is not yet free.  His case may be headed for a Supreme Court review.  I have been unable to find information about whether bail is available to Volz pending a further appeal by the Government.

For updates: click here.

Updated Comment:  Arrgh! The things one has to do to skirt the 2-diary rule!

On blogtalk radio here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/f…

Last night on the CBS Evening News, Katie Couric presented another in her series of Primary Questions to the candidates for president of both parties. The question for this installment dealt with marital fidelity and whether it should be a determinative factor when deciding for whom to vote.

This question, while not as elevating to the debate as questions about Iraq, global warming, the economy, or health care might have been, could still have produced some observable squirming from a number of the candidates. But in reporting on Couric’s broadcast, the rapidly deteriorating TVNewser was more interested in propagating rumors than in objective journalism. In an item by Steve Krakauer, who joined TVNewser last month and previously worked for Fox News, two candidates were singled out as having answers that would “be of interest,” and they might not be who you would think.

Brought to you by…

News Corpse

The Internet’s Chronicle Of Media Decay.

With a nod to Taegan Goddard, the New York Sun is reporting that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg again appears to be preparing to run for president.

Mayor Bloomberg’s aides have been reaching out to consultants from his past campaigns about whether they are free for a possible 2008 White House bid – including one who helped make his slick mayoral TV spots, The Post has learned.

Bloomberg aides are said to be contacting ad-makers, to see if they’ll be available.

That Bloomberg aides would look to lock up an ad team dovetails with what the mayor has privately told people about how he would spend up to $1 billion of his own fortune on an independent run, which would be played out mostly on the TV airwaves and through direct mail.

Bloomberg Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey is said to be leading the effort. Bloomberg continues to deny interest, but:

Sheekey has said publicly that the mayor doesn’t have to make a decision before March 5.

That’s the day after the Texas primary elections – but it’s also the first date that nominating petitions for an independent candidate in the state can be circulated.

(more)

Many folks have read that there were riots and some violence and a bunch of rabble rousing and yelling and such at the New Orleans City Council meeting on public housing, heck, it’s the top story at AOL News.

And the NOLA blogs are covering this as well.

Yep, that’s the breaking story out of New Orleans.  NOT!

Let’s take a look at what actually happened today, let’s … oh, I don’t know … BLOG about it.  The fucking media and our fucking representatives sure as fuck aren’t going to educate us.  Arrggh.

This is a national issue.

And it’s especially a national issue for any blogger who is against this misAdministration of criminals and thieves.

h/t to Jeffrey over at Library Chronicles for this set of live updates from the Times-Picayune.

The New Orleans City Council voted unanimously to go ahead with the demolitions of public housing.

Please remember these seven names (one of them has posted at Daily Kos):

Arnie Fielkow

Stacy Head

Cynthia Willard-Lewis

Shelly Midura

Cynthia Hedge-Morrell

Jacquelyn Brechtel-Clarkson

James Carter

(If Any NOLA bloggers find I’ve incorrectly named one of these Council members, please let me know in the comments and I’ll fix.)

These seven people now own the challenge of providing fair and well built public housing in New Orleans, for both the poor who were forced out after the Federal Flood and for the greater community who are their good neighbors.  That is a big responsibility.

And these seven people are going to have to work with city, state, and federal agencies, including the Bush-ridden and incompetent HUD.

This is a national story.  I will tell you right now we are not going to get the truth from either our traditional media or elected political representatives — unless we push them hard.

That’s what bloggers do, imo.

The story about the riots and the poor folks who are being tasered and tortured is a big fat distraction being thrown in our faces by a traditional media who doesn’t know its ass from a hole in the ground.

This is going to be a tremendously difficult story to cover, and it has major national implications for cities all across the country.

The hyenas are out, and they want their share of the meat.  The only thing between those hyenas and our brothers and sisters in New Orleans will be folks who find out the truth and let others know about it.

I think bloggers, nationally, have a role to play in this.  One of the many, many rewards of doing this investigative work will be that when the hyenas come to your city, you’ll be prepared to call them out for what they are.

For seven years we have not heard a peep from this misAdministration about the suffering of the poor, as millions more Americans have fallen into poverty.  This latest story about protesters being treated badly by the cops is nothing but a distraction — for the poor have been treated like shit for seven years and no media has bothered to cover it.

The real story is the vote.  And those seven people who now have the responsibility of letting American taxpayers know what’s happening with their money.