cross posted from The Dream Antilles

Another sign of the end of the world. The venerable f-word is not to be uttered in certain courtrooms in Cincinnati in its participle form.  Under any circumstances.  Those who say it no matter to whom get 6 months.  WTF?

The Enquirer reports:

For the second day in a row, Judge Robert Ruehlman threw someone in jail and cited him for contempt for cussing in the courtroom.

It was an accused gang member Wednesday. On Thursday, it was a private attorney in a non-criminal case.

And what, prey tell, were these cusses?

Brautigam, who is an attorney but isn’t licensed in Ohio, asked Ruehlman for more time to file documents. Ruehlman gave it to him.

As Koenig and Brautigam turned to walk away from the judge, Brautigam called Koenig “a (bleeping) liar.”

“He used the famous F-word,” Koenig said. “(Ruehlman) asked Mr. Brautigam if he said that.”

Brautigam admitted he had and had directed it at Koenig.

Ruehlman cited Brautigam for contempt and sent him to jail for six months.

The word was not directed at the judge.  It was directed at opposing counsel. Apparently it was overheard by the judge.  No matter.  6 months.

The judge decided the sentence should be 6 months because he gave somebody else 6 months for cussing.  WTF?  6 months in jail for the F-word as an adjective?  OK.  What was the previous offense that set the bar so high?

Jamel Sechrest was before Ruehlman in a Wednesday hearing with four other accused members of the “Taliband,” a gang police say has terrorized Northside and its residents by selling drugs and committing other crimes.

Sechrest, unhappy at having to wait until Feb. 2 for a trial – and sitting in jail until then – muttered “That’s (bleeping) bull (bleep).”

“You don’t say bull (bleep) in the courtroom,” Ruehlman told Sechrest before citing him for contempt, sentencing him to six months in jail.

Sechrest it turns out said this to the judge.  He did not say it to his lawyer and that was not overheard.  Isn’t that different from the lawyer’s remark to opposing counsel?  Evidently not.

If you’re trying to understand this, here’s the apparent rule of law in this particular Cincinnati Courtroom: say the F-word participle as an adjective in any context to anyone, 6 months.  If the modified noun is a bad word, you apparently don’t get extra time for the noun.  I have no idea what you get if you invoke the F-word as a verb or an imperative.

I doubt the lawyer will spend the time in jail.  He’ll appeal and manage to be bailed pending a decision on his appeal.  The alleged Taliband member is, I think, just plain stuck.

This is all very interesting in light of the old US Supreme Court decision in Cohen v. California, 403 US 15 (1971).  Young Mr. Cohen had a jacket on his lap while he was in a courtroom in the LA County courthouse.  When he left the courtroom but was still in the halls of justice, he put the jacket on.  The problem was that it said, “Fuck the Draft” on the back.  He was arrested and charged with a crime.  Said the US Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision striking down the conviction

“[A]bsent a more particularized and compelling reason for its actions the State may not, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, make the simple public display of this single four-letter expletive a criminal offense.”

Likewise, its utterance?  In his majority decision, Justice Harlan wrote, “One man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.”  (A lyrical aside: Ah for that Supreme Court, alack, alack, alack, how they are missed.)

Meanwhile back in Cincinatti, we’re all treated to another sign of the end of the world.  The F participle has become so powerful, that you can be incarcerated simply for saying it.  George Carlin and Lenny Bruce were apparently right.  Some words, in particularly the F-word used in its participle form, keep their power because we nonsensically both censure and censor their use.  

And then we have the learned judge.  When he discovered that his initial sentence to the alleged gang banger was too harsh, he doesn’t amend the first sentence to make it fair.  No.  That would show weakness?  Or rationality?  Instead, he just goes ahead and gives the too stringent sentence to somebody else.  He makes the crime fit the punishment. Does that solve the problem with the first sentence?  No, it does not.  It replicates and magnifies it.  It’s the end of the world.

cross posted at The Dream Antilles

This morning’s New York Times reports that Spain will investigate whether a previous government permitted Spanish territory to be used in transporting prisoners to Gitmo.  One thing is obvious.  Yes, Spain permitted its territory to be used to transport prisoners.

According to The Times

Spain will investigate whether a previous government allowed Spanish territory to be used to transport captured terrorism suspects to Guantanamo Bay, the Foreign Ministry said Sunday.

The ministry said in a statement it had not been informed whether the government of Jose Maria Aznar, in power from 1996 to 2004, allowed CIA flights carrying captured foreigners to use Spanish air space or runways.

The newspaper El Pais said in a report Sunday that it had obtained a government document showing that a U.S. official asked the Foreign Ministry for such access in January 2002. El Pais published the document — labeled MUY SECRETO, or top secret — in its paper and Web site editions.

The request was communicated to Josep Pique, who was foreign minister, hours before a CIA flight landed at Moron air base in southwest Spain, the El Pais report said.

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

Plexico Burress, Shakespearean Tragic Hero



OMFG. New York Football Giants star receiver Plexico Burress last night shot himself in the thigh with a handgun.  Will he play again this year?  Who knows?  He was released from the hospital today.  There are other questions though.  Like: WTF is he doing with a loaded pistol in a night club during the season?  And htf did he shoot himself in the thigh?  Isn’t that like totally embarrassing?  And is this the stupidest economic “accident” we’ve seen this year, a year of gigantic, incredibly stupid economic “accidents?”

So those of us in the “life as figure of speech” department were thinking about Plexico Burress this afternoon.  And we were thinking hard.

The big question for us is whether he’s a metaphor for the United States’s economy?  Or the war effort in Iraq?  Or the Bush Administration?  Or the War on Terror^TM?  Or something else that’s a gigantic f*ck up?

What kind of figure of speech is he anyway?  Is this an example of synecdoche? Is this an example of metonymy? Is it metaphor?  WTF is this anyway?  And, more important, what does it mean, if anything, to us?

The New York Times supplies the back story:

It was unclear what led to the gun’s discharge. There were no reports of any fights inside the club before the shooting. The police did not say whether any charges would be filed, but they noted that felony charges were possible if a person possesses a loaded, unlicensed handgun in a place other than his residence or business.

Under the league’s personal-conduct policy, violations of local gun laws can result in a player’s suspension…snip

It is the latest controversy involving Burress, who signed a five-year, $35 million contract with the Giants just before the season opener. He was suspended for 12 days, including a victory over Seattle, because he missed meetings without explanation.

Against San Francisco on Oct. 19, Burress shouted at Coach Tom Coughlin on the sideline after drawing an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty. The N.F.L. fined Burress $45,000 for verbally abusing the officials.

Coughlin held him out of the first quarter of the Oct. 26 game against the Steelers because he missed treatment on a neck and shoulder injury the day before.

The Times also reports that Burress, who is 31, has a 5-year $35 million contract.

I know that you, dear readers, are incredibly busy and perplexed by other, vital questions, but seriously now, have you ever heard of anything as ridiculous and expensive as this?

Then again, oops.  I guess so.  How about Michael Vick?

Oh, goddess supreme, preserve us in safety from the end of this Empire.

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

A ritual and a practice.

At our house, when we have Thanksgiving dinner, we like to stop eating and talking to go around the table clockwise so that each person present can say what s/he is thankful for.  When we first decided to do this, some of our guests felt this was awkward, perhaps embarrassing.  But we don’t start with the guests, so they can get an impression of what expressing gratitude feels like. Those in our immediate family understood this and were comfortable enough with it.  After all, at birthdays, we like to go around the table to tell the person celebrating the birthday our many appreciations of him/her.  So on Thanksgiving, it’s a natural enough question, “What are you thankful for this year?”  The answers aren’t always surprising.  We’re thankful for being here another year, for our health however it might then be, for family and friends, for the lives of those now departed, for whatever abundance we may have received, for creativity, for our pets, for our relationships, for our businesses, for our politics, for our dreams and aspirations and hopes, and so on.  You get it, you can probably feel it even reading about doing this.  It’s a Thanksgiving ritual we love.  Feel free to try it out.

I always loved Thanksgiving because, however it was intended or begun, it seemed to be about gratitude.  For years I’ve had a practice I’ve done.  Sometimes I do it every day.  Sometimes I do it once a month.  Sometimes I don’t do it for a long time.  It depends.  What do I do? I make a list of the things I am thankful for.  I number them as I write them down, and I feel my gratitude for each item as I write it before going on to the next.  So, I write, “1. my good health, 2. the life of Dr. King, 3. compassion for my seeming enemies, 4. the novels of Cesar Aira.”  And so on.  Until I reach 50.  I do this, writing and feeling, until I have a list of 50 items or more that I have enjoyed and felt my thanks for.  When I am feeling pinched, stressed, exhausted, depressed, or any other “negative” emotion, it seems to take me a very long time to find items, to write them down and really to feel them.  When I am feeling expansive, relaxed, rested, optimistic, or any other “positive” emotion, it takes me virtually no time to write and enjoy the list.  Why do this exercise?  Because it’s almost magical.  And it lights me up.  Feel free to try it out.

Was it Meister Eckhart who wrote, “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.”  I agree.

May all of you have a happy Thanksgiving.

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

This is absolutely infuriating.  The New York Times reports on the struggle of former Mexican farm workers, some in the 80’s and 90’s, to obtain refunds from the Mexican Government of 10% of their wages that were withheld when they worked in the US under the bracero program:

FRESNO, Calif. – Here comes Abraham Franco now, 86 years old, skin leathery and bronzed from decades of work in the fields, slowly bending his small but sturdy frame into a metal chair at a faux wood office table at the Mexican Consulate here.

He still could not quite believe the news: Decades after working as a bracero, as thousands of Mexican guest farm workers were called in a program from 1942 to 1964, the Mexican government had recently agreed to a one-time payment, $3,500, of long overdue withheld wages.

The braceros are fading fast, some pushing or over 90, and are ever reliant on family and friends to get by.

Join me in the lettuce fields with Sr. Franco.  

This essay is cross-posted from dKos and The Dream Antilles

The Beach in Bahia Soliman

Maybe this is the beginning of another love story.  People come from all over the world to the Mayan Riviera in Mexico as tourists, fall in love with it, and return over and over and over again.  The Mayan Riviera is the area south of Cancun, Mexico, and north of Tulum, on the Caribbean.  You get there by flying to Cancun.  After that, you travel south on Route 307, to Playa del Carmen, and then Akumal, and Puerto Aventuras, past Xel-Ha and on to Tulum.  You can make the trip by rental car, bus, taxi, or collectivo.  

Join me on the beach.  

Great news.  A California Court of Appeal has invalidated California’s lethal injection protocol because the state failed to comply with the state’s Administrative Procedure Act.  The decision(pdf format) in Morales v. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, holds that the State’ lethal injection protocol, “STATE OF CALIFORNIA SAN QUENTIN OPERATIONAL PROCEDURE NUMBER 0-770 EXECUTION BY LETHAL INJECTION, is invalid and it enjoins California “from carrying out the lethal injection of any condemned inmates under OP 770 unless and until that protocol is promulgated in compliance with the APA.”

The more than 660 prisoners on California’s death row should briefly sigh some relief.  There is little doubt that the regulation will be re-enacted, but the struggle against state killing in California goes on, and today’s ruling is a great victory.

The Mercury News reports:

A state appeals court on Friday ensured further delays in California’s already inert death penalty system, finding that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration did not follow proper procedures when it attempted to revise the state’s lethal injection method to get executions back on track.

In a 14-page ruling, the San Francisco-based 1st District Court of Appeal upheld last year’s decision by a Marin County judge, who found state officials failed to provide public scrutiny of plans to overhaul California’s execution method. The appeals court ruling, if it stands, would force the state to go back to the drawing board in its efforts to bring the execution system into compliance with a federal judge’s concerns that the current method is unconstitutional.

The appeals court ruling will have a ripple effect on California’s bogged down capital punishment system. A broader legal challenge in federal court to California’s lethal injection method cannot move forward until the state comes up with a revised procedure, and that is now tied up further as a result of the appeals court’s findings.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Ronald Matthias, who supervises the state’s death penalty cases, was still reviewing the decision and could not predict the next step. But the state can either appeal to the California Supreme Court or move forward with public review of the proposed lethal injection reforms, and either process would take months or longer.

Executions in California have been on hold for more than 3 years because of challenges to the state’s lethal injection protocols.  The 2006 Judge Fogel stopped all California executions, but provided a number of steps state officials could take to ensure that executions were carried out humanely. The governor then ordered state prison officials to come up with a new plan.  The plan called for improved training and supervision of execution team members, as well as the construction of a new, modernized execution chamber. But plan was challenged in state court under the argument it violated state procedures that require public review, and Fogel put the federal case on hold until that issue was resolved.

Is the issue resolved now?  No.  The state can either try to adopt a new protocol, following the law, or it can appeal.  Either way, state killing cannot resume until the issues are resolved.

I applaud today’s ruling, and I compliment all of the people who have worked so diligently to stop state killing in California.

OMG! Barack Obama hasn’t jailed Cheney and Bush.

OMG! Barack Obama hasn’t closed Gitmo.

OMG! The Dow is at 8100 and Barack Obama hasn’t fixed it.

OMG! Unemployment is at a four year high, and Barack Obama hasn’t decreased it.

OMG! HRC is maybe gonna be Secretary of State, and Barack Obama is appointing her.

OMG! Barack Obama hasn’t invalidated the US policy of torture and illegal extraditions.

OMG! Barack Obama hasn’t gotten the US troops out of Iraq.

OMG! Barack Obama hasn’t stopped US eavesdropping and surveillance.

OMG! OMG! OMG!

adopted from The Dream Antilles

I have a confession to make.  I know it’s not vogue to discuss our personal finances here, or brag about our personal wealth, but I have to out myself anyway.  I want to confess.  I’ve been keeping a secret from you.  And I owe you an explanation. You didn’t know it, but I am a proud owner of a professional sports franchise.

No, I didn’t get $100 billion dollars in dot com bubble and buy a part of Manchester United.  But I do own a part of an English football (gringos, that means soccer) team, Ebbsfleet United.

As today’s New York Times reported:

[Will] Brooks, a 37-year-old former advertising copywriter, set up a Web site in 2007 called MyFootballClub.co.uk that asked a simple question: how many people would be interested in pooling their money to buy a soccer club, so that ordinary fans could vote on every decision, from uniform design to player selection? More than $400,000 was raised on the first day of public registration.

The Web fantasy became reality when members voted in February to take over Ebbsfleet United, a tiny, unsuccessful club in southeast England, for slightly less than $1 million.

MyFootballClub has about 31,000 members/owners from all over the world (including the author of this article [and the author of this essay]), all of whom pay an annual subscription of about $60 to be a member of the nonprofit trust that owns “the Fleet.”

The club is run on the principle of one person, one vote for every decision, major or minor. Ebbsfleet recently made headlines in the British press when members voted to sell John Akinde, a talented young striker, for about $250,000, the first vote of its kind.

Why would somebody do this, you might ask? Why would somebody spend the princely sum of $60 +/- per year to own a share of a professional sports team, especially an English football team that is four five divisions below the Premier League? And why would somebody proudly wear an owner/manager t-shirt for Ebbsfleet?  And why would I care about, let alone agonize about a team that has lost its last 4 games?

This is the kind of thing that, if you don’t get it instantly, it’s very hard to explain. It might even be impossible to explain if it doesn’t light you up on hearing it.

I love the game. I love the game in its disorganized, pick up form, and in its most star filled, regimented, corporate package. I love the game when the ball is made of rags and duct tape. I love the game when it’s played before 50,000 screaming fans. And I love the game at all the spots in between. I’d rather watch re-runs of Boca Juniors playing River Plate (El Club mas poderoso de Argentina) in the rain in a scoreless tie than most professional US football (pigskin) games.  I’d rather get all muddy, sweaty, and tired playing this game than most other activities.

So the chance to play a new role in the game, as if I were a small scale Sir Alex or George Steinbrenner or Roman Abramovich, is just delicious. It’s fantastically exciting! Let’s face it, I can make some room in the upper arcana of teams I like to follow for Ebbsfleet United, of which I am a proud owner.

And to top it off, I’m delighted to bring this kind of inexpensive, democratic ownership to sport.  To show its promise. After all is said and done, Ebbsfleet United is a great experiment and I want to see it succeed. It’s something great that the Internet has made possible. Its success will inspire other groups of people to own other clubs. We will slowly take ownership of professional sports back from the undeserving, spoiled, greedy billionaires, spread it around, and make it a widespread, public, affordable phenomenon.

Can you imagine what it would be like if people across the world, hundreds of thousands of them, owned the Boston Red Sox or the New York Mets?  Can you imagine how much more intense the games would become?  Can you imagine how it would be if the ownership instead of being imperious were democratic?  If betting increases interest in the games, can you imagine what ownership of the team does?

Further, can you imagine what it must be like for the Ebbsfleet players, playing 5 leagues down from the Premier League?  They go from complete and utter anonymity to having 31,000 people across the globe watching them, following the games, criticizing their form, making suggestions.  The stadium for Ebbsfleet, Stone Bridge Road in Gravesend, Kent, only holds a total of about 5,000 fans (the Rose Bowl, on the other hand, holds about 92,000 people). Can you imagine both the pressure and the joy as a player of having 31,000 owners watch you play?

This is popular, democractic (with a small “d”) professional sports.  It’s new.  It’s brilliant.  It’s an experiment with tremendous possibilities.  I’m completely revved up about it.  Just ponder the possibilities.  Just imagine how this applies to other endeavors.

For more, click this.

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

La Catrina in Mexico City

A brief, incomplete, somewhat opinionated guide to a wonderful holiday:    

The Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos in Spanish) is a holiday celebrated mainly in Mexico and by people of Mexican heritage (and others) living in the United States and Canada. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and relatives who have died. The celebration occurs on the 1st and 2nd of November, in connection with the Catholic holy days of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day which take place on those days. Traditions include building private altars honoring the deceased, using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favorite foods and beverages of the departed, and visiting graves with these as gifts.

Join me across El Rio.