the daily snivel
Hate Crimes
Hate crimes legislation seems to be impugned on a fairly regular basis in the United States on the basis that it "elevates" one group above another when a crime is committed. I'm not sure to what degree US hate crimes legislation is similar to Canada's, but the Criminal Code of Canada provides that a motive of hatred should be considered an aggravating factor when determining a sentence upon conviction, pursuant to section 718.2(a)(i). That is, it isn't the race of the person you assault (or murder) that aggravates the circumstances, it's your motivation in attacking them. I've always thought that such a provision is quite rational given the proper denunciation such crimes merit.
In any case, I've rarely seen a defence of punishing hatred as eloquent and well-reasoned as Dave Neiwert's. Here is an excerpt:
In any case, I've rarely seen a defence of punishing hatred as eloquent and well-reasoned as Dave Neiwert's. Here is an excerpt:
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First: The principle of proportionality in sentencing is a fundamental aspect of criminal law. Society has always chosen to punish crimes more or less harshly according to the culpability of the perpetrator, particularly the level of harm he inflicts. This is why, in the case of the death of another person, someone may face charges ranging from first-degree murder to third-degree manslaughter.
Take, for instance, the case of an elderly woman smothered in her sleep. If the perpetrator is her nephew eager to collect on his inheritance, then he is likely to face first-degree murder charges and a possible death penalty. If it is a begrieved husband carrying out the wishes of a dying Alzheimer's victim, then prosecutorial discretion comes into play. Which do you think is more worthy of a harsh sentence?
The principle responsible for the difference here is mens rea, or the state of mind of the accused. Mens rea involves both intent and motive. Harsher sentences traditionally have been assigned to crimes committed with intentions and motivations considered more harmful to society at large.
Now, you may ask, are hate crimes more harmful than the crimes for which, as the editorial points out, there are already laws on the books? Well, ask yourself this: Is a swastika painted on a synagogue the same thing as graffiti scrawled on a downtown wall? Is an assault in which the perpetrators sought out gay or black people to send a "message" the same thing as a bar fight?
Are hate crimes truly different from their parallel crimes? Quantifiably and qualitatively, the answer is yes.
The first and most clear aspect of this difference lies in the breadth of the crimes' effects. Hate crimes attack not only the immediate victim, but the target community -- Jews, blacks, gays -- to which the victim belongs. Their purpose today, just as it was in the lynching era, is to terrorize and politically oppress the target community. The laws against them resemble anti-terrorism laws (which, it must be noted, are also predicated on enhancing the sentence based on the motivation of the perpetrator) in this respect as well.
But this is only one aspect of how different hate crimes are from their parallel crimes. There are several more, and they are substantial. Bias crimes are far more likely to be violent than are other crimes. They also may be distinguished by their extraordinary impact on the victim. As bias-crimes expert Frederick Lawrence notes, "Bias-crime victims have been compared to rape victims in that the physical harm associated with the crime, however great, is less significant than the powerful accompanying sense of violation. The victims of bias crimes thus tend to experience psychological symptoms such as depression or withdrawal, as well as anxiety, feelings of helplessness, and a profound sense of isolation."
Finally, bias crimes cause an even broader injury to the general community, both local and national. They create racial distrust and misunderstanding within the immediate communities where they occur, and their occurrence can cast a shadow over an entire community's reputation. (Just ask folks in Jasper, Texas.) Perhaps just as important, they violate basic principles of equality of opportunity and freedom of association by threatening and intimidating targeted segments of society, and widen the not-insignificant racial divide in this country.
Not only are bias crimes substantially different in nature from their parallel crimes, there is no question that they cause substantially greater harm, so a harsher punishment is fully warranted.
Second: Hate-crime statutes are neither written to protect specific classes of persons from assault nor to enhance the charges simply when a person from a "protected class" is the victim of a crime. We don't have laws that create stiffer time if you simply assault a black or a Jew or a gay person. The laws don't even specify races or religions. Such laws would be in clear violation of basic constitutional principles, including the equal-protection clause.
In fact, the actual class status of a victim is almost secondary to the decision whether or to file a hate-crimes charge or not. The primary concern is the motivation of the perpetrator. All of these laws are written to punish people more severely for committing a crime committed with a bias motivation.
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Now, think about what this means: Everyone has a race. Everyone has a creed. Everyone has beliefs about religion. Everyone has an ethnic origin, and for that matter a sexual orientation. As such, the laws are written to protect everyone equally from criminals who select them intentionally because of their racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual identity. There are no "protected classes" or "special victims" per se, only prosecutable motives.
This is why someone who assaults a Sikh under the mistaken belief he is Muslim, or a straight man believing he is gay, may still be charged with a hate crime. It also explains why, if you look at annual FBI statistics for hate crimes, you'll see that nearly a thousand black-on-white hate crimes, and several hundred anti-Christian hate crimes, are reported (and most of them prosecuted) annually. The law is written to protect everyone equally.
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A bit of trivia for your Saturday afternoon...
It was with great satisfaction that, knowing I'll have 95 credits as of this April (92 are needed to graduate) after clarifying my status with the administration, I filled out and submitted my Registration for Degree and Request for Diploma form to the University of Ottawa. I'll never get used to the idea of "applying" to graduate, but in any case it's nice to know I've set those great, mysterious senatorial wheels in motion and will be receiving my Baccalaureate of Laws at the Spring Convocation in June of this year. Not only will I finally (finally!) be finished with university, but I'll be on the road to finishing my Bar Admissions Course and then onto articling at a law firm in Toronto.
It's nice to see all that hard work finally paying off (he says, as he procrastinates on his Advanced Family Law essay).
Friday, January 28, 2005 It's nice to see all that hard work finally paying off (he says, as he procrastinates on his Advanced Family Law essay).
What's The Deal With John Stossel?
While flipping through the channels on another pointless Friday night of staying in and listlessly writing an essay, I stumbled across the smarmy voice and mustachioed face of ABC 20/20 co-anchor John Stossel, a self-satisfied reporter I hadn't seen in quite some time. But I'd always associated him with the sort of slanted journalism that comes from quick conclusions and innuendo and just a soupcon of ideology-powered sensationalism. He's always reminded me of that sleazy reporter who gets electrocuted Tazered by Bonnie Bedelia ("Mrs. McClane") in Die Hard 2: Die Harder.
Anyway, I just couldn't turn away because tonight was a full 20/20 special on some "Myths, Lies and Nasty Behavior" that frankly had me surprised and even a little upset. These great hits included libertarian rants about how sharing is bad, because littering and the depletion of the world's ocean fisheries was the fault of the "tragedy of the commons" and that privatization could solve woes like elephant poaching. He also argued that foreign outsourcing of labour actually created more jobs (and without looking at the numbers I might grant that maybe this could be true in total, but query whether the jobs created were full-time or had benefits, which Stossel did not). He then argued that subsidizing farmers was a waste of money that did nothing to sustain agriculture. Again, I'm just jerking my knee and not diverting my attention from my very-important-essay-due-on-Monday to do extra research, but I already see a contradiction between two of his express arguments (1. farmers who can't stay profitable should just go out of business that's the way the system works and we shouldn't reward inefficiency, vs. 2. businesses that aren't profitable should outsource their labour overseas because if they went out of business that would be bad, oh think of the children). Which isn't to say there are plenty of problems with subsidies, like the vast amount that goes to huge agribusiness. But it's just intellectual laziness to say, farmers are welfare queens and that's bad, m'kay?
Next is the argument that suburban sprawl is good for America, and that 95% of America is undeveloped and that must mean there's tons of room to grow. I've seen this kind of lazy math as frequently popping up in Stossel's arguments in the tiny bit of Google-research I did do in my tizzy tonight. Basically he's looking at the total land area of the United States and dividing it against the developed land area -- evidently not taking into account the large areas with small populations like Alaska, where development is always going to be limited. Nor does he take into account how much arable land is being consumed, and wetlands drained, by urban sprawl, which is one of the real arguments against it. Stossel then states policies limiting urban sprawl mean that "poor people can't have back yards," because property values go up when urban sprawl is constrained, and "what some people call sprawl, others call homes they can afford." But, I'm sorry, suburban developments are generally new homes that are quite pricey (and would be more expensive if urban areas didn't subsidize suburban living through property taxes, given their inordinate usage of spread-out infrastructure) and out of the price range of poorer buyers, especially younger buyers. My brother and sister-in-law just bought a house in Vanier (an old, established, traditionally working class and French-speaking neighbourhood) that will be quite lovely for a first home, but certainly isn't new, and they certainly wouldn't have been able to afford such a home in new, sprawling Orleans or Kanata, which are the suburban developments spreading out from Ottawa. The only link to reality that Stossel's argument has is: "richer people buy new homes in the suburbs and that means there's more older homes for poor people to buy" -- but again, query whether those of us who live in established neighbourhoods, especially built-up urban areas, are subsidizing these new suburbs with property taxes, and whether suburbs consume more than they contribute.
Anyway, I was ticked. Stossel is, unsurprisingly, widely quoted on conservative websites and forums, which is unfortunate and ironic given that his sloppy research methods and intellectual dishonesty put to shame any critique of those of their hated "librul" foe, Michael Moore. I looked up some good refutations on-line, and thought I'd include them here for reference:
Fair.org on John Stossel. They do, among other things, a great job with his book, Give Me A Break.
For example:
See also Sourcewatch:
"Meh," I say to you in my passionate throes of unimpressed disdain, John Stossel. A thousand times "meh."
Thursday, January 27, 2005 Anyway, I just couldn't turn away because tonight was a full 20/20 special on some "Myths, Lies and Nasty Behavior" that frankly had me surprised and even a little upset. These great hits included libertarian rants about how sharing is bad, because littering and the depletion of the world's ocean fisheries was the fault of the "tragedy of the commons" and that privatization could solve woes like elephant poaching. He also argued that foreign outsourcing of labour actually created more jobs (and without looking at the numbers I might grant that maybe this could be true in total, but query whether the jobs created were full-time or had benefits, which Stossel did not). He then argued that subsidizing farmers was a waste of money that did nothing to sustain agriculture. Again, I'm just jerking my knee and not diverting my attention from my very-important-essay-due-on-Monday to do extra research, but I already see a contradiction between two of his express arguments (1. farmers who can't stay profitable should just go out of business that's the way the system works and we shouldn't reward inefficiency, vs. 2. businesses that aren't profitable should outsource their labour overseas because if they went out of business that would be bad, oh think of the children). Which isn't to say there are plenty of problems with subsidies, like the vast amount that goes to huge agribusiness. But it's just intellectual laziness to say, farmers are welfare queens and that's bad, m'kay?
Next is the argument that suburban sprawl is good for America, and that 95% of America is undeveloped and that must mean there's tons of room to grow. I've seen this kind of lazy math as frequently popping up in Stossel's arguments in the tiny bit of Google-research I did do in my tizzy tonight. Basically he's looking at the total land area of the United States and dividing it against the developed land area -- evidently not taking into account the large areas with small populations like Alaska, where development is always going to be limited. Nor does he take into account how much arable land is being consumed, and wetlands drained, by urban sprawl, which is one of the real arguments against it. Stossel then states policies limiting urban sprawl mean that "poor people can't have back yards," because property values go up when urban sprawl is constrained, and "what some people call sprawl, others call homes they can afford." But, I'm sorry, suburban developments are generally new homes that are quite pricey (and would be more expensive if urban areas didn't subsidize suburban living through property taxes, given their inordinate usage of spread-out infrastructure) and out of the price range of poorer buyers, especially younger buyers. My brother and sister-in-law just bought a house in Vanier (an old, established, traditionally working class and French-speaking neighbourhood) that will be quite lovely for a first home, but certainly isn't new, and they certainly wouldn't have been able to afford such a home in new, sprawling Orleans or Kanata, which are the suburban developments spreading out from Ottawa. The only link to reality that Stossel's argument has is: "richer people buy new homes in the suburbs and that means there's more older homes for poor people to buy" -- but again, query whether those of us who live in established neighbourhoods, especially built-up urban areas, are subsidizing these new suburbs with property taxes, and whether suburbs consume more than they contribute.
Anyway, I was ticked. Stossel is, unsurprisingly, widely quoted on conservative websites and forums, which is unfortunate and ironic given that his sloppy research methods and intellectual dishonesty put to shame any critique of those of their hated "librul" foe, Michael Moore. I looked up some good refutations on-line, and thought I'd include them here for reference:
Fair.org on John Stossel. They do, among other things, a great job with his book, Give Me A Break.
For example:
At the core of much of Stossel's reporting is his fervent belief in the efficiency and justice of laissez-faire capitalism, and the evils of most forms of government regulation. To Stossel, a fact like persistent U.S. income inequality is merely dogma circulated by lazy journalists who don't know the truth. But it is Stossel's reporting that often gets it backward. In his "Greed" special (2/3/98), Stossel reported that while management compensation had increased in the past 15 years, "that doesn't mean the workers were hurt. Factory wages were up, too--up 70 percent." According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at the time the show aired, wages for manufacturing workers had risen 55 percent since January 1983. But Stossel's real statistical sleight of hand is that he didn't adjust for inflation. Taking inflation into account--which is indispensable for determining whether "workers were hurt"-- factory workers' real wages fell by more than 6 percent between 1983 and 1998.
Stossel's rhetoric on poverty relies on similarly mistaken statistical formulas. Consider this claim (1/27/01): "America now spends about $40,000 a year on every family of four below the poverty line.... You could just cut them a check for that and they'd be out of poverty." This figure seems to derive from the work of Heritage Foundation welfare analyst Robert Rector, whom Stossel had cited in previous specials. In a 1995 book, Rector calculated that the government spent $324 billion on "welfare." When that number was divided by the number of families then below the poverty line, the result was roughly $40,000. The problem? Rector's number for total "welfare" spending includes programs that go to millions of non-poor families--including spending on Medicare and Medicaid, two of the most expensive government programs. Rector takes this total amount, and then divides this by the number of poor people alone. Such a figure tells you nothing about what benefits to poor people alone actually cost.
See also Sourcewatch:
...
in Washington, D.C. Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman reported that when it came to the question and answer session Stossel was asked: "If you believe that consumer reporting works, and is a better regulator than regulation or lawsuits, why did you stop doing it?"
"I got sick of it," Stossel responded. "I also now make so much money I just lost interest in saving a buck on a can of peas. Twenty years was enough. But mainly, I came to realize that the government was doing far more harm to people than business and I ought to be reporting on that. Nobody else was."
In January 2004 Stossel's book - Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media - was published. "In Give Me a Break, Stossel explains how ambitious bureaucrats, intellectually lazy reporters, and greedy lawyers make your life worse even as they claim to protect your interests. Taking on such sacred cows as the FDA, the War on Drugs, and scaremongering environmental activists -- and backing up his trademark irreverence with careful reasoning and research -- he shows how the problems that government tries and fails to fix can be solved better by the extraordinary power of the free market," the promotional material proclaims. [2]
Writing in LA Weekly, Greg Goldin, cited Stossel's 1996 comments in a story on a launch party for the book, noting in passing that "Stossel, sipping a vodka tonic, seemed a lot more hedonistic than his admirers". [3]
Subsequently Stossel penned a letter to the editor of LA Weekly challenging that he had been drinking a vodka tonic and that he had made the comments: "The alleged source of that quote was a 1996 speech I gave to the Federalist Society in which I supposedly said that I stopped consumer reporting because 'I got sick of it. … I also now make so much money, I just lost interest in saving a buck on a can of peas.' That doesn't sound like anything I've said and certainly doesn't reflect the reasons I shifted my focus from consumer reporting to government programs and lawyers (I shifted because I concluded they do more harm to consumers than business). The transcript of this speech that the Federalist Society supplied does not include the quote." [4]
In an April 2004 column, Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman reported that they had both a transcript and tape of his comments in the question and answer session. [5]
Goldin also reported that at his Los Angeles book launch a man in the audience challenged Stossel's exhortations on the benefits of free market capitalism. "During the electrical crisis L.A. was the only place that wasn't affected because we had public power. Meanwhile, Enron stole billions of dollars," he said.
In response Stossel claimed the collapse of Enron proved that the system worked. "There are no big national scams except for Enron. Because markets figure it out. Not the government. Enron is an example of how well the market worked for people. Enron's stock came tumbling down. When the government fails, we give them more money. So, yes, there are Enrons, but the exception proves the rule," he said. [6]
In response to Stossel's letter, Golden expressed his amazement at the claim that the Enron collapse was an example of the market working. "Enron collapsed not due to a stock tumble but because government investigations disclosed accounting fraud, and Ken Lay's Ponzi scheme was exposed. Most investors lost their shirts, and thousands of Enron employees lost their jobs. That's "how well the market works for people"? Perhaps we should ask, if John Stossel wasn't drinking a vodka tonic, what was he drinking?," he wrote.
...
"Meh," I say to you in my passionate throes of unimpressed disdain, John Stossel. A thousand times "meh."
Hooray! I'm Useful!
Today at my 5th driving lesson, I discovered that I'm quite good at parallel parking, which was a pleasant surprise for both myself and my instructor. I seem to have no problems at all with the clutch and with fine control when I'm doing things that require slow, tight maneuvering like parallel parking, three point turns, and so on, and so I relax and keep my actions at a less deliberate (and error-prone) level than when I'm putting it in first at a green light when there are lots of cars around, or shifting, steering 'round a curve and trying to go with the flow of traffic on a parkway. Basically multitasking at high speeds, or when speed is of the essence. Clearly the problem right now is relaxing, and practice will solve that.
That said, my evaluations are steadily going up. There's a checklist with scores my instructor fills out at the end of every lesson and I'm generally scoring between 7.5 and 10 (out of 10) on every element. The fewer mistakes you make and the less you need verbal instructions, the higher your score goes. Right now there's nothing I can't do fairly well -- practice and confidence are all I need now. I'm still making the odd mistake and still occasionally need a verbal cue from the instructor (e.g. "more brake, more brake, MORE BRAKE"). Still, I'm a lot more relaxed and confident in downtown traffic than I was, and I didn't stall the car at all on any busy city streets today, so that problem seems to be under control. Today, I stalled it once when I was backing into a parallel park and didn't compensate for the increased resistance of all the snow and ice on the street as I was creeping with the clutch, and I stupidly stalled it a second time on a quiet street when I stopped at a stop sign and didn't depress the clutch in time.
Anyway, it was quite gratifying to see that I really have the knack for parallel parking. Given that my mother only got her licence on the condition that she never parallel parked, I seem to be doing quite well.
Don't forget to tune in next week for the next exciting chapter of: The Law Student Driveth
Wednesday, January 26, 2005 That said, my evaluations are steadily going up. There's a checklist with scores my instructor fills out at the end of every lesson and I'm generally scoring between 7.5 and 10 (out of 10) on every element. The fewer mistakes you make and the less you need verbal instructions, the higher your score goes. Right now there's nothing I can't do fairly well -- practice and confidence are all I need now. I'm still making the odd mistake and still occasionally need a verbal cue from the instructor (e.g. "more brake, more brake, MORE BRAKE"). Still, I'm a lot more relaxed and confident in downtown traffic than I was, and I didn't stall the car at all on any busy city streets today, so that problem seems to be under control. Today, I stalled it once when I was backing into a parallel park and didn't compensate for the increased resistance of all the snow and ice on the street as I was creeping with the clutch, and I stupidly stalled it a second time on a quiet street when I stopped at a stop sign and didn't depress the clutch in time.
Anyway, it was quite gratifying to see that I really have the knack for parallel parking. Given that my mother only got her licence on the condition that she never parallel parked, I seem to be doing quite well.
Don't forget to tune in next week for the next exciting chapter of: The Law Student Driveth
Go get 'em, tiger
It's going to be a busy couple of weeks, as such things are reckoned around here. I got into negotiations with the Crown yesterday and although we came up with a fantastic deal for one of my clients, the details that will confirm it won't be in place for several weeks, meaning that I'm going to be preparing for a trial date coming up just in case. I'm also on the Hiring Committee at my precious Clinic, so in February we're going to be having a lot of meetings while we look at students' resumes, conduct interviews, and deliberate over our choices from the candidates for summer jobs as caseworkers here. Ultimately, when one factors into this busy little equation my other classes and obligations, it's looking like I'll be pulling a lot of 12 (or more) hour days.
Yesterday, pumped about my successful negotiations but stressed at the amount of work that still lays ahead (preparing for a trial is exciting, but preparing for a trial with lots of witnesses and charges that probably won't run is a little less exhilarating) I felt a bit overwhelmed, especially after putting in 8 hours of research at the Clinic on top of my court time and meetings and other file work. I'd been really busy for the past few days during what is supposed to be reading week for me (in other words, a law student's "Spring Break"), and while some of my friends are sunning themselves on beaches or visiting their families, I've been in court and waking up when it's still pitch black and howling wind outside (shiver).
And if you'd said I was infested with a plague of self-pity, you'd be right. But January does that to me.
This morning I felt a lot better. I'd gotten a chance to sleep in and think about things and how I was really excited about this case and the fact that it was entrusted to me, given that everything about it is last minute and requires a great deal of skill and care. Even as I'd been writing a research memo last night about the application of a section of the Criminal Code of Canada to my client's circumstances, I felt quite riled up about the unjustness of some of the charges. I tend to think that police investigators sometimes get caught up in tunnel vision -- discounting credibility problems and inconsistencies that get in the way of a charge against their suspect. The job of a zealous defence is of course to poke out all the holes within those charges and expose weak cases against the accused. And I started to think, "So what if I have to prepare for a trial that doesn't run. The point is, it might. And my client is going to be glad they have me on their side, because if this trial runs the other side is going to be sorry they ever laid those charges!"
And I mean that. I like a good fight, especially for a client I truly believe in. Sure I'll be busy. Sure I won't have time for that part time research assistant job I had my eye on -- or a girlfriend, for that matter, not that I'm swimming in offers. That's the way real life is sometimes. Demanding and unpleasant. But I'll keep on truckin' at the Clinic, keep on working out at the gym and, sure, I'll keep on going to bed broke and alone and lonely, but I'll be too plum tuckered out to care, dammit.
Yeah! Rock 'n' roll! And stuff.
My mood is also helped by the discovery that I will not, in fact, be one credit shy of the total needed to graduate. My university's degree navigator program indicated this flaw to me last week, and I worried that I'd have to add another course to my already hectic schedule. I contacted someone at the faculty today, and they told me it was a glitch in the system caused by one of the courses I'd taken, and reassured me that I have plenty of credits, more than enough to graduate, in fact. So no extra courses or graduation day surprises for me. Yay!
Hey, you take the good things as they come. Or, as I like to think of it, another day that ended without me being kicked in the nuts. Swee-eeeet.
Yesterday, pumped about my successful negotiations but stressed at the amount of work that still lays ahead (preparing for a trial is exciting, but preparing for a trial with lots of witnesses and charges that probably won't run is a little less exhilarating) I felt a bit overwhelmed, especially after putting in 8 hours of research at the Clinic on top of my court time and meetings and other file work. I'd been really busy for the past few days during what is supposed to be reading week for me (in other words, a law student's "Spring Break"), and while some of my friends are sunning themselves on beaches or visiting their families, I've been in court and waking up when it's still pitch black and howling wind outside (shiver).
And if you'd said I was infested with a plague of self-pity, you'd be right. But January does that to me.
This morning I felt a lot better. I'd gotten a chance to sleep in and think about things and how I was really excited about this case and the fact that it was entrusted to me, given that everything about it is last minute and requires a great deal of skill and care. Even as I'd been writing a research memo last night about the application of a section of the Criminal Code of Canada to my client's circumstances, I felt quite riled up about the unjustness of some of the charges. I tend to think that police investigators sometimes get caught up in tunnel vision -- discounting credibility problems and inconsistencies that get in the way of a charge against their suspect. The job of a zealous defence is of course to poke out all the holes within those charges and expose weak cases against the accused. And I started to think, "So what if I have to prepare for a trial that doesn't run. The point is, it might. And my client is going to be glad they have me on their side, because if this trial runs the other side is going to be sorry they ever laid those charges!"
And I mean that. I like a good fight, especially for a client I truly believe in. Sure I'll be busy. Sure I won't have time for that part time research assistant job I had my eye on -- or a girlfriend, for that matter, not that I'm swimming in offers. That's the way real life is sometimes. Demanding and unpleasant. But I'll keep on truckin' at the Clinic, keep on working out at the gym and, sure, I'll keep on going to bed broke and alone and lonely, but I'll be too plum tuckered out to care, dammit.
Yeah! Rock 'n' roll! And stuff.
My mood is also helped by the discovery that I will not, in fact, be one credit shy of the total needed to graduate. My university's degree navigator program indicated this flaw to me last week, and I worried that I'd have to add another course to my already hectic schedule. I contacted someone at the faculty today, and they told me it was a glitch in the system caused by one of the courses I'd taken, and reassured me that I have plenty of credits, more than enough to graduate, in fact. So no extra courses or graduation day surprises for me. Yay!
Hey, you take the good things as they come. Or, as I like to think of it, another day that ended without me being kicked in the nuts. Swee-eeeet.
Testing, testing
Well, after some haranguing from dear, dear Celeste, I decided to finally enable comments on my blog. I'd been reluctant to do so because it sets up an entirely different archiving system that tends to screw things up. Still, I'm putting my curmudgeonly ways on hold long enough to give it a try and see if it's really worthwhile. So, let me know what you think.
The War On Terra
Ah, sweet progress. From the most recent Harper's Index:
Via Corrente.
Saturday, January 22, 2005
Revenue generated by Halliburton under CEO Dick Cheney from business deals with Iraq under Saddam Hussein: $30,000,000 [Colum Lynch, Washington Post (N.Y.C.) ]
Estimated revenue generated by Halliburton last year through subsidiaries in Iran: $63,506,000 [Halliburton (Houston, Tex.) ]
Minimum number of countries with a greater capacity to produce nuclear weapons than Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion: 35 [International Atomic Energy Agency (Vienna) ]
Average black-market price in Baghdad of a DVD showing the beheading of a foreigner or Iraqi "collaborator": 50c [Richard Beeston (Baghdad) ]
Number of U.S. terrorism trials brought before a jury since September 11, 2001: 1 [U.S. Department of Justice ]
Number of terrorism convictions resulting: 2 [U.S. Department of Justice ]
Number of them dismissed in June due to a "pattern of mistakes" by the prosecution: 2 [U.S. Department of Justice ]
Percentage of poor Americans who lived in the suburbs in 1959 and last year, respectively: 17 / 39 [Harper's Research ]
Ratio of the number of poor Americans living in cities to the number who live in suburbs: 21:20 [Harper's Research ]
Via Corrente.
Quit stalling!
This time last week I was intending to write about how marvelously my driving lessons were proceeding. On just my third time driving a car (and a standard to boot), we were out on highways and beginning to travel along major roads. I was shifting smoothly, starting easily, and wasn't doing weird things like a three point turn in third gear, or stalling while I'm putting the car in gear at a green light. I was also really relaxed while driving, and embracing the moment instead of worrying about each and every little thing I had to do while on the road. I was very aware of pedestrians ahead, people backing out of their driveways too slowly, and anticipating problems before they occurred.
Yesterday, sadly, I was just the opposite. In retrospect, I don't suppose the two giant "motivational" cups of coffee I had in the 40 minutes immediately beforehand helped my nerves any. I was tense and jittery during my lesson, which was cut short in any event because my instructor had been stuck in traffic on the way over. Part of my frustration was based in our first exercise in parking in a parking lot. Because we were in a lot that had a lot of cars all parked closely together, we had to practice further back in the lot where snow had covered over all the spot markings. This meant that I was backing into "pretend" parking spots and found that a little difficult when it came to really lining things up right. There were no points of reference. So after 9 or 10 practice parking maneuvers, I was feeling a little tense -- mostly because of the coffee and the fact that I had a meeting, a class, and a client interview back to back afterwards, but also because I was having a hard time backing up within the imaginary lines. I should mention that Young Drivers, the school I'm learning with, teaches that backing into a parking spot or driveway is safer than driving straight in, as then you can drive straight out instead of backing out. More collisions happen when backing out of a driveway or parking spot because it's much harder to see oncoming traffic, and very difficult to see small objects like pets, children, or bicycles that could be behind the car. Very sound notion, and I do recommend learning to drive in the winter since you'll have the experience of practicing in the worst of conditions, but it does make staying in the "lines" difficult.
Since we had to cut the lesson short, we decided that I would drive us to the university so that I could attend my file review. This didn't start out so bad (I'm getting the hang of driving forwards, after all), but at one point a lady in the car behind us honked at me when I inadvertently stalled at a stop sign, and this really set me on edge.
At this point, I would like to interject a passionate plea to all you impatient drivers out there. We all had to learn how to drive at some point. Most of us were also dorky and nervous and stuck in a car with a big, impossible-to-miss sign indicating that we were learning to drive. By definition it means that we are not very good drivers yet. AND HONKING DOESN'T FUCKING HELP. It's definitely worse when you're learning to drive standard because stalling is very embarrassing, and this is only compounded when you also worry about the impatient people behind you who have no sympathy at all and can only think of the precious, precious seconds this is costing them. I solemnly swear that I will never get impatient with anyone getting driving lessons, because I know it means they're taking steps to become very safe and skilled drivers and because I know precisely how they must be feeling when they come off the clutch too fast while not giving the car enough gas.
So that happened. After that, my instructor had me proceed along some busy streets (I was so tense I failed to notice which ones) and then instructed me to turn onto a ramp, which lead to the 417. Also known as the Queensway, the 417, for those of you who don't live in Ottawa, is a freeway. When you have a G1 licence (as I do), you are prohibited from driving on a freeway unless and only when in the supervision of a qualified driving instructor. Since I was being supervised by a qualified driving instructor, it was perfectly legal, but it was still my first freeway experience. So, no problem, head from the light up the ramp, depress clutch, ease off the gas, put it in second, release clutch, give it gas, give it more gas, depress the clutch, ease off the gas, put it in third, give it lots more gas, OK, and merge with the freeway traffic doing 90 kilometres an hour. Now put it in fourth. My brain blanked. Where was fourth again? The gears on my instructor's Mazda 3 (a fantastic and zippy car, by the way, which both my research and driving experience have left me convinced is an excellent first car if I choose to buy new) were in the standard import "H" of 1, 3, 5 above and 2, 4, and R below, with neutral in the middle. Again, this wasn't a problem I was having last week when I was on the highways, but being tense and surrounded by cars and already a little frazzled took its toll. I took a quick glance at the gear selector and put it in fourth, and after that I was alright, though my instructor was ready to grab the wheel if I drifted or didn't change lanes properly.
We soon exited onto Nicholas, and I downshifted from fourth to third to second as we approached a stop light and heavy traffic. Here was where it really got bad. Because we were in busy lunch-hour traffic, it was constant start and stop city driving. This isn't so stressful on its own, but requires a bit of care when driving a standard because you're never off the clutch for long and have to release it with care. If you brake without getting to the clutch in time, you'll stall. If you start without giving the car enough gas and/or get off the clutch too quickly, you'll stall. This becomes almost unconscious with practice but, when you're nervous, suddenly all that confidence can be replaced with an acute consciousness of what your feet are doing.
We were stuck behind a big, Budget rental truck that obstructed a lot of the view ahead and was very slow to get moving, so naturally it was a lot of creeping and stopping. Then, finally, the traffic started moving, the truck began to really pull away and I eased off the clutch so that we could proceed.
Stall.
I quickly engaged the clutch, put the car in neutral, and restarted it. Then I shifted into first and prepared to roll again.
Stall.
Now I was a little freaked out. Cars behind me were starting to honk (and I refer you back to my above appeal on the matter). So I hastily repeated the above steps again and just got us jerkily moving forwards until I gave the car enough gas to get us moving and fully disengage the clutch.
After that, I didn't have any more problems. We couldn't get into the right lane because of the dense traffic but we proceeded into the Byward market and then got onto King Edward, where I drove up the big hill, turned at the lights, and parked the car in a lot and Bob, as they say, was my uncle. I was still frazzled from the problems in traffic and beating myself up a little, though, so I didn't have time to savour the victories of successfully doing so much so well when I'd done a couple of things so poorly.
Today I feel better about everything, and am again looking forward to my next lesson so that I can do everything right. Gas before clutch. Gas before clutch. Words burned into my head and hopefully ones which will not need to be repeated again.
On the bright side, my evaluations scores are steadily improving, even though what I'm currently best at (10 out of 10) is remembering to turn the lights on and perform a circle check of the outside of the car before starting.
Thursday, January 20, 2005 Yesterday, sadly, I was just the opposite. In retrospect, I don't suppose the two giant "motivational" cups of coffee I had in the 40 minutes immediately beforehand helped my nerves any. I was tense and jittery during my lesson, which was cut short in any event because my instructor had been stuck in traffic on the way over. Part of my frustration was based in our first exercise in parking in a parking lot. Because we were in a lot that had a lot of cars all parked closely together, we had to practice further back in the lot where snow had covered over all the spot markings. This meant that I was backing into "pretend" parking spots and found that a little difficult when it came to really lining things up right. There were no points of reference. So after 9 or 10 practice parking maneuvers, I was feeling a little tense -- mostly because of the coffee and the fact that I had a meeting, a class, and a client interview back to back afterwards, but also because I was having a hard time backing up within the imaginary lines. I should mention that Young Drivers, the school I'm learning with, teaches that backing into a parking spot or driveway is safer than driving straight in, as then you can drive straight out instead of backing out. More collisions happen when backing out of a driveway or parking spot because it's much harder to see oncoming traffic, and very difficult to see small objects like pets, children, or bicycles that could be behind the car. Very sound notion, and I do recommend learning to drive in the winter since you'll have the experience of practicing in the worst of conditions, but it does make staying in the "lines" difficult.
Since we had to cut the lesson short, we decided that I would drive us to the university so that I could attend my file review. This didn't start out so bad (I'm getting the hang of driving forwards, after all), but at one point a lady in the car behind us honked at me when I inadvertently stalled at a stop sign, and this really set me on edge.
At this point, I would like to interject a passionate plea to all you impatient drivers out there. We all had to learn how to drive at some point. Most of us were also dorky and nervous and stuck in a car with a big, impossible-to-miss sign indicating that we were learning to drive. By definition it means that we are not very good drivers yet. AND HONKING DOESN'T FUCKING HELP. It's definitely worse when you're learning to drive standard because stalling is very embarrassing, and this is only compounded when you also worry about the impatient people behind you who have no sympathy at all and can only think of the precious, precious seconds this is costing them. I solemnly swear that I will never get impatient with anyone getting driving lessons, because I know it means they're taking steps to become very safe and skilled drivers and because I know precisely how they must be feeling when they come off the clutch too fast while not giving the car enough gas.
So that happened. After that, my instructor had me proceed along some busy streets (I was so tense I failed to notice which ones) and then instructed me to turn onto a ramp, which lead to the 417. Also known as the Queensway, the 417, for those of you who don't live in Ottawa, is a freeway. When you have a G1 licence (as I do), you are prohibited from driving on a freeway unless and only when in the supervision of a qualified driving instructor. Since I was being supervised by a qualified driving instructor, it was perfectly legal, but it was still my first freeway experience. So, no problem, head from the light up the ramp, depress clutch, ease off the gas, put it in second, release clutch, give it gas, give it more gas, depress the clutch, ease off the gas, put it in third, give it lots more gas, OK, and merge with the freeway traffic doing 90 kilometres an hour. Now put it in fourth. My brain blanked. Where was fourth again? The gears on my instructor's Mazda 3 (a fantastic and zippy car, by the way, which both my research and driving experience have left me convinced is an excellent first car if I choose to buy new) were in the standard import "H" of 1, 3, 5 above and 2, 4, and R below, with neutral in the middle. Again, this wasn't a problem I was having last week when I was on the highways, but being tense and surrounded by cars and already a little frazzled took its toll. I took a quick glance at the gear selector and put it in fourth, and after that I was alright, though my instructor was ready to grab the wheel if I drifted or didn't change lanes properly.
We soon exited onto Nicholas, and I downshifted from fourth to third to second as we approached a stop light and heavy traffic. Here was where it really got bad. Because we were in busy lunch-hour traffic, it was constant start and stop city driving. This isn't so stressful on its own, but requires a bit of care when driving a standard because you're never off the clutch for long and have to release it with care. If you brake without getting to the clutch in time, you'll stall. If you start without giving the car enough gas and/or get off the clutch too quickly, you'll stall. This becomes almost unconscious with practice but, when you're nervous, suddenly all that confidence can be replaced with an acute consciousness of what your feet are doing.
We were stuck behind a big, Budget rental truck that obstructed a lot of the view ahead and was very slow to get moving, so naturally it was a lot of creeping and stopping. Then, finally, the traffic started moving, the truck began to really pull away and I eased off the clutch so that we could proceed.
Stall.
I quickly engaged the clutch, put the car in neutral, and restarted it. Then I shifted into first and prepared to roll again.
Stall.
Now I was a little freaked out. Cars behind me were starting to honk (and I refer you back to my above appeal on the matter). So I hastily repeated the above steps again and just got us jerkily moving forwards until I gave the car enough gas to get us moving and fully disengage the clutch.
After that, I didn't have any more problems. We couldn't get into the right lane because of the dense traffic but we proceeded into the Byward market and then got onto King Edward, where I drove up the big hill, turned at the lights, and parked the car in a lot and Bob, as they say, was my uncle. I was still frazzled from the problems in traffic and beating myself up a little, though, so I didn't have time to savour the victories of successfully doing so much so well when I'd done a couple of things so poorly.
Today I feel better about everything, and am again looking forward to my next lesson so that I can do everything right. Gas before clutch. Gas before clutch. Words burned into my head and hopefully ones which will not need to be repeated again.
On the bright side, my evaluations scores are steadily improving, even though what I'm currently best at (10 out of 10) is remembering to turn the lights on and perform a circle check of the outside of the car before starting.
Happy goddamn inauguration day.
This is a four-year-old covered in her family's blood after U.S. troops fired on their car. From Steve Gilliard's News Blog. Everybody loses.
Brought to you by 59 million "values voters."
It's not easy being green
Well, it was bound to happen, but six and a half years after she was brought home, my beloved green tree frog, Gimpy (so named because the toes on her front leg were malformed, making it hard for her to use it to climb), has gone up to frog heaven. I came home last night and didn't see her in her usual location, (namely, sitting motionless for hours while clinging to the glass wall of her aquarium), and started to look around and see if she were alright. I didn't see her anywhere, which started to concern me. I knew the old gal was getting on in years (green tree frogs don't live much past seven years) and she had been predeceased by the two males that accompanied her when my friend Natalie bought them for me (the first died two years ago and the second died last year -- as an aside, you can tell the sex of these frogs by the colour of the throat, and the size -- females are larger). Still, she's been happy and healthy for a remarkably long time, having survived a cat attack by George two years ago when he busted into the aquarium, grabbed the frog, and knocked her around the floor until I came home and found her in the kitchen playing dead -- limp, dusty, swollen, and bloody -- and then nursed her back to health over several weeks with careful applications of diluted hydrogen peroxide and lots of love.
But, all things are inevitable, and it was her time to go. I was really upset by it, even though a frog is by no means a loving companion the way a cat or a dog is. They tend to think of you as a giant hand of justice that dispenses crickets, showers of water, and the horrible horrible tortures of handling and confinement in old pickle jars while the terrarium is being cleaned. But I love these creatures, and feel a definite loss. I actually cried when the first frog died, but have been expecting this for some time and feel a little more resolved. I'm glad that I gave them all a good and healthy lifetime, with lots of tasty bugs and warmth and humidity, just the way they liked it. I loved them like any other pet, cuddly though they weren't.
Goodbye old frog.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005 But, all things are inevitable, and it was her time to go. I was really upset by it, even though a frog is by no means a loving companion the way a cat or a dog is. They tend to think of you as a giant hand of justice that dispenses crickets, showers of water, and the horrible horrible tortures of handling and confinement in old pickle jars while the terrarium is being cleaned. But I love these creatures, and feel a definite loss. I actually cried when the first frog died, but have been expecting this for some time and feel a little more resolved. I'm glad that I gave them all a good and healthy lifetime, with lots of tasty bugs and warmth and humidity, just the way they liked it. I loved them like any other pet, cuddly though they weren't.
Goodbye old frog.
Isn't that veird?
Apple came out with some damn remarkable compu-bling on January 11, and it just behooves (behoooooves) the Apple geek in me to say something about them.
mini Mac
I think the most remarkable announcement was that of the new "Mac mini" (I shall call him mini Mac), the first "headless Mac" (without a built-in display) outside the professional line (including the infamous G4 "Cube") since the colourful iMac was introduced in 1998. The mini Mac is a very functional and well-equipped computer, but at a price that's hard to resist -- $499 US or $629 Canadian. It's also in a brilliantly small package -- 2 inches by 6.5 inches of anodyzed aluminum. Inside that little sexy box is a robust bundle of features: A G4 processor running at a zippy 1.25 or 1.42 gigahertz, 256 megabytes of RAM (expandable to 1 gigabyte), a 40 or 80 gigabyte hard drive, an ethernet card, a 56.6 k modem, an ATI Radeon 9200 video card with 32 MB of dedicated DDR video SDRAM (as opposed to the integrated video mooching off the already overtaxed RAM of your bargain basement PC), a combo CD burner and DVD player, a sound card, a built-in speaker, and whisper quiet operation. The mini Mac will work with any USB keyboard and mouse, as it has two USB 2.0 ports, and will connect to any DVI or VGA display (you can even buy an S-video adaptor to connect it to a television).
A lot of people have been clamoring for an affordable, entry-level Macintosh because there is a perception that Macs are very expensive. I'm not sure that's so true when you factor in total cost of ownership of Macs vs. Windows computers, including virus threats, software costs, upgrade requirements, downtime, lost work, crashes and maintenance -- but anyway, most people already have perfectly good monitors and keyboards at home from their last system and don't want to pay the premium of a whole new set of equipment when they buy a new system. So it makes sense that, given Apple's renewed exposure by virtue of its success with the iTunes Music Store and the iPod, they want to give people a platform that will allow them to try out a Mac without paying extra for an integrated display, and an included keyboard, mouse, and so on. Me, I have a crappy 14" monitor that hearkens back to the days of my erstwhile 386, so when I get to buy a new computer it's going to have to include a monitor (heavily favouring the iMac G5 on that wonderful day when I'm a "rich" lawyer). But don't let my misery bother you non-crappy monitor folks none.
I think it will be a tempting invitation for any Windows user who have fallen in love with the iPod, and I hope it will hook a lot of people into switching or at least adding the goodness of a Macintosh into their lives. I suppose it could go either way -- taking Apple to new heights of market share, or simply ending in more Cube-esque infamy. Still, the mini Mac is a very light, powerful, but portable computer that I think will fit in well in a home office, dorm room, or as a second household computer. There's gobs and gobs of software too, which is where the Mac experience really leads the way -- OS X, the iLife suite (including iTunes, iDVD for DVD authoring, iPhoto, iMovie HD and the Garage Band music editing software), iWork (including the elegant Keynote presentation software, and the new Pages word processing package that includes the ability to make PDFs and extensive layout for professional-looking publications as well as read and save Word documents). There's also the ubiquitous, wonderful Mail software, iChat software, built-in Apache web server capacity, a firewall, as well as the reliability and security of OS X's UNIX foundations, and immunity from Windows viruses, worms, trojans, spyware and blue screens of death(TM).
iPod Shuffle:
Another introduction is the strange little iPod Shuffle. It's a flash RAM-based iPod (as opposed to the usual hard drive) going for the low low price of $99 US or $129 Canadian, and is smaller than a pack of gum. That price will buy you 512 megabytes of memory, which Apple says is enough to hold 120 songs. Fifty smackarooneys more will buy you 1 gigabyte, or storage for 240 songs. What's striking about the iPod Shuffle is that it has no display. Instead, the solid state music player will replay songs based on a playlist programmed through iTunes, or on a random shuffle. The playlist or shuffle feature can be toggled by a slider bar on the Shuffle. Because there are no moving parts, the tiny player can provide 12 hours of music playback, and won't skip while you're jogging. Because it has an integrated USB connector (normally hidden by a cap), it can plug right into the computer for synching with iTunes, or you can use the dock to connect instead. What's more, the iPod Shuffle will work like a USB keychain memory stick so you can transfer documents and other files to other computers.
I already have a 10 GB iPod, and have been inseparable from it and my 1886 songs for the past year, so this isn't something I would buy (though I'm tempted to use one as a portable memory stick), but I can see it being snapped up by the ravenous hordes. Apple reports that 2000 were bought in the first four hours this was offered through the Apple store, or 8 per minute.
All in all, these are some really interesting announcements, and I hope in the coming year more people get to experience the cult-like goodness of the Mac and the iPod because of them. Trust me on this (as I said to a friend who spent the past week purging her PC of a stubborn worm) -- you won't look back.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005 mini Mac
I think the most remarkable announcement was that of the new "Mac mini" (I shall call him mini Mac), the first "headless Mac" (without a built-in display) outside the professional line (including the infamous G4 "Cube") since the colourful iMac was introduced in 1998. The mini Mac is a very functional and well-equipped computer, but at a price that's hard to resist -- $499 US or $629 Canadian. It's also in a brilliantly small package -- 2 inches by 6.5 inches of anodyzed aluminum. Inside that little sexy box is a robust bundle of features: A G4 processor running at a zippy 1.25 or 1.42 gigahertz, 256 megabytes of RAM (expandable to 1 gigabyte), a 40 or 80 gigabyte hard drive, an ethernet card, a 56.6 k modem, an ATI Radeon 9200 video card with 32 MB of dedicated DDR video SDRAM (as opposed to the integrated video mooching off the already overtaxed RAM of your bargain basement PC), a combo CD burner and DVD player, a sound card, a built-in speaker, and whisper quiet operation. The mini Mac will work with any USB keyboard and mouse, as it has two USB 2.0 ports, and will connect to any DVI or VGA display (you can even buy an S-video adaptor to connect it to a television).
A lot of people have been clamoring for an affordable, entry-level Macintosh because there is a perception that Macs are very expensive. I'm not sure that's so true when you factor in total cost of ownership of Macs vs. Windows computers, including virus threats, software costs, upgrade requirements, downtime, lost work, crashes and maintenance -- but anyway, most people already have perfectly good monitors and keyboards at home from their last system and don't want to pay the premium of a whole new set of equipment when they buy a new system. So it makes sense that, given Apple's renewed exposure by virtue of its success with the iTunes Music Store and the iPod, they want to give people a platform that will allow them to try out a Mac without paying extra for an integrated display, and an included keyboard, mouse, and so on. Me, I have a crappy 14" monitor that hearkens back to the days of my erstwhile 386, so when I get to buy a new computer it's going to have to include a monitor (heavily favouring the iMac G5 on that wonderful day when I'm a "rich" lawyer). But don't let my misery bother you non-crappy monitor folks none.
I think it will be a tempting invitation for any Windows user who have fallen in love with the iPod, and I hope it will hook a lot of people into switching or at least adding the goodness of a Macintosh into their lives. I suppose it could go either way -- taking Apple to new heights of market share, or simply ending in more Cube-esque infamy. Still, the mini Mac is a very light, powerful, but portable computer that I think will fit in well in a home office, dorm room, or as a second household computer. There's gobs and gobs of software too, which is where the Mac experience really leads the way -- OS X, the iLife suite (including iTunes, iDVD for DVD authoring, iPhoto, iMovie HD and the Garage Band music editing software), iWork (including the elegant Keynote presentation software, and the new Pages word processing package that includes the ability to make PDFs and extensive layout for professional-looking publications as well as read and save Word documents). There's also the ubiquitous, wonderful Mail software, iChat software, built-in Apache web server capacity, a firewall, as well as the reliability and security of OS X's UNIX foundations, and immunity from Windows viruses, worms, trojans, spyware and blue screens of death(TM).
iPod Shuffle:
Another introduction is the strange little iPod Shuffle. It's a flash RAM-based iPod (as opposed to the usual hard drive) going for the low low price of $99 US or $129 Canadian, and is smaller than a pack of gum. That price will buy you 512 megabytes of memory, which Apple says is enough to hold 120 songs. Fifty smackarooneys more will buy you 1 gigabyte, or storage for 240 songs. What's striking about the iPod Shuffle is that it has no display. Instead, the solid state music player will replay songs based on a playlist programmed through iTunes, or on a random shuffle. The playlist or shuffle feature can be toggled by a slider bar on the Shuffle. Because there are no moving parts, the tiny player can provide 12 hours of music playback, and won't skip while you're jogging. Because it has an integrated USB connector (normally hidden by a cap), it can plug right into the computer for synching with iTunes, or you can use the dock to connect instead. What's more, the iPod Shuffle will work like a USB keychain memory stick so you can transfer documents and other files to other computers.
I already have a 10 GB iPod, and have been inseparable from it and my 1886 songs for the past year, so this isn't something I would buy (though I'm tempted to use one as a portable memory stick), but I can see it being snapped up by the ravenous hordes. Apple reports that 2000 were bought in the first four hours this was offered through the Apple store, or 8 per minute.
All in all, these are some really interesting announcements, and I hope in the coming year more people get to experience the cult-like goodness of the Mac and the iPod because of them. Trust me on this (as I said to a friend who spent the past week purging her PC of a stubborn worm) -- you won't look back.
Earth to Captain Video
I sadly shook my head and spoke out angrily from the moment the talk began of invading Iraq. I was extremely glad that our Prime Minister at the time, Jean Chretien, was outspoken and principled and contrary enough to refuse to commit Canadian troops to such a travesty of international law even at the risk of souring US-Canada relations (and sour it did). It has turned into a human rights disaster, a breeding ground for new terrorists, and a fractured, burned nation enduring torture and massacre in a way that could not even be said to have occurred in the late, unlamented regime of Saddam Hussein. There's even talk now of forging El Salvador-esque death squads to hunt down "insurgents."
Meanwhile, there is a distinct element of cheerleading from the right, as though this great experiment in democracy were a rousing success, and peace, rose petals, and topple-proof statues of George W. Bush were just around the corner. Worse, the one person who should be on top of all events, and prepared to respond realistically, firmly has his fingers in his ears and is shouting "la la la, I'm not listening!"
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal.
...
Following that model, one Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar with the discussions. It remains unclear, however, whether this would be a policy of assassination or so-called "snatch" operations, in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation. The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi paramilitaries, officials tell NEWSWEEK.
...
Shahwani also said that the U.S. occupation has failed to crack the problem of broad support for the insurgency. The insurgents, he said, "are mostly in the Sunni areas where the population there, almost 200,000, is sympathetic to them." He said most Iraqi people do not actively support the insurgents or provide them with material or logistical help, but at the same time they won’t turn them in. One military source involved in the Pentagon debate agrees that this is the crux of the problem, and he suggests that new offensive operations are needed that would create a fear of aiding the insurgency. "The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists," he said. "From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation."
Meanwhile, there is a distinct element of cheerleading from the right, as though this great experiment in democracy were a rousing success, and peace, rose petals, and topple-proof statues of George W. Bush were just around the corner. Worse, the one person who should be on top of all events, and prepared to respond realistically, firmly has his fingers in his ears and is shouting "la la la, I'm not listening!"
Captain Video's Visor Yields Poor Visibility
Posted by James Wolcott
Last week an inside peep courtesy of the Washington tipsheet The Nelson Report made the blog rounds concerning Bush's see-no hear-no policy regarding the war in Iraq. According to The Nelson Report, Bush literally didn't want to hear any bad news about how thing going there, EVEN FROM SENIOR MILITARY COMMANDERS, only "progress reports" that played up the good things GE brings to life: new schools, etc. The Report went on to say that the sunshine policy wasn't the product of aides trying to filter news from Bush, that Bush himself insisted on accentuating the positive.
Given Bush's refusal to remove his Captain Video space helmet, isn't any wonder that sympathetic bloggers have been aping his example?
For months, hawkish bloggers have been dismissing and downplaying the black smoke pouring out of Iraq. They would direct readers to the Belmont Club or Belgravia or Bloomsbury or whatever these hangouts for the horsey-set are called for crushing refutations of grim tidings. Again and again they blamed the BBC and Reuters--which one bon vivant said should have its name changed to Reactionary News Agency--and, their favorite sneer acronym, the MSM (mainstream media), which was drenching the airwaves and newsstands with prophecies of doom. They trumpeted the Iraqi bloggers who agreed with them and patronized the Iraqi bloggers who mourned and railed against the ensuing chaos in their country. They pounced upon every post from a military blogger who told them the media was painting a distorted picture, and ignored the revelations coming from Soldiers for the Truth.
But now reality can no longer be barred entry. Andrew Sullivan, whom I often abuse, but only because I care, has an item today from Stratfor that the battle to subdue the Iraqi insurgency may be lost, and with it the prospect for democracy in Iraq. And Daily Kos alerts us to a Republican Congressman from North Carolina who says it's time to start thinking about American withdrawal from Iraq. As certain bloggers scratch their heads like Alfafa, wondering if sending in death squads would be the way to go ("I don't know whether this sort of thing is a good idea or not -- I can see arguments both ways"), a brutal desperation is surfacing among those who once anticipated a cakewalk. Not knowing what to do, they're willing to do anything, or at least entertain the notion...torture, death squads, whatever.
It's going to break Norman Podhoretz's peach-pit heart, but it will soon become time to recognize the inevitable and blow the whistle on the World War IV he and the neocons have been so determined to wage. At some point Dick Cheney will place a fatherly paw on Dubya's shoulder and say, "Earth to Captain Video: Time to bug out--I mean, withdraw in an orderly fashion." It's going to be hard breaking the news to the little fella.
I just hope his loyal space rangers are able to take the shock too.
Rob achieves the impossible...
So my driving instructor observed when he and I realized that I'd successfully completed a three-point turn in third gear. I'd made the mistake because first and third gears are beside each other on the shifter of my instructor's Mazda 3 and I'd inadvertently selected third gear and somehow got the car moving from a complete stop and completed the turn. My instructor, attempting to find a positive side to this beginner's mistake, paid me the compliment that I was "obviously very sensitive to the needs of the clutch" in being able to smoothly move the car in high gear without bucking or stalling it.
This was my second driving lesson in a standard, and while I've discovered that I really enjoy driving, I'm still getting the hang of controlling a car and acquiring the confidence to multitask and maneuver without consciously thinking about what I'm doing (which is when I get nervous and make mistakes). In particular, I hesitate when I'm putting the car in gear and getting it rolling when I think too much about what my feet are doing, and I get nervous when there are cars behind me. That said, when I relaxed I did much better, and had a good sense for left turns and three point turns and backing up (notwithstanding that pesky third gear thing). When I'm not thinking about how something should be done, I just do it, and quite smoothly at that. I have good reflexes, as well, as I noticed when a cat ran out in front of me only a few feet ahead of the car. I was on top of the brakes and clutch in a heartbeat and saw the little critter run to safety.
By way of making myself feel optimistic, I'm compiling a list of things that used to cause me great anxiety when I was learning how to do them, but are now second nature.
If I can do all those things, I can surely learn to drive a stick with confidence and agility. It's just a matter of applying my magic hands to other avenues, right?
Wednesday, January 05, 2005 This was my second driving lesson in a standard, and while I've discovered that I really enjoy driving, I'm still getting the hang of controlling a car and acquiring the confidence to multitask and maneuver without consciously thinking about what I'm doing (which is when I get nervous and make mistakes). In particular, I hesitate when I'm putting the car in gear and getting it rolling when I think too much about what my feet are doing, and I get nervous when there are cars behind me. That said, when I relaxed I did much better, and had a good sense for left turns and three point turns and backing up (notwithstanding that pesky third gear thing). When I'm not thinking about how something should be done, I just do it, and quite smoothly at that. I have good reflexes, as well, as I noticed when a cat ran out in front of me only a few feet ahead of the car. I was on top of the brakes and clutch in a heartbeat and saw the little critter run to safety.
By way of making myself feel optimistic, I'm compiling a list of things that used to cause me great anxiety when I was learning how to do them, but are now second nature.
- speaking in court and examining witnesses
- riding my bicycle on busy city streets - now I'm defensive, assertive, confident, and comfortable with both the rules of the road and giving the look of death to people who open their car doors in front of me.
- talking to strangers at parties
- kissing and other things that lend themselves to a certain amount of performance anxiety
- working out at the gym with all those buff, hardcore people who know exactly what they're doing and can do it a lot better than you
- showering at the gym with aforementioned buff, hardcore people
- flirting with girls and taking the initiative to ask someone out - now I can get shot down more often than the Luftwaffe in stock footage about the Battle of Britain and still live to flirt again!
- job hunting and job interviews
- public speaking
If I can do all those things, I can surely learn to drive a stick with confidence and agility. It's just a matter of applying my magic hands to other avenues, right?
Back to school
Well, that was one short holiday break. After blissfully realizing that Monday was still a holiday, I was able to recuperate fully and finish quite a bit of the last leisure reading I'll have time for until at least April. Tuesday, however, was back up to full speed, and I'm in class every day for this weird condensed "January term" that they sneak into my curriculum. Basically, we get a full term between September and December, and another full term between February and April, and this sneaky little intensive term in January that obliges one to take a concentated class that runs every day from Monday to Friday. The benefits are unclear, except that it allows visiting professors to come, and if they ever taught more than intellectual property and mortgage law, I might get excited.
Luckily, I'm taking advanced family law, the one class that stood to catch my attention and enthusiasm in the entire slew of losers offered this month (mortgages actually would have been my second choice, if that's any indication). I had the same professor teaching it as taught my introductory family law course during second year, and she's a hoot. She's a practitioner at a family law firm in Toronto who actually makes the commute to Ottawa to teach, and her anecodotes are legendary, especially those involving her mother (e.g, when discussing the facts of an adultery case, "As my mother would say, 'she's popular.'"). It's even better because now we're in a seminar course, which is basically three hours of really engaging discussion between a fairly small group about a whole heap o' issues.
Nevertheless, it's hard to concentrate quite yet. I had to prepare a prosposal for my paper topic already, and after exams and a week and a half of holiday drinking and sleepign in, I'm barely literate right now, let alone able to think about what you humans call "legal issues" (and yet I was one of the few people in class who really engaged in the discussion and earned his class participation marks today). I came up with something about the much-maligned Family Responsibility Office, and that seemed to go over well. Here's hoping my presentation of it and essay will too, since, as you may remember, my poor time management skills earned me a lousy C+ last year after I wrote only two thirds of my family law exam in the time allotted last spring.
Meanwhile, in the strange news of "So, that happened...," I took something of a hint and removed the link to an ex-girlfriends blog on the right. On New Year's Eve, I was drunk and posted a very short but friendly comment on her blog wishing her a happy new year, which I thought (in my stupor) would not have been such a terribly awful thing to do. The response was to delete the ability to post comments altogether. So, I don't exist in that world. But it was probably a bad idea on my part to have done so at all. Instead, I'll just live well and leave well enough alone.
Monday, January 03, 2005 Luckily, I'm taking advanced family law, the one class that stood to catch my attention and enthusiasm in the entire slew of losers offered this month (mortgages actually would have been my second choice, if that's any indication). I had the same professor teaching it as taught my introductory family law course during second year, and she's a hoot. She's a practitioner at a family law firm in Toronto who actually makes the commute to Ottawa to teach, and her anecodotes are legendary, especially those involving her mother (e.g, when discussing the facts of an adultery case, "As my mother would say, 'she's popular.'"). It's even better because now we're in a seminar course, which is basically three hours of really engaging discussion between a fairly small group about a whole heap o' issues.
Nevertheless, it's hard to concentrate quite yet. I had to prepare a prosposal for my paper topic already, and after exams and a week and a half of holiday drinking and sleepign in, I'm barely literate right now, let alone able to think about what you humans call "legal issues" (and yet I was one of the few people in class who really engaged in the discussion and earned his class participation marks today). I came up with something about the much-maligned Family Responsibility Office, and that seemed to go over well. Here's hoping my presentation of it and essay will too, since, as you may remember, my poor time management skills earned me a lousy C+ last year after I wrote only two thirds of my family law exam in the time allotted last spring.
Meanwhile, in the strange news of "So, that happened...," I took something of a hint and removed the link to an ex-girlfriends blog on the right. On New Year's Eve, I was drunk and posted a very short but friendly comment on her blog wishing her a happy new year, which I thought (in my stupor) would not have been such a terribly awful thing to do. The response was to delete the ability to post comments altogether. So, I don't exist in that world. But it was probably a bad idea on my part to have done so at all. Instead, I'll just live well and leave well enough alone.
Tsunami
I've commented very little on the disaster in Southeast Asia because it's so hard to know what to say in the face of such a shocking tragedy. There really aren't words. However, my friend Gitanjali has been working on an organization to provide disaster relief in Sri Lanka, and I encourage everyone who can to donate and contribute to the recovery.
December 31, 2004
Urgent Appeal for Medical Aid to Eastern Province
The Impact of the Tsunami in Sri Lanka’s War Zone
Sri Lanka is one of the world’s poorest countries. The people of the north and east of Sri Lanka are among the poorest in this besieged island nation. A twenty year long civil war has resulted in impoverishment and under-development in the fishing and farming villages of the Trincomalee -Batticoloa- Amparai district. Before the tsunami hit, travel by road, train, and sea, was disrupted by bombs, barbed wire, blockades and land mines. Local infrastructure was inadequate to meet basic health and education needs.
Now these communities have been dealt another crushing blow. The Christmas Day tsunami has claimed almost 30,000 lives in Sri Lanka. The death toll in the eastern province alone is 14,000 and rising. Countless coastal villages have been swept into the sea. Families, livelihoods, histories and whole communities have been obliterated. The stories from each small village along the coast are horrific.
In the village of Palahamam, students packed a school bus on Sunday morning for Hindu Studies. Without warning, a 5-metre high wall of water carried all 200 students and their teacher into the ocean. In the coastal town of Ninthavur, an Islamic madrasa (religious school) bore the brunt with nearly 42 children killed by the tsunami waves. In Kalmunai, doctors and nurses working in the hospital were all washed away along with their patients. The largest hospital in the area resembles a morgue packed to capacity with rotting and water-logged corpses. Fifty local healthcare workers have been killed and many medical staff have lost their kin. They now toil round the clock to deliver emergency care without basic supplies. In the coming days lethal epidemics are a certainty, unless drastic action is taken.
The people of this region desperately need your help. The unique political and geographical qualities of the district mean that relief supplies from the large donors are unlikely to arrive in time to stave off impending epidemics of dengue fever, malaria and diarrhea. In a better world this tragedy might provide an opportunity for cooperation bridging ethnic and religious differences. In reality local politics may threaten relief efforts and endanger lives.
Impacted villages in this region are Tamil Hindu, Muslim and Singhalese. Some are located in government controlled areas and some in LTTE controlled areas. Some lie within a no man’s land. Each twist in the line of control is an obstacle to aid. Ubiquitous landmines make search and rescue treacherous. Some of these areas have been placed under curfew and government aid has yet to reach these regions. Associated Press has reported that aid trucks headed to Eastern Province have been diverted to needy areas in the South.
Clearly, we cannot rely on the diffuse national relief efforts to meet the needs of the Trincomalee-Batticoloa-Amparai District. Our goal is to mobilize grass roots networks in Canada to support grass roots workers in Sri Lanka. In this way, we can do the greatest good with minimal resources. We are leveraging our personal connections with civilian physicians and nurses on the ground to identify medical needs and to deliver supplies where they are most needed. Our efforts will reinforce the efforts of local health care workers. This is critical since these workers have been in these communities for years and will be there long after the emergency field hospitals and refugee camps are dismantled.
We appeal to you to support our effort with cash donations.
WHY DONATE TO THIS PROJECT?
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Donation deadline for Phase I January 20th 2005
For information on the developing situation in the Eastern Province and the work of the Committee go to our website: www.canrelief.org. To contact the Committee email us at info@canrelief.org
We thank you sincerely for supporting the people of Eastern Province and welcome any comments or suggestions.
Committee members: Raywat Deonandan, Anjula Gogia, Randy Hryhorczuk Iniyal Inparajah, Miriam Inparajah, Gitanjali Lena, Suvendrini Lena.
December 31, 2004
Urgent Appeal for Medical Aid to Eastern Province
The Impact of the Tsunami in Sri Lanka’s War Zone
Sri Lanka is one of the world’s poorest countries. The people of the north and east of Sri Lanka are among the poorest in this besieged island nation. A twenty year long civil war has resulted in impoverishment and under-development in the fishing and farming villages of the Trincomalee -Batticoloa- Amparai district. Before the tsunami hit, travel by road, train, and sea, was disrupted by bombs, barbed wire, blockades and land mines. Local infrastructure was inadequate to meet basic health and education needs.
Now these communities have been dealt another crushing blow. The Christmas Day tsunami has claimed almost 30,000 lives in Sri Lanka. The death toll in the eastern province alone is 14,000 and rising. Countless coastal villages have been swept into the sea. Families, livelihoods, histories and whole communities have been obliterated. The stories from each small village along the coast are horrific.
In the village of Palahamam, students packed a school bus on Sunday morning for Hindu Studies. Without warning, a 5-metre high wall of water carried all 200 students and their teacher into the ocean. In the coastal town of Ninthavur, an Islamic madrasa (religious school) bore the brunt with nearly 42 children killed by the tsunami waves. In Kalmunai, doctors and nurses working in the hospital were all washed away along with their patients. The largest hospital in the area resembles a morgue packed to capacity with rotting and water-logged corpses. Fifty local healthcare workers have been killed and many medical staff have lost their kin. They now toil round the clock to deliver emergency care without basic supplies. In the coming days lethal epidemics are a certainty, unless drastic action is taken.
The people of this region desperately need your help. The unique political and geographical qualities of the district mean that relief supplies from the large donors are unlikely to arrive in time to stave off impending epidemics of dengue fever, malaria and diarrhea. In a better world this tragedy might provide an opportunity for cooperation bridging ethnic and religious differences. In reality local politics may threaten relief efforts and endanger lives.
Impacted villages in this region are Tamil Hindu, Muslim and Singhalese. Some are located in government controlled areas and some in LTTE controlled areas. Some lie within a no man’s land. Each twist in the line of control is an obstacle to aid. Ubiquitous landmines make search and rescue treacherous. Some of these areas have been placed under curfew and government aid has yet to reach these regions. Associated Press has reported that aid trucks headed to Eastern Province have been diverted to needy areas in the South.
Clearly, we cannot rely on the diffuse national relief efforts to meet the needs of the Trincomalee-Batticoloa-Amparai District. Our goal is to mobilize grass roots networks in Canada to support grass roots workers in Sri Lanka. In this way, we can do the greatest good with minimal resources. We are leveraging our personal connections with civilian physicians and nurses on the ground to identify medical needs and to deliver supplies where they are most needed. Our efforts will reinforce the efforts of local health care workers. This is critical since these workers have been in these communities for years and will be there long after the emergency field hospitals and refugee camps are dismantled.
We appeal to you to support our effort with cash donations.
WHY DONATE TO THIS PROJECT?
- Your donation will go directly to those who are most vulnerable and least likely to receive adequate government or international aid. All donations will be used to purchase medical supplies only - none of the funds will go towards administration or transport costs of Canadian volunteers.
- All members of our committee are volunteers, thus no funding is diverted to staff salaries or expenses.
- All supplies will be distributed directly to local physicians serving the most needy and remote areas; delivery will be directly supervised by members of the committee.
- We will provide detailed reports of activities to donors who provide email addresses.
- We are completely non-partisan working with all organizations to alleviate the suffering of people in affected areas, regardless or religion, ethnicity or political affiliation.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
- Send cheques or money orders. Donations will be handled by The Toronto Women’s Bookstore, a registered non-profit organization.
- Please make cheques or money orders payable to The Toronto Women’s Bookstore.
- Write Disaster relief fund on your cheque.
- Send to: Canadian Committee for Relief to Eastern Province c/o TWB 73 Harbord St. Toronto Ontario, M5S 1G4.
- PLEASE PROVIDE AN EMAIL AND MAILING ADDRESS. WE WILL CONFIRM RECEIPT OF YOUR CONTRIBUTION AND SEND YOU A NON-TAX DEDUCTABLE RECEIPT. For more information about registered non-profit The Toronto Women’s Bookstore see www.womensbookstore.com
Donation deadline for Phase I January 20th 2005
For information on the developing situation in the Eastern Province and the work of the Committee go to our website: www.canrelief.org. To contact the Committee email us at info@canrelief.org
We thank you sincerely for supporting the people of Eastern Province and welcome any comments or suggestions.
Committee members: Raywat Deonandan, Anjula Gogia, Randy Hryhorczuk Iniyal Inparajah, Miriam Inparajah, Gitanjali Lena, Suvendrini Lena.
Rob blathers about his favourite subject...
A lot of people tell me they couldn't possibly practice criminal defence law because they couldn't stomach defending people who are "guilty." When asked point blank about that by the person who interviewed me for my upcoming articling position at the criminal law firm in Toronto (whereupon I was instructed "not to include the usual stuff about how everyone had rights that needed to be protected"), I responded "I'd rather defend someone accused of rape or murder than someone accused of white collar crime," and he laughed and told me he'd said the same thing to another candidate earlier that day. I think that was one of the things that got me the job (also significant was my lust for Macs, which the firm exclusively uses). That said, I also strongly believe in the rights of the accused. All too often we see people who are wrongfully convicted of crimes, both large and small, because they seemed like strong suspects and suddenly the police and prosecutors focused on getting them convicted, rather than necessarily focusing on uncovering the truth of what happened. From the Suburban Guerilla:
Of course, let me emphasize that I don't think police or prosecutors all lie all the time. We are, after all, human beings. I think there are also many wiley and dishonest defence counsel out there. My sister is articling this year with the Crown Attorney's Office (our version of District Attorneys) and she is very principled and passionate and objective, while at the same time encountering serious stretches of fact and law in the arguments from the other side -- that that's coming from a woman who will probably have her own criminal defence firm someday. But in an adversarial system there is great temptation to win, and when you think you've got the bad guy who did the bad thing, it's very tempting to exaggerate the evidence you have or ignore evidence that might point to someone else. It is incumbent upon everyone in the legal system to be principled, honest, and to serve the administration of justice.
Through the holidays, I've been reading Until You Are Dead: Steven Truscott's Long Ride Into History by Julian Sher. It was loaned to me by my friend Cynthia, and I've enjoyed it immensely. The book is an examination of one of Canada's most notorious miscarriages of justice. In 1959, when a young girl was raped and murdered, it rocked a small Ontario air force base. There was great pressure to identify a suspect and put the community at ease. Steven Truscott, a fourteen-year-old boy, was the last person known to see Lynne Harper alive, and he was quickly identified by the police as a suspect. There was no direct physical evidence linking him to the crime. There were no eyewitnesses, except other children who told conflicting stories, some that consistently repeated that Steven merely gave Lynn a ride to the highway on his bike, as he'd always maintained, and others that changed frequently and were nevertheless relied on by the prosecution to incriminate Steven. Exculpatory evidence and witnesses were ignored, even suppressed, in an age where the Crown did not have the same strict disclosure requirements that it has to day. By the time of trial, forensic experts for the prosecution gave exaggerated, unsubstantiated, and highly confident assertions that Lynne Harper could only have died in the time frame that she had been with Steven, that tire tracks left in mud that had been dry and hard for at least a week before the murder were made by Steven's bicycle, and that Steven couldn't possibly have seen the car he claims picked up Lynne Harper after he left her at the highway from where he said he says it. The children called by the Crown as witnesses against Steven were known in the community for being very dishonest and prone to attention-seeking, and even they gave stories that contradicted each other and changed over time. The Crown relied on one witness who admitted he'd lied to the police twice in making statements, insisting that he was finally telling the truth. Meanwhile, a great deal of evidence that would have been critical to Truscott's defence never saw the light of day, much of it only coming to light 40 years later, including a list of known sexual offenders on or near the base, one of whom had been arrested three weeks earlier for attempting to lure a young girl into his car, inside of which he had a bag of panties.
Truscott was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging, and it was only the consideration of his tender age, and not the unfairness of his trial, that persuaded the federal government to commute the death sentence. Nevertheless, Steven spent ten years of a life sentence in jail, always maintaining his innocence. It was only after the Supreme Court of Canada decided in a 1967 legal reference that, had there actually been an appeal, it would have ordered a new trial because of the grave doubts raised, that Steven was grudgingly released. He was never exonerated, however, and took on a new name and life so as to raise a family in some privacy. It was only this year that the Minister of Justice agreed to a review of Truscott's conviction and has ordered the matter referred to the Ontario Court of Appeal for an examination of the massive books of evidence marshaled by his new lawyers with the Association In Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted..
This was truly a case of tunnel vision, where the authorities had a suspect in mind and did everything they could to convict him, despite the mounting evidence to the contrary. And though it is an old case, it is not an old story. We want to be sure the people we punish for crimes actually deserve such punishment, both factually and legally. The state always has to be put to its best case, and no evidence should go overlooked, whether it condemns or frees an accused. Nothing less is just, and that's why I'm happy to be working in criminal defence.
JUSTICE
Bob Herbert writes about something that happens far too often. While on TV shows like "Law and Order," prosecutors are presented as people of conscience who would rather let a case go unsolved than convict the wrong person, reality is something quite different. Pressure to come up with convictions (particularly in high-profile cases) is constant, and bosses are willing to look the other way if it makes them look good.
Anyone who has anything to do with the criminal justice system will tell you: Cops lie on the witness stand whenever they deem it necessary - that is to say, most of the time.
Years ago, I was only one of many reporters covering the Kafkaesque tale of Terry McCracken, a local kid convicted of killing the proprietor of a local grocery store. Even after the real killers confessed, the county D.A. refused to drop his opposition to a new trial and McCracken, jailed since the age of 17, spent more time in prison as a result. He was eventually freed.
It was a shame in so many ways. Terry was what you might call the "white sheep" of his family. His father was a member of the Warlocks, a local motorcycle club, and his mother killed herself while Terry was a kid. (Neighborhood legend was that her husband actually killed her while the kids watched.) His siblings were often in trouble, but Terry, described by neighbors and teachers as "a good kid" and a decent student, was determined to graduate high school and go into the Marines.
Instead, he spent the next eight years in prison - where, thanks to his father's connections, he was at least spared the worst of it.
The media did its job this time. The Philadelphia Inquirer did a Pulitzer-winning investigative series that, although it didn't uncover any new information, put the political heat on the D.A. and increased the pressure for a new trial.
McCracken was freed - but irreparably harmed. The last I'd heard, he'd moved out to the country and was a biker now.
And I think of all the times where this doesn't make it into the papers.
Of course, let me emphasize that I don't think police or prosecutors all lie all the time. We are, after all, human beings. I think there are also many wiley and dishonest defence counsel out there. My sister is articling this year with the Crown Attorney's Office (our version of District Attorneys) and she is very principled and passionate and objective, while at the same time encountering serious stretches of fact and law in the arguments from the other side -- that that's coming from a woman who will probably have her own criminal defence firm someday. But in an adversarial system there is great temptation to win, and when you think you've got the bad guy who did the bad thing, it's very tempting to exaggerate the evidence you have or ignore evidence that might point to someone else. It is incumbent upon everyone in the legal system to be principled, honest, and to serve the administration of justice.
Through the holidays, I've been reading Until You Are Dead: Steven Truscott's Long Ride Into History by Julian Sher. It was loaned to me by my friend Cynthia, and I've enjoyed it immensely. The book is an examination of one of Canada's most notorious miscarriages of justice. In 1959, when a young girl was raped and murdered, it rocked a small Ontario air force base. There was great pressure to identify a suspect and put the community at ease. Steven Truscott, a fourteen-year-old boy, was the last person known to see Lynne Harper alive, and he was quickly identified by the police as a suspect. There was no direct physical evidence linking him to the crime. There were no eyewitnesses, except other children who told conflicting stories, some that consistently repeated that Steven merely gave Lynn a ride to the highway on his bike, as he'd always maintained, and others that changed frequently and were nevertheless relied on by the prosecution to incriminate Steven. Exculpatory evidence and witnesses were ignored, even suppressed, in an age where the Crown did not have the same strict disclosure requirements that it has to day. By the time of trial, forensic experts for the prosecution gave exaggerated, unsubstantiated, and highly confident assertions that Lynne Harper could only have died in the time frame that she had been with Steven, that tire tracks left in mud that had been dry and hard for at least a week before the murder were made by Steven's bicycle, and that Steven couldn't possibly have seen the car he claims picked up Lynne Harper after he left her at the highway from where he said he says it. The children called by the Crown as witnesses against Steven were known in the community for being very dishonest and prone to attention-seeking, and even they gave stories that contradicted each other and changed over time. The Crown relied on one witness who admitted he'd lied to the police twice in making statements, insisting that he was finally telling the truth. Meanwhile, a great deal of evidence that would have been critical to Truscott's defence never saw the light of day, much of it only coming to light 40 years later, including a list of known sexual offenders on or near the base, one of whom had been arrested three weeks earlier for attempting to lure a young girl into his car, inside of which he had a bag of panties.
Truscott was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging, and it was only the consideration of his tender age, and not the unfairness of his trial, that persuaded the federal government to commute the death sentence. Nevertheless, Steven spent ten years of a life sentence in jail, always maintaining his innocence. It was only after the Supreme Court of Canada decided in a 1967 legal reference that, had there actually been an appeal, it would have ordered a new trial because of the grave doubts raised, that Steven was grudgingly released. He was never exonerated, however, and took on a new name and life so as to raise a family in some privacy. It was only this year that the Minister of Justice agreed to a review of Truscott's conviction and has ordered the matter referred to the Ontario Court of Appeal for an examination of the massive books of evidence marshaled by his new lawyers with the Association In Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted..
This was truly a case of tunnel vision, where the authorities had a suspect in mind and did everything they could to convict him, despite the mounting evidence to the contrary. And though it is an old case, it is not an old story. We want to be sure the people we punish for crimes actually deserve such punishment, both factually and legally. The state always has to be put to its best case, and no evidence should go overlooked, whether it condemns or frees an accused. Nothing less is just, and that's why I'm happy to be working in criminal defence.
Another thing I won't miss when I move out
Garbage day
Garbage day is my most hated day of the week. Now, I can hear you saying, "You know, Rob, they have garbage day in Toronto, too." The thing is, I don't mind puttering around the house and doing the usual chores. Garbage day around my house, therefore, must be a special event to earn such a high amount of my ire. In fact, I'm the de facto garbage man around the house. According to my lease, my unit gets a modest rent abatement each month in exchange for chores around the building like shoveling snow, cutting the grass, and taking out the garbage. Therefore, every week my unit is responsible for taking out the garbage for all five units in the building. As it happens, however, I personally of mythree four roommates (including one live-in boyfriend of a roommate) end up being the one who does this every week. I also end up being the one who cuts the grass, changes the lightbulbs, and shovels the driveway and salts the steps in winter.
Today was garbage day again, and I woke up after two days of being bed-ridden with food poisoning knowing that I had work to do. But let me tell you. I was tired, only now recovering my strength and ability to stand up without getting sick, and I wouldn't have minded if one of my roommates could have taken it upon themselves to take out the trash, just once, even though I didn't (and never) ask. But no. Instead, the kitchen garbage can was overflowing, to the point where the lid couldn't even sit on it straight. People just kept stuffing the garbage further down. It wasn't a healthy rage that stirred inside me as I wrestled with the garbage bag, but the sight of grapes rolling lazily atop the vast heap of waste that tested the very limits of extra large Glad bag technology was the proverbial last straw. You know, on top of everything else in that garbage bag, someone had to throw out a bunch of grapes that had nowhere to go in the critical mass of kitchen waste, so they just rolled around as I struggled and barely managed to tie the bag closed. No one could be bothered even just to tie up the garbage and put in a new garbage bag so that it wouldn't be such a pain in the ass for me to take out today. Even that small act of not being completely lazy would have been just fine.
Then, as I was taking out the garbage for the other units around back, I noticed that someone had put three big garbage bags of their own on my back deck. That someone, I'm assuming, being one of my roommates. And I thought, okay, fine. Put them out there even though there are bins for that. But why don't you put them out on the curb on garbage day while you're at it, instead of lazily leaving them there and expecting me to do it? Gah!
I completely lost it when I took out the recycling. As I stepped out with the recycling bin onto the sidewalk, I slipped on sheer ice and flew ass over teakettle (as my sailor-mouthed mother would say) into the snow, spilling recyclables everywhere. Wearing only shoes and my robe (which made me feel a bit like a porn star), and, OK, a copious dusting of snow, I had to madly scoop paper and cardboard and flyers back into the bin as the recycling truck came closer and closer down the street. My hands are still stinging from the burn of smacking hard against snow and ice. That. No. One. Thought. To. Salt.
Yep, one more thing I won't miss when I move.
Sunday, January 02, 2005 Garbage day is my most hated day of the week. Now, I can hear you saying, "You know, Rob, they have garbage day in Toronto, too." The thing is, I don't mind puttering around the house and doing the usual chores. Garbage day around my house, therefore, must be a special event to earn such a high amount of my ire. In fact, I'm the de facto garbage man around the house. According to my lease, my unit gets a modest rent abatement each month in exchange for chores around the building like shoveling snow, cutting the grass, and taking out the garbage. Therefore, every week my unit is responsible for taking out the garbage for all five units in the building. As it happens, however, I personally of my
Today was garbage day again, and I woke up after two days of being bed-ridden with food poisoning knowing that I had work to do. But let me tell you. I was tired, only now recovering my strength and ability to stand up without getting sick, and I wouldn't have minded if one of my roommates could have taken it upon themselves to take out the trash, just once, even though I didn't (and never) ask. But no. Instead, the kitchen garbage can was overflowing, to the point where the lid couldn't even sit on it straight. People just kept stuffing the garbage further down. It wasn't a healthy rage that stirred inside me as I wrestled with the garbage bag, but the sight of grapes rolling lazily atop the vast heap of waste that tested the very limits of extra large Glad bag technology was the proverbial last straw. You know, on top of everything else in that garbage bag, someone had to throw out a bunch of grapes that had nowhere to go in the critical mass of kitchen waste, so they just rolled around as I struggled and barely managed to tie the bag closed. No one could be bothered even just to tie up the garbage and put in a new garbage bag so that it wouldn't be such a pain in the ass for me to take out today. Even that small act of not being completely lazy would have been just fine.
Then, as I was taking out the garbage for the other units around back, I noticed that someone had put three big garbage bags of their own on my back deck. That someone, I'm assuming, being one of my roommates. And I thought, okay, fine. Put them out there even though there are bins for that. But why don't you put them out on the curb on garbage day while you're at it, instead of lazily leaving them there and expecting me to do it? Gah!
I completely lost it when I took out the recycling. As I stepped out with the recycling bin onto the sidewalk, I slipped on sheer ice and flew ass over teakettle (as my sailor-mouthed mother would say) into the snow, spilling recyclables everywhere. Wearing only shoes and my robe (which made me feel a bit like a porn star), and, OK, a copious dusting of snow, I had to madly scoop paper and cardboard and flyers back into the bin as the recycling truck came closer and closer down the street. My hands are still stinging from the burn of smacking hard against snow and ice. That. No. One. Thought. To. Salt.
Yep, one more thing I won't miss when I move.
Sick
Death's icy, probing hand has finally reached second base with me, and my insides are churning up horribly as a result. Oh no -- everything's getting dark!
I'm a'coming, Lord! Shine the bright light my way and sound the angel choir!
Food poisoning. Two words that should never go together. Why, food is supposed to be a good thing. A wonderful thing. Food should not poison you. Food should make you feel happy and fulfilled, not achy and feverish and bloated and leaky. Why, food? Why? What did I ever do to you?
After a wonderful New Year's Eve party, I put away the scrumptious feast Natalie prepared for us and stored it all in the fridge, but I think the deviled eggs had been sitting out too long by that point, because I had some for breakfast and have spent most of the past 24 hours in bed feeling like I ought to atone for my sins. In fact, I feel fully punished for them all right now.
Maybe if I can match the fluids coming out against an equal or greater volume fluid going in I'll just manage to see my way through this thing. If not, at least I can skip the first day of school tomorrow.
Gurgle.
I'm a'coming, Lord! Shine the bright light my way and sound the angel choir!
Food poisoning. Two words that should never go together. Why, food is supposed to be a good thing. A wonderful thing. Food should not poison you. Food should make you feel happy and fulfilled, not achy and feverish and bloated and leaky. Why, food? Why? What did I ever do to you?
After a wonderful New Year's Eve party, I put away the scrumptious feast Natalie prepared for us and stored it all in the fridge, but I think the deviled eggs had been sitting out too long by that point, because I had some for breakfast and have spent most of the past 24 hours in bed feeling like I ought to atone for my sins. In fact, I feel fully punished for them all right now.
Maybe if I can match the fluids coming out against an equal or greater volume fluid going in I'll just manage to see my way through this thing. If not, at least I can skip the first day of school tomorrow.
Gurgle.
