the daily snivel

  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.  

  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?

• 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:

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 my three 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. 

  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.