Petering Out.

Sadly, I think the #BLM movement has run its course. They seem to be fresh out of ideas, and now are using police escorts to guide them into public events, as they chant out their frustrations with police presence.

Too bad. With a better plan, the movement might have actually accomplished something. Baby steps...

Hundreds of protesters led by the Black Lives Matter St. Paul group marched up Snelling Avenue to the gates of the State Fair on Saturday afternoon to protest racial inequities. During the demonstration, some protesters yelled chants criticizing police as they were being escorted by officers who blocked roads for the protest, said David Titus, head of the St. Paul Police Federation.

“Rank and file cops feel it very unfortunate that the march inconvenienced many fairgoers and probably had some negative economic impact on vendors and employees,” Titus said in a statement posted on the union’s Facebook page. “Nonetheless, Federation members worked within the rules outlined by city and department management to ensure everyone’s safety and freedom of speech, even though some of that speech was outrageous and disgusting.”

Titus was referring to a video posted on Twitter that showed protesters who appear to be in the front of the march and can be heard shouting, “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon!” as the camera panned to show police on bikes, squad cars and a utility vehicle.

“Quite simply — that promotes death to cops,” Titus said in his post.
...
The lead organizer of the protest said that the chant was not a threat against officers’ lives.

“It was a chant,” said Rashad Turner, the leader of Black Lives Matter St. Paul. “I think that the crazy thing is that there’s all this uproar about rhetoric but there isn’t uproar about the facts … Just because they provide us with their self-appointed escort does not mean it erases the fact that they are the deadliest police department in the state.”

Beginning in 2009, St. Paul police have shot and killed 11 men, nine of whom were people of color. No other law enforcement agency in Minnesota has used deadly force more often over the past six years.

I don't know... if he really thinks that St. Paul police officers are so dangerous, why ask them to lead your protests down the street?

Where's the self-initiative to make change, without police guiding your movement every step of the way?
-------------------

ADDED: Public feedback:

Jerry Putzir of St. Charles, Minn., watched Saturday’s protest from inside the fairgrounds as the group filed down Como Avenue. His son is showing a steer at the fair.

“They’re just hurting themselves,” he said of the marchers. “Everyone has the right to protest, but ­people are just fed up that they’re blocking the traffic, wrecking somebody’s business and blocking the entrances. It inconveniences.”
...
The protesters marched from Hamline Park, less than 2 miles south of the main entrance, up a partly closed Snelling Avenue, enduring some heckling from onlookers and held a brief “die-in.” At one point, the crowd deviated from the announced march route and attempted to enter a Como Avenue fair entrance, which was quickly blocked by police officers on horseback and reinforced by a line of uniformed officers standing side by side inside the closed gate.
...
Traffic on Como Avenue was closed briefly during the marchers’ unsuccessful entry attempt but was soon reopened. Earlier, as a drone hovered overhead, police shut down Snelling to northbound traffic and warned marchers to stay off medians for their own safety.

As the throng crossed the Snelling Avenue bridge toward the fairgrounds, marchers sat or lay down on the roadway for a brief moment of silence.

The group announced its plans last week to disrupt operations to raise awareness about issues that plague black communities, and also to call attention to alleged disparity issues at the fair, which organizers say has not been welcoming to minority vendors or patrons.
...
The State Fair’s general manager said he offered Black Lives Matter a booth inside the fairgrounds, but Turner turned it down. He said another person secured a booth, however, and is selling Black Lives Matter materials even though he is not affiliated with Turner’s group.

From the public comments section:

jehanne • 10 minutes ago
What I saw on TV was a bunch of angry people marching and chanting "Pigs in the Blanket." Oh, really? Disgraceful. It reminds me of the Vietnam protesters who spit on returning soldiers. They have no idea how honorable and courageous it is for a soldier or for a policeman to put their lives on the line every single day in order to protect the well being of the citizens of this nation. Even those who despise them. Maybe find God in a more meaningful way and your hearts will change.

Friday Lunch.

Damn -- I knew I should have eaten at Chipotle today!

Welcome to Minneapolis, Mrs. Clinton.
Nice weather we're having, with a weekend warm-up in sight.

You know, Western Wisconsin -- Walker territory -- is just an express bus away!*

If you've got the time, we've I've got the beer kayaks...

---------------------------

* Plus a short drive over the St. Croix River.

Nevermind the Emails...

I'd like to see Mrs. Clinton answer questions about this, and her role in helping to destabilize Libya.

BERLIN — The death toll from Europe’s refugee crisis surged higher Friday after Austrian authorities raised the count of bodies found in an abandoned truck to more than 70 — including four children — even as corpses were being plucked from the sea off the coast of Libya after two boats capsized, drowning as many as 200 people.

After an extraordinarily deadly 24-hour period, two crime scenes, more than 2,000 miles apart, were unfolding Friday.
...
In the Libyan city of Zuwara, meanwhile, officials were loading scores of bodies into orange bags and onto the back of a pickup truck, according to an Associated Press photographer on the scene.

Authorities said one boat had been carrying as many as 400 people, about half of them apparently locked in the ship’s hold when it capsized, Reuters reported. Libya is one of the primary launching points for desperate migrants attempting to reach Europe.

Another boat that capsized was carrying about 100 migrants, officials said.

“An estimated 200 people are still missing and feared dead,” said Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva. “A still undetermined number of bodies were recovered and taken to shore. The Libyan Red Crescent has been helping with the collection of the bodies.”

The International Organization for Migration said about 100 people were rescued, including nine women and two girls.

In a separate incident Wednesday, rescuers found 51 people dead from suffocation in the hold of another boat off the Libyan coast.

“According to survivors, smugglers were charging people money for allowing them to come out of the hold in order to breathe,” Fleming told a news conference in Geneva.

The grisly tableaus on land and sea once again ratcheted up the pressure on European authorities and their slow-footed handling of the largest wave of refugees pouring into the region since World War II — mostly from Syria, Iraq and other war-torn countries. Top European officials were huddling in the Austrian capital, partly to discuss the record number of migrants arriving from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

If we started the war(s),
isn't a lot of this on US?

(We broke it. We bought it?
or we're denying now it was broken by US?)

Nevermind the Pandas.

While I love animals, and was sad to see the National Zoo lose them both, a human story closer to home has me captivated.

Amber McCullough, an attorney who was working my previous document review project*, delivered her conjoined twin daughters yesterday in Aurora, CO.

Olivia died during surgery to separate them, but Hannah is struggling to survive.

You go, girl!


-------------------

* Another attorney in the same review unexpectedly** became a grandmother to triplets during our work project.

** "Unexpectedly" because the couple declined to have an ultrasound, and the multiple fetal heartbeats apparently were missed at their then-treating clinic.

Things That Make You Go Hmm.

When I read this interview with Trump last week (excerpted below), the journalist in me picked up on his saying Dowd had recycled the line about Klum from an old Howard Stern show.

Trump denied saying it recently, at odds with the tagline clarifying the Lightening Round list of quotations that accompanied Dowd's Sunday column:

(By MAUREEN DOWD AUG. 15, 2015 Because it’s hard to contain the Vesuvial Donald Trump in 1,300 words of my column, we did a round of questions about his rivals and a few other boldface names in the news this week. Here are Trump’s rapid-fire impressions, delivered over the phone and over lunch at the restaurant in Trump Tower the art of the meal with the birther of a nation.)

But again, that's not what Trump says in the Hollywood Reporter interview:

Maureen Dowd's recent column on you was pretty funny. Did you like it?

I did. You have to understand Maureen — she’s a great person, she’s written a lot about me over the years. She did a big favor. She understands that I adore women. In a positive sense. I cherish women. Women are very important to me. I will take care of women and women’s health issues if I get in.

Did you hear from Heidi Klum after the comment about her not being a "10" anymore?

No, I haven’t. I mean, I know her, but I haven’t.

Do you feel like you can be someone who talks about women’s looks and not be sexist?

First of all, this was all done years ago. This was taken off the Howard Stern show. When you’re with Howard, you’re talking. I never intended to be running for president. You’re talking, you’re having fun, you’re a big real estate developer and a big businessman and what you say doesn’t matter. Yet of course what I say is nothing compared to what some other people say, including Megyn Kelly — you heard about that? That came out last week. [Kelly discussed her sex life on the show in 2010.] That’s where Maureen got that. I didn’t tell this to Maureen. She even got the Heidi Klum from Howard. So it makes more sense when you hear it that way. And the thing with Halle Berry, that’s all Howard.

You just got drawn into this stuff?

Well, you do. It’s always very dangerous to do Howard because you’re all having a great time and you’re laughing and you get 19 calls from reporters saying, "Is it true that you said this?" But in those days, there weren’t any calls because I was a real estate guy and nobody cared. They cared, but it was open season. Today I wouldn’t say that. But I thought [Dowd's] column was terrific because basically what she did is she let people know that I will be really good to women.

In today's column, Maureen offers this interesting parenthetical:

He lives beyond parody. There’s very little difference between the old Darrell Hammond duck-lipped impersonation of the Trumpster and Trump, the presidential candidate.

Both dwell on how “huge” and “big” his projects are and how “great” his ratings are and how much square footage he has.

(Unlike the Hammond impersonation and Trump’s turn as “S.N.L.” host, the presidential candidate shies away from boasting about hot women.)

There is nothing that excites Trump the candidate more than crowing that he has a great big crowd and Jeb has a teeny weeny crowd. He sounded orgasmic as he described to the New Hampshire town hall that his Alabama event this weekend had to be moved from a room that held 1,000 to a room that held 2,000 to a convention center to a stadium.

So Trump should appreciate the task ahead: It’s huge.

So was he talking about Heidi Klum 's when he was a presidential candidate, or not?

“Sometimes I do go a little bit far,” he allowed, adding, after a moment: “Heidi Klum. Sadly, she’s no longer a 10.”

And if not, and if the quotes indeed were pulled from previous Howard Stern shows years ago, why pass it off as new material coming in a fresh interview, after he'd already caught heat about publicly ranking women as cattle?

Something doesn't make sense in the original exchange between Trump and Dowd. I wonder which one is telling a closer version of the truth today? **
---------------

* Heidi Klum, of course, being known by most Americans for being the ex-wife of Seal, and mother to his children.
** (Did he mention Klum in recent days, or was that bit recycled?  Tell me a nice Irish girl like Maureen is not deliberately stirring the racial pot, the "birther of a nation" line notwithstanding...)

Amen.

For me, the love ethic is at the very center of it. It can be the love ethic of James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Marvin Gaye, John Coltrane or Curtis Mayfield, but it has to have that central focus on loving the people. And when you love people, you hate the fact that they’re being treated unfairly. You tell the truth. You sacrifice your popularity for integrity. There is a willingness to give your life back to the people given that, in the end, they basically gave it to you, because we are who we are because somebody loved us anyway.

~ Cornel West
-------------------------------------
ADDED:  Here's another great question and response:

G.Y.: When it comes to race in America in 2015, what is to be done?

C.W.: Well, the first thing, of course, is you’ve got to shatter denial, avoidance and evasion. That’s part of my criticism of the president.

For 7 years, he just hasn’t or refused to hit it head-on. It looks like he’s now beginning to find his voice. But in finding his voice, it’s either too late or he’s lost his moral authority.

He can’t drop drones on hundreds of innocent children and then talk about how upset he is when innocent people are killed.

You can’t reshape the world in the image of corporate interest and image with Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and then say that you’re in deep solidarity with working people and poor people.

You can’t engage in massive surveillance, keeping track of phone calls across the board, targeting Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning and others, and then turn right back around and say you’re against secrecy, you’re against clandestine policy.

So that, unfortunately, if he had come right in and asserted his moral authority over against Fox News, over against right-wing, conservative folk who were coming at him — even if he lost — he would have let the world know what his deep moral convictions are.

But he came in as a Machiavellian. He came in with political calculation. That’s why he brought in Machiavellians like Rahm Emanuel and Larry Summers, and others. So, it was clear it was going to be political calculation, not moral conviction.

How can anyone take your word seriously after 7 years about how we need to put a spotlight on racism when, for 7 years, you’ve been engaged in political calculation about racism?
...
We were looking for Lincoln, and we got another Clinton, and that is in no way satisfying.

That’s what I mean by, we were looking for a Coltrane and we ended up getting a Kenny G. You can’t help but be profoundly disappointed. But also ready for more fightback in post-Obama America!

 

Life in the Age of Non-Reason.

Linda Greenhouse in today's NYT:

I’m not counting the days, or the Supreme Court terms, until the court declares the death penalty unconstitutional. But from two courts, the highest in the land and the highest court of one of the smallest states, a fruitful conversation emerged this summer that will inevitably spread, gain momentum and, in the foreseeable if not immediate future, lead the Supreme Court to take the step that I think a majority of today’s justices know is the right one.

I wonder, how many people are able to connect the dots between dealth penalty jurisprudence and the #BlackLivesMatter protests?  So much in common, so much work to do, taking the "fight" out of the streets and onto the sheets -- of white legal paper, where arguments are built based on fact-based uncoveries like we've seen in the past decades in my native Illinois. *

That's what Change looks like, if you haven't seen much of it of late, my friends.  **
-----------------------
* Politics makes for funny bedfellows:  Had then Gov. George Ryan not been in deep trouble at the time for his corrupt political actions that led to deaths on the roads, I don't think he'd have had the political courage to do what he did, when he did it.  There at the end of his rope, I think he had nothing to lose, politically.

 And you know what they say, right? 
"Sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand..." 

Thank God we still had the old-school reporters out digging up stories in those days, not merely copping other people's work, as is rewarded too often in this double-down age.  Tales like those are not neatly delivered into your lap, or your email-in box.  You gotta be there.  Elite reporters have learned to "drop in", or do what I call drive-by reporting.  They've pretty much lost the skills, and in the digital era of surveillance and compliance, the truths are really more hidden than ever before...

When we hire on superficial identity characteristics instead of merit in getting the job done, we merely redefine the job, and the real work remains.  Then we divide up, to protect our ill-advanced gains.

** Being mired in political stagnation is a lot like your car being stuck in icy mud, with the likes of Washington's political establishment all talking, talking, talking about what it will take, but not willing, not knowing, or incapable of putting their shoulders down and pushing -- together -- to get us unstuck and out running on solid ground again.

Maybe we're still in the rocking-it-back-and-forth mode and the muscle is still to come?

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

Matthew 20; 1-16.

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.  He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.  

He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing.  About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius.  So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.'

“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you.  
  
Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
-------------------

*  I guess I needed to hear that one today:  Let God be the judge, Mary... (He, not me, knows what is in every man's heart.)

Contrasting Coates and Colter.*

Question: Do you think their skin tones, or more importantly, their attitudes, will separate the impact that both men have on their own futures (and those of their sons)?

“The movement will continue,” Colter said. “We might change the way we get things done, but what I learned is that when players stand up for what they believe in, they can change things.”
...
“The Northwestern players’ courage has done a lot to change the game. They showed how much power the players have when they assert their rights under the law,” said Ramogi Huma, president of the College Athletes Players Association.

Answer:  I'd bet my money on the latter.
----------------------

* see previous two Subsumed posts for background.

On Being a "Public Intellectual"

Humor columnist Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post today argues that Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose latest book is reviewed in today's NY Times, is a prominent public intellectual, using her definition here:

The Internet has busted through many of the old anointing institutions and helped us fracture more easily into camps, which may or may not be good overall, but one thing it does reveal pretty clearly is who gets READ, who gets listened to, and whose ideas are being heard. You can tell who is powering the discussion.*

I think only someone who hadn't been on the Internet in months -- but don't worry, his writing is in bookstores as well now -- could say with a straight face that he hasn't been driving a massive amount of discussions of ideas, one of the key things that for me defines the role of a public intellectual.

Anyone can drive a news cycle and a discussion of personalities, but to generate a discussion of ideas is what makes a public intellectual different from a personality.

This doesn't mean that you need to agree with everything he says, or can't have your own ideas about what people should be discussing, even, or your own Required Reading List for True Intellectuals. But that's your own standard.

I think it's absurd to deny that he's a public intellectual. 

But then, she never really talks about the idea that Coates is promoting:
in a gist, that black people cannot win in today's American capitalistic system, and that the black body is seen by white supremacists and those who benefit by today's system (all white people) as worthy of exploitation and something to visit violence upon.

Personally, I have not heard many people talking about his work, just about Mr. Coates' rapid ascent in the publishing business.  Ironically, he is currently living the American Dream (as a black man though, he is loathe to acknowledge it because... there goes his Big Idea that Ms. Petri views as so worthy of public discussion, yet is reluctant to wade into publicly herself, it seems.)

In fact, using Ms. Petri's definition, I'd argue that Donald Trump is more a public intellectual, as his ideas are getting more public discussion than anything Mr. Coates has written.  Most reviews that I have read, in fact, have been summarily dismissive of  Coates' nihilistic attitude about the potential of black achievement.**

I suppose though, Harvard-educated people like Ms. Petri do not know many black people, intellectuals or otherwise, and she, like so many, has glommed onto the first black writer they have read, who is being talked about (the author, not his ideas).  It really does matter if the work inspires changes, or merely enriches the pockets of one man, even a black man, at that.

I wonder too, if Ms. Petri was just joking... hard to tell sometimes where her humor ends, and her preaching begins.

ADDED:  Maybe it's a geographic thing, and Mr. Coates' idea is indeed being debated earnestly in Washington DC circles that Ms. Petri swirls in.  Elsewhere though, she should know such "The Dream is Dead" cynicism is being roundly rejected -- by black Americans too, thankfully.

He does not speak for all -- merely for himself, from his (not-to-be-impolite but...) limited personal background, but I can see where some -- like young Ms. Petri, self-described "congressman's kid" * -- might not yet recognize that.

---------------------

* If this were truly a public discussion of ideas and not people, Ms. Petri might understand how very little Mr. Coates himself has contributed to the dialogue, and the movements, that have addressed black men and boys left lying dead in the streets of our nation.  He was in France, taking up the language, last summer when Michael Brown was shot dead in Missouri;  the #BLM organizing movement was not "powered" by Coates' writings, but by pretty-much still anonymous black women.  Mr. Coates' publisher, in fact, moved up the publication date of his book to take advantage of the recent protests, deaths and work done by others.

Too bad Ms. Petri either does not know, or cannot acknowledge this, as in thrall as she and others seem to be by Mr. Coates' dizzying career rise...  She perhaps should read up more on the topic, I would think, if indeed these racial-reconciliation ideas interest her, beyond the short shelf life of a recent bestseller by a newly anointed public ... celebrity.  That -- not "intellectual" -- is the word that is most fitting here, (unless eventually Petri plans to initiate a publicly powered discussion beyond limited exclusive chat roooms herself) of Why Black Americans Cannot Succeed without Racial Reparations and Blaming All of White America for Keeping Blacks Down.

** NYT book reviewer Michelle Alexander:

Baldwin, in writing to his nephew, does not deny the pain and horror of American notions of justice — far from it — but he repeatedly emphasizes the young man’s power and potential and urges him to believe that revolutionary change is possible against all odds, because we, as black people, continue to defy the odds and defeat the expectations of those who seek to control and exploit us.

Coates’s letter to his son seems to be written on the opposite side of the same coin. Rather than urging his son to awaken to his own power, Coates emphasizes over and over the apparent permanence of racial injustice in America, the foolishness of believing that one person can make a change, and the dangers of believing in the American Dream.
...
Little hope is offered that freedom or equality will ever be a reality for black people in America.

“We are captured, brother, surrounded by the majoritarian bandits of America. And this has happened here, in our only home, and the terrible truth is that we cannot will ourselves to an escape on our own.”

Sez you, Mr. Coates, a message he's taking not to the grave, but all the way to the bank...

*** Republican (former) congressman's kid... if that description is more telling for the current public intellectual discussion...

Happiness Is... an Open Window.

So after I wrote my blog post early this morning, I come into work and ... wa-la! :  due to the recent cool-down, the windows in our offices are open and the smell of rain is now coming through the window.  Talk about nice working conditions contributing to a decent quality of life.

Happiness is..., indeed!

Hope your Tuesday is a fine one, too.

No Parking on the Dance Floor. the Golf Course. No Standing ... For Now.

In binary terms, Kain Colter and the College Athletic Players Association "lost" yesterday, when the National Labor Relations Board declined to certify the petitioning Northwestern University football players as a union. But the NLRB didn't score on CAPA; they merely punted on the issue.

In the legal game, understanding the "why's" behind the ruling matter. We're seeing incremental progress in action here...

Tom Farrey, ESPN Staff Writer:

"In the decision, the Board held that asserting jurisdiction would not promote labor stability due to the nature and structure of NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS)," the NLRB wrote in its decision.

"By statute the Board does not have jurisdiction over state-run colleges and universities, which constitute 108 of the roughly 125 FBS teams.

"In addition, every school in the Big Ten, except Northwestern, is a state-run institution. As the NCAA and conference maintain substantial control over individual teams, the Board held that asserting jurisdiction over a single team would not promote stability in labor relations across the league. This decision is narrowly focused to apply only to the players in this case and does not preclude reconsideration of this issue in the future."

A ruling in support of the CAPA would have affected all private schools with football programs in the NCAA's top tier, as the NLRB governs the relationships between private business and employees. There are 17 of these universities: Baylor, Boston College, BYU, Duke, Miami, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Rice, SMU, Stanford, Syracuse, TCU, Tulane, Tulsa, USC, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest.

Colter told Outside the Lines that he is "disappointed" but does not consider the effort a failure, given the reforms that the CAPA effort helped catalyze within college sports.

"It's definitely not a loss," he said. "Since we started this movement, a lot of positive changes have come from this -- the introduction of four-year scholarships, increased stipends, maybe better medical coverage, the lifting of food restrictions. A lot of the things that we've been fighting for have been adopted. But there is a lot of room to go."

Teamwork + Brainwork + Perseverance = Change.

In Northwestern's final brief before the NLRB last July, university lawyers argued that providing athletes with the right to collectively bargain "would create chaos in college athletics." They predicted harm to the academic freedom of universities to draw up educational requirements as they see fit, as well as other "adverse consequences" -- writing that since only football players were asking to be treated as employees, the universities might have to reduce support for other male sports while enhancing support for females due to Title IX requirements.
...
In their final brief before the NLRB last July, CAPA lawyers said that speculation about the impact of a decision in its favor provides no grounds to deny the players the rights they claim under federal labor law.

"Northwestern and its (allies) have enormous self-interests in maintaining the system whereby the universities, coaches and athletic directors, the NCAA, and others -- who do not risk concussion and other injury -- share multi-millions in revenue generated by the players' labor," they wrote. "Players want to be heard by those who control their working conditions, and as employees they have the right to bargain over the terms and conditions under which they work, even if recognition of that right is inconvenient for, or philosophically disagreeable to, or adverse to the economic interests of their employer."
...
Colter said that he and Ramogi Huma, CAPA president and a former UCLA linebacker, have not charted next steps but will continue to advocate for opportunities to help athletes.

"Me and Ramogi and a bunch of other people saw (the NLRB decision) going differently," Colter said, "but this isn't the end. This isn't going to stop us from pushing for college athlete rights. That will eventually come. If it's not going to happen this way, we'll get it another way."

Something about the door being closed, God knows,
but there's always the hope for an open window or two.
( Go 'Cats. )

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man...

Bake me a cake: as fast as you can!
Roll it, and roll it, and mark it with a  B  V!
Pop it in the oven for baby and me!

The decision, handed down today, held that a Colorado bakery can be liable under Colorado anti-discrimination law for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding, when it bakes similar cakes for traditional weddings.

The court rejected the bakery’s free speech and religious freedom arguments...

Oh hell,
there's no difference really between a gay wedding cake and a straight wedding cake...

#Let.Them.ALL.Eat.Cake. !
------------------------

Sound Legal Reasoning:

We recognize that section 24-34-601(2)(a) of CADA prohibits Masterpiece from displaying or disseminating a notice stating that it will refuse to provide its services based on a customer’s desire to engage in same-sex marriage or indicating that those engaging in same-sex marriage are unwelcome at the bakery. However, CADA does not prevent Masterpiece from posting a disclaimer in the store or on the Internet indicating that the provision of its services does not constitute an endorsement or approval of conduct protected by CADA. Masterpiece could also post or otherwise disseminate a message indicating that CADA requires it not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and other protected characteristics. Such a message would likely have the effect of disassociating Masterpiece from its customers’ conduct.

Why I Live at the P.O. * Why I Do... Doc Review.

* with apologies to Eudora Welty

In the past few months, I learned in reading the New York Times that some American attorneys are embarrassed to put on their resumes that they have worked as document reviewers.

That's too bad.

What do I do? Analyze and code documents in anticipation of litigation. I enjoy my work, and have been regularly employed in Minneapolis at a bevy of legal agencies, working with law firms around the country. We've worked GoldStar financial lawsuits out of New York, and within our field, nobody makes any bones about why so many of these discovery projects end up in Minneapolis: we work cheaper per hour than New York or on the East Coast, where so many lawsuits originate, and the Twin Cities formerly had 4 law schools graduating attorneys annually: University of Minnesota, University of Saint Thomas, Hamline University and William Mitchell. (The latter two have since merged.)

The daily work is much like my previous work scoring the state achievement tests, precursors to Common Core. The law firm, or state educators, establish a protocol on how the documents or tests should be scored, and we process hundreds daily: reading, skimming, paging through, listening to, and eventually "coding" the legal documents, or school work, according to set standards.

Predictive coding is currently being employed as well, in the document review world:
Computer software can hit on key terms, and determine whether the document is likely relevant and turned over to be scored, or if it is non-responsive. Still, there is as of yet no replacement for human readers determining what the humans who created these paper trails were communicating, and whether or not the document is responsive, and/or privileged in some way, and thus produced to the "other side" in a lawsuit.

Personally, I like to think of myself as neutral, grading according to the protocol, some of which are better written than others...


My next project begins Wednesday, and if it goes the two months as currently expected, I'll be working through my birthday. One of the best parts of this work, for me, are the flexible hours -- I was getting a weekly 48, in 4 days with the 3-day weekends since June 1 on the last one -- and the ability to begin anew every project.

It's voyeuristic work really -- you're peeking in at private communications and getting somewhat of an insider's look at the way the businesses are regulated, and the work gets done -- in a variety of industries. (The financial and pharmaceutical sectors produce the bigger projects, but I've worked class-action lawsuits alleging defective products, as well.)

When I graduated in 1990 heading into the journalism field, in addition to the hiring freezes, it was an industry undergoing Change.

I displaced a lot of union workers, as a paginator -- electronically laying out newspages; scanning, importing and sizing the photos (and even going out, digital camera in hand, to get the shot myself if there was nobody presently available in the photographer's pool), and proofreading the pages of other paginators, who were charged with producing (weekend and Monday) sections as well.

Computers here are shaking up the legal industry: this document review work used to be the domain of young associates internally at the firms, where now they can contract out.

I didn't get paid OT either -- because my last agency was headquartered in Florida and this is professional work, it was straight pay for 40 through 48 hours. But for me, it paid to work it.

The freedom of choice in employment this way reminds me of Lochner: let me work the longer hours, when I can, and pick up as much knowledge as possible in the shorter quarters. You never know when what you know will pay off, and a little independence can never be short changed.

Have You Been Half Asleep?

And have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name
Is this the sweet sound
that called the young sailors?
The voice might be one in the same...

I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be.
Someday we'll find it...
the rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me...

~Paul Williams and Kenny Ascher.

Those darn Republicans.
Toss them a softball question about hearing voices from God... and nobody thinks to break out in song...

Creativity deficit really.

"It's Like a Full Moon..."

muttered Scott Walker's campaign manager, Rick Wiley.

Turns out,
unlike much of the conformist population of Republican Wisconsin -- trained to remain silent, even on those policies they disagree with -- the twentysomething citizens in New Hampshire are speaking out, putting their passions on display as they question whether a bought-and-sold politician* is really the best option for leading America into the future.

Good work, kids!
Keep it up...

--------------------------------

* Independent thinkers cannot be bought.
When they are, the independence generally ceases, in my humble observation, and one often becomes a toady, giving The Man what he thinks he paid for... 

Many older people have made this Faustian bargain, many workers, in the legal field especially, whose thinking "follows the money".  That empowers men like the Koch brothers, and plenty  of other monied corporations.

Many millenials are "people pleasers", this is true...
But not all.  And again, they really do have the numbers -- even in the minority -- to create Real Change in our country.  Unlike their parents, the Boomers, this generation still has time to get it right. (as Bob Seger might sing...)

Roll, roll away... I'm gonna roll me away tonight.
Gotta keep rollin', gotta keep ridin', keep searchin' till I find what's right...
And as the sunset faded I spoke to the faintest first starlight...
And I said, Next time...
Next time, we'll get it right!