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July 31, 2005
La Corrección Política
I think of this every time I see the way my town newspaper, The Chapel Hill News, covers the Latino community.
Today's example: There are huge problems at El Centro Latino, a community resource center for Latino immigrants. This past week, the Centro's five main financial supporters (Orange County, the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and two private granting organizations) sent a public letter to the Centro, asking for a meeting to voice concerns about the Centro's viability.
What are the problems? Well, let's see: Untrained staff. Grant moneys applied to unauthorized purposes. Inadequate record-keeping. High staff turnover. Budget problems. Excessive overhead, necessitating an emergency move to downsized quarters. And a director who (surprise!) "announced last week [the week that the funders delivered their letter] that she would be leaving the organization in the fall."
And what's the headline on the The Chapel Hill News's story?
"El Centro Planning Big Move."
Now that's what I call tough investigative reporting.
Posted by Eric at 11:06 AM | Comments (5)
Maybe The Best Offense Is A Good Defense?
Just one question for management: how are the 'Canes planning on scoring goals? My understanding is that you need a few of those occasionally to win hockey games.
Posted by Eric at 11:02 AM | Comments (6)
July 29, 2005
Just Most of Them.
Posted by Eric at 6:52 PM | Comments (3)
I'm sure it'll be at the top of His agenda.
GRAHAM: My hope is in the lord, Jesus Christ. And guess what, Bill? He's going to come back one day. And the Bible says — listen, here's...O'REILLY: I hope he comes on "The Factor."
Priceless.
Posted by Eric at 12:07 PM
"Post" partum depression
I'm sure the folks at Eli Lilly are already working up an advertising campaign to corner this niche market.
In the meantime, my wife, a psychologist, is thinking of organizing a support group for Spouses of Bloggers, and Alcoholics Anonymous is creating a 12-bit program.
(Post corrected per suggestion in comments; thanks, Simon.)
Posted by Eric at 10:54 AM | Comments (2)
July 28, 2005
"Nullification": Another Word for Lawlessness
Could somebody, though, please explain the difference to me between a jury's power to acquit a guilty defendant and its power to convict an innocent one? As a legal matter, the only thing that distinguishes them is that in the latter situation, an appellate court has the power to overturn a conviction for insufficient evidence, whereas an acquittal is not appealable. But in practice, appellate courts demand little evidence to support a criminal conviction, and defer enormously to juries, so it is almost as easy for a jury to convict when they're not persuaded of "technical" guilt as it is for them to acquit when they are.
Nullification is just a name for lawlessness that someone happens to agree with--hardly an aspiration for a legal system, in my opinion.
Posted by Eric at 10:14 PM | Comments (19)
Yum.
The. Best. Dessert. Ever.
They call my town Chapel Hill "the Southern Part of Heaven," but it's not: it has no Dairy Queen.
Posted by Eric at 10:09 PM | Comments (7)
July 27, 2005
'Tis Better To Give...
Help me defray the cost, or just let me know you like the blog, by leaving me a little something over at the Amazon tip jar on the right sidebar. Thanks!
Posted by Eric at 10:25 PM | Comments (2)
The JAG Memos -- Essential Reading
And read the memos, too. Incredible. This may be the only time that you'll get to see, up-close, the spectacle of military officers objecting to the bloodthirsty aggressiveness of civilians.
Posted by Eric at 9:47 PM
My Question for Judge Roberts.
"When the United States was at war with Japan, Germany, and Italy in 1942, the Army imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew along the West Coast for U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry, but no curfew anywhere in the United States for U.S. citizens of German or Italian ancestry. In Hirabayashi v. United States (1943), a unanimous Supreme Court held that the curfew did not violate the due process rights of the affected Americans."Was Hirabayashi correctly decided?"
Senators might waste their time on questions about Korematsu v. United States (1944), which, although never overruled, is considered by nearly everyone to be one of the Court's four or five worst decisions ever. (Korematsu concerned not the curfew, but the wholesale exclusion of Japanese Americans from the West Coast.) A Korematsu question will be easy for Roberts, and his answer won't tell us much.
Hirabayashi, on the other hand, involved the same discrimination as was at issue in Korematsu, but significantly less burdensome restrictions.
For anyone interested in better understanding the Justice-to-be's views on executive power, race discrimination, and the balance of liberty and security in wartime, Hirabayashi is the money question.
Posted by Eric at 1:58 PM | Comments (7)
Listen to "The Stephanie Miller Show"
I've said it before, but I'll say it again: it's as funny as the original "Talk Soup" (with Greg Kinnear, of course). It is to radio what The Daily Show is to television.
(Fun fact: Stephanie's dad was Barry Goldwater's VP running mate in 1964.)
Posted by Eric at 10:44 AM | Comments (1)
July 26, 2005
A Blog Helps Breaks A Murder Case.
It's possible, of course, that the Quebec police had a different source for the information, or that the same person who left the anonymous blog comment was also talking to the police.
Still, the possibility that this blog helped break a murder case is quite something.
Posted by Eric at 5:31 PM | Comments (1)
July 25, 2005
Impact.
Posted by Eric at 11:00 PM
BP apparently does not stand for "Brain Power"
"I like a clean environment," she replies, "but that's like asking someone to give up chocolate! It's not gonna happen."
Note to high-paid BP advertising executives:
Some people actually do give up chocolate.
(Photo courtesy of this blog.)
Posted by Eric at 10:39 PM | Comments (2)
Or, I Suppose, "Lkar Veor," But This One Makes More Sense.
"Karl Rove" is becoming just another way to spell "lark over."
Posted by Eric at 10:49 AM
July 14, 2005
Well I'll Be! Look At This Document! So There Really Were Legions of Japanese American Spies!
As a frequent researcher at various National Archives branches in the USA, I can tell you unequivocally that planting a forged document into a file would be a snap.
Thanks to reader Dawn for bringing the story to my attention.
Posted by Eric at 10:31 PM | TrackBack
Emphasis on the "Freak"
Also a mystery to me is why, when Levitt and Dubner quote a bunch of Klansmen in post-World War II Atlanta, the Klansmen sound like this,
"When I came home from work the other night, there was my kid and a bunch of others, some with towels tied around their necks like capes and some with pillowcases over their heads. The ones with capes was chasing the ones with pillowcases all over the lot. When I asked them what they were doing, they said they were playing a new kind of cops and robbers called Superman against the Klan. Gangbusting, they called it! Knew all our secret passwords and everything. I never felt so ridiculous in all my life! Suppose my own kids find my Klan robe some day? ... Our sacred ritual being profaned by a bunch of kids on the radio!" (pages 64-65)
whereas when they quote a bunch of black gang members in Chicago in the 1990s, they sound like this,
"You got all these niggers below you who want your job, you dig? So you know, you try to take care of them, but you know, you also have to show them you the boss. You always have to get yours first, or else you really ain't no leader. If you start taking losses, they see you as weak and shit." (page 103)
and like this,
"Would you stand around here when all this shit is going on? No, right? So if I gonna be asked to put my life on the line, then front me the cash, man. Pay me more 'cause it ain't worth my time to be here when they're warring." (page 107)
The gang members seem to talk so much more, I don't know, colorfully than the Atlanta Klansmen, don't they? Why the difference? (It's not that the authors actually spoke to either the Klansmen or the gang members; they spoke to neither.)
But here's the biggest mystery of all: what on earth possessed them, in the bibliographical notes to their chapter "How Is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real Estate Agents?", to write this:
"Of most particular interest to us was Stetson Kennedy, The Klan Unmasked (Boca Raton: Florida Atlantic University Press, 1990). . . . But Stetson Kennedy himself is probably the greatest living repository of Klan lore. . . . The authors visited Kennedy at his home near Jacksonville, Florida, interviewing him and availing ourselves of his extensive collection of Klan paraphernalia and documentation. (We also tried on his Klan robes.) We are most grateful for his cooperation.
They tried on Klan robes?!? And then thought the experience so fun and zany that they had to mention it in their book?
What is wrong with these guys?
Posted by Eric at 5:12 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
July 11, 2005
What Was This World Coming To?
Here's the story: in 1942, after just a year's service, Associate Justice James F. Byrnes left the Supreme Court to become the Director of Economic Stabilization. At the time Attorney General Biddle wrote this diary entry, he was deep in the search for Byrnes' replacement. Roosevelt did, in fact, end up settling on Wiley Rutledge.
Isn't it just, I don't know, quaint to see a President and an Attorney General out looking for a "liberal" for the U.S. Supreme Court?
(And in 1942, no less! Good God! Didn't they know there was a war on?)
Posted by Eric at 9:10 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
InstaJustice
Are you accepting clerkship applications yet?
Sincerely,
Eric Muller
Posted by Eric at 6:43 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
July 9, 2005
"Bob": Norman Mineta's Underling? (See Update)
It looks as though "Bob" is actually retired Coast Guard Captain James Olsen of Bainbridge Island, Washington, who (along with his wife Mary Dombrowski) has been leading the charge against Bainbridge Island's school curriculum on the Japanese American internment. (Olsen's upset that the internment is being presented as "a mistake." This position, he reasons, will only lead kids to "hate America." Not too long ago the superintendent of Olsen's local school district barred him from entering an elementary school because his "conduct, behavior, and rhetoric" created a "real likelihood" of "disruption.") Michelle Malkin is--natch--a big fan of the efforts of Olsen and his wife.
Why, one wonders, would "Bob" have gone to such lengths to conceal his identity here? Could it have anything to do with the fact that until quite recently, Coast Guard Captain Olsen's boss was U.S. Transportation Secretary (and former internee) Norman Mineta (pictured at right, receiving the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy's "Light of Leadership Award")?
UPDATE: "Bob," it turns out, corresponds with (and, apparently, identifies himself to) Commander William Hopwood, another frequent commenter on this site. Through Hopwood, "Bob" insists that he is not Captain James Olsen of Bainbridge Island, but is instead a Bainbridge Island resident who is a friend of Captain James Olsen's. Naturally I have no way to confirm that this is true, and given "Bob's" pathological deceptiveness, I wouldn't believe him if he told me himself. On the other hand, while I disagree with Hopwood about most everything, I don't think him a liar. So I think it best to take back what I wrote earlier today: for now, it looks as though "Bob" is not actually retired Coast Guard captain James Olsen of Bainbridge Island, but is instead a fellow Bainbridge Islander and friend of Olsen's.
Posted by Eric at 11:00 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
July 8, 2005
Me? I'm a "wartime" law professor. What sort of a "wartime" job do you hold?
Now you'll excuse me for a moment ... my wartime mailman has just dropped off the mail, and a wartime utility worker is waiting to be let in to look at the gas meter.
Posted by Eric at 12:45 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
July 7, 2005
This Kind of Obituary Takes Guts ... Even If You're Dead.
ON JUNE 3, 2005 at 10:45 p.m. in Memphis, Tennessee, Dorothy Gibson Cully, 86, died peacefully, while in the loving care of her two favorite children, Barbara and David. All of her breath leaked out.I'm having just a little trouble with the "never judged others or their shortcomings" part.The mother of four children, grandmother to 11, great-grandmother to nine, devoted wife for 56 years to the late Ralph Chester Cully and a true friend to many, Dot had been active as a volunteer in the Catholic Church and other community charities for much of the past 25 years.
She was born the second child of six in 1919 as Frances Dorothy Gibson, daughter to Kathleen Heard Gibson and Calvin Hooper Gibson, an inventor best known as the first person since the Middle Ages to calculate the arcane lead-to-gold formula. Unable to actually prove this complex theory scientifically, and frustrated by the cruel conspiracy of the so-called "scientific community" working against his efforts, he ultimately stuck his head in a heated gas oven with a golden delicious apple propped in his mouth. Miraculously, the apple was saved for the evening dessert. Calvin was not.
Native Marylanders and long time Baltimore, Kent Island and Ocean City residents, Ralph and Dot later resided in Lakeland, Florida and Virginia Beach, Virginia. Several years after Ralph's death, Dot moved to Raleigh in 2001, where she lived with her son, David.
At the time of her death, Dot was visiting her daughter, Carol in Memphis. Carol and her husband, Ron, away from home attending a "very important conference" at a posh Florida resort, rushed home 10 days later after learning of the death. Dot's other children, dutifully at their mother's side helping with the normal last minute arrangements - hospice notification, funeral parlor notice, revising the last will, etc. - happily picked up the considerable slack of the absent former heiress.Dot is warmly remembered as a generous, spiritually strong, resourceful, tolerant and smart woman, who was always ready to help and never judged others or their shortcomings. Dot always found time to knit sweaters, sew quilts and send written notes to the family children, all while working a full time job, volunteering as Girl Scout leader and donating considerable time to local charities and the neighborhood Catholic Church.
Dot graduated from Eastern High School at 15, worked in Baltimore full time from 1934 to 1979, beginning as a factory worker at Cross & Blackwell and retiring after 30 years as property manager and controller for a Baltimore conglomerate, Housing Engineering Company, all while raising four children, two of who are fairly normal.
An Irishwoman proud of and curious about her heritage, she was a voracious reader of historical novels, particularly those about the glories and trials of Ireland. Dot also loved to travel, her favorite destination being Eire's auld sod, where she dreamed of the magic, mystery and legend of the Emerald Isle.Dot Cully is survived by her sisters, Ginny Torrico in Virginia, Marian Lee in Florida and Eileen Adams in Baltimore; her brother, Russell Gibson of Fallston, Maryland; her children, Barbara Frost of Ocean City, Maryland, Carol Meroney of Memphis, Tennessee, David Cully of Raleigh, North Carolina and Stephen Cully of Baltimore, Maryland.
Contributions to the Wake County (NC) Hospice Services are welcomed.
Opinions about the details of this obit are not, since Mom would have liked it this way.
Posted by Eric at 9:15 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
July 6, 2005
One Dares Call It Treason.
Perhaps Eugene saw something other than the WaPo article to which he linked, but I am hard pressed to conclude from that article that there's treason here. (To be clear: one or more of the cases could develop into a treason case, but I don't think the WaPo article fairly permits us to conclude now that any of them is "real" "treason.")
Treason requires that a prosecutor prove that an alleged traitor committed an overt act born of an intent to betray the United States and lending aid and comfort to the enemy. The overt act must be substantiated by the testimony of two witnesses.
In the headline case, that of the Iranian-born filmmaker, the WaPo article reports that the filmmaker was apprehended in a taxi containing washing machine timers. Certainly not a great situation in which to be caught, but a "real" case of "treason?" The WaPo article doesn't really suggest anything about the filmmaker's intent, or whether he even knew the timers were in the taxi. (At one point the article implies the car was the filmmaker's; at another point it references a claim that car was a taxi that belonged to someone else.) If it develops that the timers belonged to the filmmaker, or that they were the taxi driver's but the filmmaker knew they were there and traveled in the taxi notwithstanding, then we might be in a position to surmise something about the filmmaker's intent. Right now, though, we really have no idea.
Another of the apprehended Americans, the article reports, is "suspected of high-level ties to Abu Musab Zarqawi." It's not "real" "treason" to have "ties" to somebody. It's "real" "treason" to commit an overt act of betrayal that gives aid and comfort to the enemy. Did this suspect commit such an act? Maybe ... but the WaPo article doesn't even hint at what it might be.
Of two of the others the article says only this: "One of the Iraqi-Americans allegedly had knowledge of planning for an attack and a second possibly was involved in a kidnapping." Each of these certainly could develop into a case of treason, but does the article supply enough to allow us to call them "real" cases of treason now? Hardly.
(Of the fifth case, the only information in the article is that the defendant was apprehended for "suspicious activity." Eugene couldn't have had that one in mind when he called these cases "the real thing.")
A charge of treason is serious business, and it has a precise legal definition. These guys sound like they are in some serious trouble. But can we now say that they are "traitors?" Nope.
UPDATE: The problems are basically the same, incidentally, if the government's theory is that one of these defendants "levied war" against the United States. The government would still need proof of an overt act of levying war by two witnesses, and an intent to betray. Maybe there's such a case against one or more of the defendants ... but it'd take a good deal more than the threadbare information in this WaPo story to sustain such a theory.
Posted by Eric at 9:39 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
July 5, 2005
I'm All Ears.
Michael phrased his request thusly: "Please enter a comment telling me something about who you are. If you don’t want to use your name out of modesty or fear of guilt by association, that’s fine — tell me where you live, and a little something something about your circumstances."
Sounds about right to me. Oh, and if you have any memory at all for how you got to IsThatLegal, that'd be interesting to know too.
Thanks, everyone.
(PS: If you are my longtime fantasy-woman Amanda Pays, please be sure to leave contact information!)
UPDATE: Thanks to all who've signed in thus far. Boy! Is this site a babe magnet, or what?
Posted by Eric at 8:45 PM | Comments (53) | TrackBack
July 4, 2005
American Pie
Posted by Eric at 12:50 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
July 3, 2005
Real Estate That's Smokin'!
If you visit their website, a distubing cyber character who looks a bit like Ricky Ricardo with a suntan will welcome you to the site. He claims to be "Paul Pope, General Manager of the American Tobacco Historic District." (After he's finished his spiel, move your cursor around and watch his eyes. See if you can hypnotize him, or make him cross-eyed.)
More disturbing, though, is the advertising pitch that ATHD is using to attract tenants to rental space in a converted cigarette factory:
"When you experience American Tobacco Historic District, you'll agree, it's simply breathtaking!"I guess this is what happens when your general manager is a cartoon character.
(Thanks, John, for the pointer!)
Posted by Eric at 4:40 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Holland Joins Fight For Freedom
Posted by Eric at 1:39 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
"What A Devastated Place..."
Posted by Eric at 12:39 PM | TrackBack
July 2, 2005
Liberate the Ragheads
I hesitate to begin drawing Big Conclusions based on two weeks of barracks chatter and PowerPoint presentations, but it does seem to me that there's a problem with the idea that American military power is the right tool for a pedagogy of liberation. We are partners in freedom with the fucking ragheads, teaching those sneaky little fuckers about the values of a constitutional republic. Something seems a little off, there.
Posted by Eric at 3:37 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack
Where They Were From.
Posted by Eric at 2:14 PM | TrackBack
A Flair for the Dramatic, Maybe?
To the Editor:I was making my way up Duffy's Hill between 103rd and 102nd Streets on Lexington Avenue when a familiar beep notified me that I had a new voice-mail message.
I held down the "1" button and listened as my roommate Martha's voice informed me of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation.
I thought to myself, "The world is ending," and I still had half the hill and four flights of stairs to go.
Now I sit in my apartment, surrounded by boxes, one wall half-painted, feeling somewhat paralyzed.
And here I thought the results of the past election had killed the last of my emotional connection with politics.
Eleanor: it'll be OK. Now find yourself an apartment on the ground floor.
Posted by Eric at 12:00 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
July 1, 2005
Right Is Center. Right?
So says even the Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union!
Yes, Justice O'Connor was often at the center of this Court.
But lost in all this situating of Justice O'Connor is any commentary at all about where on the historical continuum this Court is. To be near the center of a Court on the right does not make a judge "moderate."
Posted by Eric at 11:18 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
"Gets?"