cardigrl

Adam Lambert...

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:45:38 GMT

or since when does a kiss equate to sexual violence?

Adam Lambert has basically said he got carried away at this year's American Music Awards, but that if people were offended, that's because they're bigots.

Consider these quotes: "I admit I did get carried away, but I don't see anything wrong with it." . . . "If it had been a female pop performer doing the moves that were on the stage, I don't think there'd be nearly as much of an outrage at all. I think it's because I'm a gay male."

GLAAD has complained that any criticism of Lambert reinforces a double standard against gays, and uses as an example the kiss between Madonna and Britney Spears at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, which was controversial, but was also replayed, And, honestly, I'd be sympathetic to that argument except for two things: The MTV awards were on cable, specifically MTV, which is not exactly known as sedate. But the bigger issue for me is that Lambert did not just kiss a guy on stage. That would be entirely analogous and I suspect that, while some people would have complained, there would not be much of an uproar.

No, the issue is that, among other things, Lambert dressed his backup dancers in BDSM-like gear and forcibly pushed the head of another performer into his crotch and rubbed it in his crotch (although as I understand it, people on the west coast did not see that -- it was edited out). It is really more analogous to the Timberlake-Jackson Super Bowl furor, when Timberlake ripped off part of Jackson's clothing. And don't tell me that did not cause an uproar. Of course, I must confess that I have often disagreed with people about the Timberlake-Jackson issue. The two of them claimed it was just a wardrobe malfunction, and that Timberlake's ripping her clothes off was just supposed to reveal a lacy red bra, rather than her bare breast. But my question was and remains: WHY did they think it OK to be showing for titillation and supposed entertainment a white man ripping the clothing off a black woman to leave her in underwear?

The bottom line is that both Lambert's shoving a man's face into his crotch and rubbing it around, and Timberlake's ripping off Jackson's clothing were mimed acts of sexual violence, played out before children on major TV networks. Well, so maybe Lambert's wasn't was mimed; apparently he was getting some stimulation there. I cannot see why Lambert thinks that is OK. I cannot see why GLAAD thinks that is OK. And I am horrified that Lambert and GLAAD are perpetrating the stereotype of gays as people who equate sexual violence with a kiss.

Federal Criminals

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:28:21 GMT

The New York Times today has an article on how both sides of the political spectrum are challenging the increasing federalization of criminal law. It's an interesting read. But the bizarre thing about it is that it describes a revolt in legal circles against federalizing criminal law, traditionally the province of the states; yet the comments picked as Editor's Selections all rail against state drug laws. It makes me wonder if their own editors read the story. And it kind of confirms my increasing lack of respect for the editors of the NYT, given their sympathy for those irrelevantly whining in the comments that it was unfair they went to jail for state drug charges or California's three strikes state law (the problem with which -- and there most certainly is one -- is that is inappropriately applied). I mean, if they are going to whine, at least make it relevant to the topic of the article.

The whiny sense of over-entitlement in the comments reminds me of a guy who called my office the other day and said he was going to be all responsible now and clean up a warrant for an old drug charge (we're getting that a lot these days, and what it really means is he can't get a job now because the warrant turned up in a background check). When I told him that was no problem: he just either needed to come back to enter a plea and pay the fine, come back to contest the charge, or get a lawyer to do one of those for him, his response was to scream obscenities at me about how the state had an obligation to take care of it for him. He wanted me to pay his mileage to drive to court. The fact that I was agreeing not to charge the jerk with criminal failure to appear charges apparently escaped him.

Then there was the guy who drove through the state doing drugs and, when he got picked up, wanted us to transfer his case to an adjoining state, because it "wasn't fair that I have to drive all this way to come to court." Anyway...

The other somewhat strange thing about the article is its claim that nobody on the "right" has complained about this before now. Yet, I remember clearly in the years before his death, Chief Justice William Rehnquist -- constantly criticized for being too far to the right -- repeatedly warned in speeches that Congress was exceeding its grasp -- because it was criminalizing conduct that had never been illegal; because it was increasing the power of the federal government and usurping the ability of states to prosecute (a favorite topic of mine, as you know); and because it was increasing the complexity and breadth of the federal criminal laws without any concurrent increase in budgets for the federal district courts. As a result, putting aside the philosophical issues, the federal courts are overburdened and simply do not have the resources needed to handle the increase in caseload. And I clearly recall contemptuous dismissals of Rehnquist from the NYT and others when he gave those warnings.

Happy Birthday

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:50:31 GMT

Happy Birthday

venturous

Hope it was a great one!

Shoes!!

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:53:35 GMT

A link for Shiv, et al:

But not nearly enough pictures

The good and bad

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:40:50 GMT

So yesterday, Barack Obama and some of his cabinet and other administration officials met with representatives of all of the federally recognized tribes. By doing so, he followed through on a campaign pledge, and I hope he follows through on the specific proposals made yesterday by tribal representatives. This is a good step.

It's also an indication of why I was so annoyed yesterday. The New York Times, which has pretensions of being a national paper, yesterday ran several editorials on racism in America. They were from black professors and they once again talked of racism as a black-white issue. This while Obama and his representatives were discussing the institutional racism today directed at another group of people whom both the professors individually and the New York Times choose to ignore. That complete disregard is, of course, a profound demonstration of racism, a signal that "those people" are so insignificant and unimportant we don't even have to acknowledge their existence. So today, I went through my NYT email on the headlines of the day and saw....hmmmm....one small editorial mentioning the conference yesterday. Not one single news article. Well, I thought, let's be fair; there was some pretty nasty, big headlines out of yesterday's news. Maybe it's on the news pages and just didn't make it into the headline email.

So I went through the paper and found......not a single news article on an all-day meeting involving Obama and cabinet members. I though...maybe I'm just not looking in the right spot. So I searched their tag for "Indians, American" and found...not a single news article. Their one link under "news articles" was to their short comment on their editorial page. The next article they had under that tag was an article from October 11, 2009, about the people who died in Arizona in a meeting "based somewhat loosely around Native American traditions" (in the words of the article). Apparently, that in the NYT eyes made it a news article on "Indians, American". ~sigh~

But as to the Administration: good job. Now let's see some action.

More Ramblings

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:27:19 GMT

OK, first off, to the nuts who suggested a contest for burning Pelosi and Harry Reid in effigy: This? This is not cool, guys. There's so many ways to say this is not appropriate, so I'll stick with one. For those who say (as some do) that the Bible tells us to chastise those who have fallen from God: I'm pretty sure I know the passage you are talking about. And it does not in any way encourage real (OR MOCK) violence. So no, not cool. Stop it. You are making Christians look stupid.

And speaking of stupid, what's with the boot licking from the newish NEA head ? You know, where he spewed the elitist bullshit that, among other things, it was shocking! shocking! to find that there are artists in Oklahoma and the fantasy that: This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists.

I don't know what's worse: that he engaged in the most blatant boot licking I've seen in a long time, or that he is such a moron when it comes to history, especially knowledge of his own country. I mean, there's three completely ignorant statements in that quoted excerpt, and his entire posting is rife with them. Is that the best artists can do? Come on, guys. I know plenty of smart, competent artists out there. Why do you put up with this being your public face to the country?

Then we have Alan Grayson. Well, what can you say about this guy? He's obviously got a few screws loose. But what struck me was that not only does he have all the ego and cluelessness of a first-term Congressman, he's apparently incompetent in hiring staff. See, what really makes a politician successful is that they hire smart, tactful people to follow around and clean up after them, as well as taking care of constituents. But this guy? Check out how his spokesman (no, not a random staffer----his spokesman) defended Grayson's calling a woman a K Street Whore: She had the audacity to attack a Congressman who used to be an economist. After all, OH MY GOD, HOW DARE SHE NOT SUCK UP TO EVERY DEMOCRAT IN CONGRESS??????? Does anyone else see the irony that she was accused of sucking people because she had the audacity NOT to do it to Grayson? ;-)

And speaking of politicians and what they really think of the public, check out this picture of Harry Reid giving us the finger. America has really sunk low with these bozos.

Totally unable to resist memes

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:04:58 GMT

But all I can say is ohh......kay...... ;-)

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You are the World

Completion, Good Reward.

The World is the final card of the Major Arcana, and as such represents saturnian energies, time, and completion.

The World card pictures a dancer in a Yoni (sometimes made of laurel leaves). The Yoni symbolizes the great Mother, the cervix through which everything is born, and also the doorway to the next life after death. It is indicative of a complete circle. Everything is finally coming together, successfully and at last. You will get that Ph.D. you've been working for years to complete, graduate at long last, marry after a long engagement, or finish that huge project. This card is not for little ends, but for big ones, important ones, ones that come with well earned cheers and acknowledgements. Your hard work, knowledge, wisdom, patience, etc, will absolutely pay-off; you've done everything right.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Holidays

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:22:45 GMT

Happy Native American Day, guys! I believe we are (still) the only state marking the second Tuesday in October as such. As I did last year, I urge those of you who live in less enlightened places to contact your legislators and media to propose the change.

Just for Beth

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:35:03 GMT

Congrats to the Yankees on a good game.....drat it! ;-)

Taxes

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:15:10 GMT

Everyone remember how Obama promised over and over again that NO taxes would go up on anyone making under 250K a year? That would include me, and yet.....

Today, I received a notice that for at least the next 3 quarters, I have to pay an additional 1.5 percent tax on my secretary's gross wages not because **I've** fired anyone, but because the government's Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund balance has become so depleted.

All that Hope and Change is really working out well, innit?

Streetwalking Lawyers

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:34:53 GMT

Still not much luck on embedding. But check out this link to

The Streetwalking Lawyers Of Aurora Avenue - Almost Live

Embedding video

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:28:15 GMT

I'm practicing on dreamwidth to see if I can embed video and cross post. And this seemed a funny one to use as a test: Jack Webb v Roman Polanski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIZ_wEXiAoc ETA: OK, that was a disaster. Maybe with these modifications? No, not that either. Try again? No, not that either. I give up. I've searched the FAQs on both dreamwidth and LJ. Of course, I couldn't find anything useful. Anyone care to tell me how to do this? ~meek smile~

For the Brits and law geeks amongst us...

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:55:23 GMT

Or, what it means sometimes when criminal lawyers say location, location, location.

I've been hearing on the news podcasts a fair amount of chatter about people in Britain carrying knives and how inappropriate the authorities find that fact. Yesterday, I was also researching for a brief on a vehicle search and ran across this court opinion from a few years ago, which I offer for your amusement:

from U.S. v. In the Woods, 2005 SD 3

[¶18] The fact that the defendant had something in his hand and put it in his pocket is not evidence of any threat. In fact, it is evidence to the contrary. If the defendant had some dangerous weapon and intended to use it, he would not have put it in his pocket. It is also clear that he had the legal right to carry a knife in his pocket or in his hand. There is no evidence that would come within Section 3-4-98 of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Law and Order Code (government exhibit 2). There was no evidence that at the time he had the knife in the street that he had any intent to unlawfully assault someone. In fact, the evidence at best would be that he had no such intent. Whatever he had in his hand, he had placed in his pocket. The court takes judicial notice of certain well-known facts. Many thousands of people in South Dakota routinely carry knives in their pockets. Every hunter of deer, antelope, pheasants, grouse, rabbits, and other wild game carries a knife. Every person going fishing carries a knife. It is frankly outrageous that a citizen in South Dakota walking down the street with a knife in his pocket can be stopped, required to raise his hands on his head, be handcuffed, searched, and then hauled away to the police station. This is not some activity that is taking place in a metropolitan area. This is rural South Dakota. Even assuming the search of defendant’s person was a legal search, finding the knife provided no probable cause whatsoever to arrest the defendant. Finding a small knife in the pocket of a South Dakotan is about as indicative of criminal activity as someone wearing a seed corn cap.

ETA: FWIW, I routinely carry a Leatherman in my briefcase. I shudder now to think what might have happened, but shortly after September 11, 2001, I flew to NYC (with a change a plane and 2 trips through security) with nobody noticing that I had forgotten to remove it before the trip.

Stupidity or selfishness?

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 16:12:07 GMT

Please forgive the rant, but sometimes a person just has to, you know?

The National Weather Service has Red Flag Warnings out. For those who don't know, that means conditions are ideal for wildland fire ignition and "explosive fire growth potential". We've got warm weather, high winds, and extremely low humidity. So.....I'm driving along the interstate yesterday and what do I see? Some creep from New York throwing a cigarette out the window of his car. I bet that moron has never had to fight a fire in his life. Do you suppose he would even care about the fire that burned tens of thousands of acres a few years ago and cost big bucks to fight, all started by some tourist who threw a ciggie out the window? If they hate the smell of tobacco so much that they can't have it tainting the smell of their precious cars, then why are they smoking it?

Chocolate Sings

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:00:45 GMT

Ran across a cutesy, and very short, story today. Hard to argue with the last line: Remember that while money talks, CHOCOLATE SINGS

A Blast from the Past

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 03:56:26 GMT

I invite you to view

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGKkPEvD2OM

It's a report from Walter Cronkite and Daniel Schorr on the national health insurance program Richard Nixon proposed in 1971, as a compromise to the Democratic proposal for a single-payer system. Among other things, under the Nixon plan, employers would have been required to provide health insurance for employees; the poor would have received government aid to purchase insurance; medicare premiums would have been dropped for certain individuals; and the self-employed would have had access to group plans, so insurance would have been affordable group coverage rather than the extremely expensive single policies.

With the help of unions, Teddy Kennedy killed it because he was absolutely certain he would be able to get single-payer coverage passed real soon. The Kennedy plan would have covered approximately 70 percent of an individual's health costs, at the cost to the federal government of billions. Keep in mind, that was billions in 1971 dollars.

Really worked out well there, didn't it?

Life is good

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 02:08:36 GMT

In Duluth at the moment. This is such a great town. There was a blues festival this weekend, and then a 2 1/2 day work-related seminar, and it's a good one, too!

It was a bit amusing yesterday. We had people from the surrounding states sitting at the table, and we started talking about our trips here. One person said she lasted about an hour on the drive up from Minneapolis before her back started itching between her shoulder blades. The Minnesotans were puzzled, but everyone from west nodded in agreement. We all understood exactly; there are so many trees surrounding the interstate that it's impossible to see where you're going, even. And yeah, it took about an hour before it started to feel oppressive. It was a huge relief to get to Duluth and have some horizon visible over Lake Superior. Funny how much a person's environment becomes part of them without their even noticing.

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:53:58 GMT

Happy Birthday,

alisanne

Hope you enjoy every minute of it!

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:33:45 GMT

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee yesterday approved a resolution apologizing to Native Americans for years of "depredations and ill-conceived policies by the federal government." They did that last year, too, but it died in the House. We'll see what happens this year.

The thing is, they can apologize all they want, but it would be better if they did something about it. I could not say it better than the following excerpt from the article:

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who has advocated more help for Indians, said he'd probably vote for the resolution if it came before the Senate. But he thinks tribes need immediate help in the form of more police officers and other services to combat recent crime waves.

"I do think that the focus of our efforts ought to be on (steps) that will really have an impact on the quality of life for people on our reservations, which is deteriorating rapidly in some areas because of these public safety issues," he said.

Obama and Eric Holder -- the ones responsible for the services -- were, of course, silent on the issue. As usual. And BTW, this is not a partisan issue. We never heard that much from the Bush Administration, either. OTOH, the Bush Administration did not go around lecturing us on how they were all enlightened so they could lecture everybody else about how terrible everyone else was about racism.

It is discouraging to read the comments to the linked article. The vast majority of them are nothing short of disgraceful. But good on Thune for standing up to those blowhards and pointing out that the feds should be doing something positive rather than just talking about it.

Happy Birthday!

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:30:41 GMT

Happy Birthday to The Woman Totally Made of Awesome, a/k/a

bethbethbeth

Hope it was a great one!

And following up on yesterday's post...

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:08:17 GMT

Eric Holder, our Attorney General, was interviewed by ABC news the other day. He spoke about race relations in America, once again strictly in terms of blacks and whites. Note this is the head of the US Justice Department. As such, he is the one who is in charge of those feds who refuse to investigate and effectively prosecute violent crimes against Native American women. Note also that he instead talked about Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s being asked for ID and the fact that Holder had his car searched when he was in college years ago. Now, it's not that I think profiling does not happen, as I noted in an earlier post. It's that people like Holder are guilty of the most heinous racism by failing to acknowledge even the existence of the people they are charged by law to protect, all the while those people are physically brutalized. If he wants this country to have an honest discussion about race, as he claims, why is he not talking about that?

Within the past few months, I had a woman talk to me about her job as a nurse in a local hospital and her concerns. She told me about a few young women who have had the courage to go to the hospital after being raped. If you don't know, men will cut out the back of the girl's jeans after they rape her, so that if she goes to the hospital she is further shamed by having everyone near and in the hospital know just what happened. I do know of a case in which a few male relatives, fed up with it all, beat up their relative's rapist. You will be happy to know, I'm sure, that the feds DID pull out all the stops to prosecute those men, including arranging to quash a drug-dealing warrant out against the rapist (and which was the impetus for his hiding out on the rez to start with). so that he could testify at the men's trial without being worried about being arrested himself.

But Eric Holder is more concerned about a rich Harvard professor. Where's the hope and change? Obviously, it's not for women.

News follies...

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:54:02 GMT

or why focus on the substantive stuff when we can pointlessly insult each other.

Let's start with this piece in Media Matters, on how Sean Hannity, the clueless right-wing "news" host took out of context old comments from Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s 1994 interview on C-SPAN's Booknotes. He did so in an attempt to make Gates out to be a radical racist. Why do I say this is pointless? First, Hannity is an idiot, the people who would believe his shtick already think that, and nobody else is going to fall for it. Second, because the rest of us should be spending our time on things that matter, rather than muttering together that Hannity is a racist who is dishonest, a clueless idiot, or both. Where's the news in that?

Then we have Maxine Waters' blaming the fact that they have not yet passed health care reform on Rahm Emanuel . How does that work, you ask? Well, if he had not done such a good job getting moderate Democrats to run for Congress so that they regained their majority, all the liberals would have already voted for it. Apparently, she does not get it that liberal Democrats would not have won in all those districts. ~sigh~

As to the Dems who are in Congress, what's with them? Harry Reid said he wasn't going to say whether he favored a public plan for health care. Because, you know, it's not like he's in a leadership position or anything. Or perhaps the Democratic Caucus has a different definition of leadership? As in, never commit to anything so you can blame everybody else if it goes south?

And on the economic front... Does anyone know if there's any truth in the AP's claim that the jobs created by the stimulus bill (remember, the one that cost trillions?) lasted an average of 35 hours each, after which the people are again unemployed?

And on the racism front.... Yes, I know this will annoy some people, but if we want to talk about racism, can we stop talking about whether Gates got offended for being asked for ID and talk about things like the way the federal government denies equal protection to millions of Native women by stripping tribes and states of any ability to effectively prosecute assaults against them and then refusing to do it themselves? See this brief for a summary of how that has occurred. Sorry, but I am getting really tired of people talking about race in America as a black/white issue, when it is much broader than that. And I'm sick and tired of the way that I (and the state-side LEOs I work with) would dearly love to go after some of these rapists and assailants, but have to stand by and watch the feds ignore it. I actually had a case where I pushed the US Attorney's office to go after a rapist, and the AUSA finally sneered that if the rapist's latest victim wanted to drive to his office (a 160 mile round trip), he'd round somebody up to talk to her. Because, you know, it was too much to ask FBI Agents to drive to the rez to investigate a crime against a woman after they pushed through the laws that said nobody else could do it.

Another Nu!Trek Rec

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 02:28:38 GMT

This time for Miscommunication by salr323 (PG; Spock/Uhura). Pride and Prejudice meets the Star Trek universe when Spock and Uhura each form an initial dislike for the other when they meet at the Star Fleet Academy. Filled with missed cues, misunderstandings, and extremely intelligent, but oh-so-young, adults who have not yet grown into their potential and learned to appreciate cultural differences. Well done and with a happy ending. Complete (the last chapter posted yesterday).

Racial profiling and talking without the facts

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:01:56 GMT

First, anyone who claims that police don't do racial profiling is dreaming. And yes, believe it or not, I have seen that stated recently.

Second, one of the things I learned very, very quickly when I became involved in the criminal justice system was to be leery of accepting at face value any one side of events, no matter how much it fits with my personal beliefs. Some years ago, a newspaper with wide circulation in my state published an "investigative report" on racial discrimination by the police. I have never questioned (and have in fact argued in support of the argument) that the court system has a significant disparate impact on people of different races. In fact, there is an bias built in specifically based on a person's race by law in some instances.

But the example given in that newspaper as proof of racial bias....was that a Native American man was driving down the street and was stopped, hassled and arrested despite having no moving violations. Sounds damning, no? Only thing is....I knew the people involved. What I heard was this: The man arrested had appeared in court the day before the incident on a DWI charge, plead guilty, and had his driver's license revoked by the judge on the DWI. And the cop who arrested him for driving the next day? Just happened to have been in the courtroom when the judge revoked the man's license. And you know what? Given the people and the size of the community involved, that's entirely believable. I also heard that the newspaper never bothered to contact the cops or the clerk of court to inquire about the facts.

The point of this is that any lawyer -- including our illustrious president -- should know that you need to hear more than one side before making public statements regarding an arrest. And so, before taking at face value the statements from Obama or anyone else about complaints regarding the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., I invite you to look at the police report. Having read many reports over the years, i suspect it's a bit sanitized. But it's interesting reading. And people might also want to consider that police, upon receiving an eyewitness report of a burglary in progress and if they are going to do a thorough and professional job, will investigate who else is in the home. They will also attempt to speak to the homeowner outside the home to verify that there's not somebody with a gun hanging out behind him after having told him to do whatever is necessary to get rid of the cop. Because....you know...people of color are often crime victims, and cops have a duty to protect and serve people, including people who are rude to them. Just food for thought.

Fic Recs

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:41:23 GMT

Two Nu!Trek story recs, the first of which is heartily recommended for all fandom.

Reading Against/Reading Wth: Mastering the Oppositional Discourse in Textual Healing by emeraldwoman is a wonderful parody of literary criticism. If you haven't seen this recced anywhere else yet, you will. Caution for explicit language and description of homosexual intercourse / threesome. A small sample:

Uhura stretched. "Hmm. Tell you what, Spock. Let's see if we can create an Outsider narrative unbounded by paradigmatic expectations."

"Affirmative," Spock said, and started taking off his jacket.

The second one, on spock_uhura, You Better Run Girl! by recumbentgoat. From the author's header:

Character/Pairing: McCoy, Spock/Uhura, Kirk, some redshirts
Rating: PG? For swearing right now. Though there's sure to be sexins and violence later on.
Summary: A landing party beams down to a planet that hasn’t been visited in over 20 years. There are mysterious lifeform readings and an outpost once established there has been long abandoned under suspicious circumstances. All is proceeding fairly normally until Spock goes missing.

It's got action, plot and suspense. Not to give too much away (I hope!), but Snupineers might enjoy part of the premise. Caution for WIP.