The Moral Majority vs. The Secret Service; Or, Pots vs. Kettles

Let me perfectly clear:

Hanging around with hookers really is a bad idea. It is epidemiologically perilous. It is socially unacceptable. And when you’re caught at it, it’s embarrassing.

(To some, simply the idea that you utilized a hooker is the embarrassing part. To others, it’s the fact that you couldn’t score without hundred dollar bills.)

Moreover, to recast something Benjamin Franklin said in a slightly different setting, “The pleasure is fleeting, the position ridiculous and the expense damnable.”

Lets consider a target group of poor schmucks who might get caught with hookers. This group I’m thinking of has several unique characteristics:

• They have 20/20 (or better) vision.
  


• They have unusually acute hearing.
  


• They have unusually quick reflexes.
  


• They are unusually intelligent.
  


• All have college degrees and most have advanced degrees.
  


• They maintain themselves at a level of fitness equivalent to front line military people.
  


• They maintain a high skill level by constant training in a number of specialities, including weapons, tactics, explosives, abnormal psychology and forensic science.
  


• They travel very frequently and put in work hours far in excess of average American workers.
  


• In the face of a lethal threat, they square up their bodies toward the threat source so that their bodies are protective barriers between the danger and what or who they are protecting.
  

Clearly, when people from that group get caught with hookers, they have to be involuntarily retired or fired.

How’s that again?

The President of the United States is so angry he’s having a hissy fit. Congress-folk, inhabitants of the fanciest marble whorehouse on Earth, are apoplectic. Every perfect human being with a keyboard is having an attack of the vapors because some of the lads in the Secret Service played “geographic bachelor,” and acted like nitwits with some “ladies of the evening. And any suggestion by anyone that the agents shouldn’t be condemned, castrated and burned at the stake is derided as a personal affront to motherhood, fatherhood, Chevrolet automobiles, Old Glory and Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.

We’re on the front row at a Kiss concert and the music playing is unbridled sanctimony.

Okay, let’s do a little experiment: I now want the reader to think of the most blatant time that he or she has taken a little walk on the wild side, the time that you would have been most appalled for your mother to have walked into the room.

Got it fixed in your mind? No, no, no, I don’t want to hear about it. Neither does anyone else.

No, really – No “I was just a kid,” no “I was a sinner but now I’m found,” just remember what you did.

Were you burned at the stake?

If not, will you please go get the firewood and get on with it?

We’re waiting.

The whole agents-in-Columbia “scandal” [a scandal is when somebody else gets caught doing something that you didn’t get caught doing] is just another verse in the old tune, “You’re Bad, So I’m Superior.” Slobbering all over the TV and panting at the wickedness is a dandy way for the beer-swilling, couch-reclining, 9 - 5, don’t-move-a-muscle-to-help-other-people folks can feel all warm and fuzzy about their moral mastery over the uppity snobs who inevitably “get what’s coming to them.”

Oh, my. I’m endorsing immorality. Well, not really. In my mythical administration, the “boys” would have a trip to the woodshed and become the permanent-until-they’ve-suffered-enough midnight & all-holidays crew.

But to fire them? That might be a sop to moralistic myopia, but it’s WRONG and it’s STUPID. Oh, and it’s gutless. When will we ever have leaders with the guts to say, “Hey, guys, I’m not going to do the wrong thing just to look good for CNN and Fox”?

Can we accept that it’s the human race and not the Vulcan Federation?

Addendum: One of the Congressional luminaries leading the charge - and forecasting a need to fly to Colombia and "investigate" - is Rep. Peter King of New York. Never heard of him? He's traveled often to Ireland to publicly support the Provisional Irish Republican Army and friends in the misunderstood Sinn Fein. At least those guys don't hang out with hookers, they just kill people. Unbelievable.

Seems to me that I remember something about casting the first stone. I need to look that up.

R

"They Didn't Read Me My Rights!"

“… And not only that, the police didn’t read me my rights!”

My goodness, how may times have I heard that from clients charged with some criminal matter?

When I first heard it, I must confess I took it seriously. Fortunately, that phase didn’t last long. Although it’s always a relatively minor issue to address, the notion quickly passed into the realm of mere noise. After a few years, we reached the “joke” status. And today? What I think when I hear it is, “For heaven’s sake, quit whining.”

Here is a surprise. It means very little to a case if the police do not read the defendant his or her rights.

Somehow, folks have come to believe falsely if the police don’t do the read-‘em-their-rites ceremony, Jesus will wither them like the fig tree. Mohammed will smite them, and Vishnu ... ? Well, Vishnu will do that thing he does, and let me tell you, it’s not pleasant.

Oh, and they just know that the whole case has to be dismissed because their rights were violated.

It just isn’t so.

Ever since Joe Friday arrested someone weekly on Dragnet, we frequently have heard the mantra:

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a Court of Law. You have the right to the presence of an attorney. If you desire an attorney and cannot afford one, one will be appointed for you without cost. Amen.”

This advice is consistent with the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case Miranda vs. Arizona. At the time of the Miranda decision, public reaction was decidedly negative. It was seen as an intrusion on the work of the police and an exaltation of the rights of criminals over the truth.

Nevertheless, 45 years later, the Miranda warnings are a constant of police procedure. Prior to making statements which are admitted in court, citizens now have the opportunity to know that they have a right under the United States Constitution to keep quiet.

Very few of them make use of that right, because most persons arrested cannot resist the temptation to babble incessantly. But they have the right, and if they don’t use it, usually they have only themselves to blame.

But – the Miranda case does not say that the police have to read defendants their rights. Nowhere does it suggest that if the police don’t read a defendant his rights, the defendant gets a get-out-of-jail-free card.

What the Miranda decision says is that before a statement made made by a defendant during interrogation while he is in custody can be trotted out in court, the state or government has to show that the defendant had his or her rights explained to them. That’s all.

(I’m sticking with the masculine gender with my pronouns because, for the present, that gender dominates the criminal dockets.)

Fairly rarely, the Miranda rule results in a statement or even a confession excluded from the evidence. Far more common, however, is the exclusion of statements made when a defendant is so whacked out of his mind on drugs or alcohol that he’s making no sense or where there is some circumstance present which makes the voluntariness of the statement suspect.

If the voluntariness of a statement is suspect, that is not a “technicality.” That strikes directly at the trustworthiness of the statement.

Even when a statement excluded because of a Miranda violation is excluded, there are still limitations that can get it into the back door in Court. If the defendant confesses and that’s excluded because the defendant was not “Mirandized,” and the defendant then testifies and denies the crime, the statement comes in as impeachment. If the defendant makes a statement about his actions and the actions of someone else, there are circumstances where the statement about the other person will be heard by a jury.

So to my criminal clients: Please quit telling me that defending you will be easy because the police didn’t read you your rights. You are boring me silly.

Marketing Trayvon & George; Don't Get Confused by Facts

Riveting. Captivating. Life changing.

Not only are we told to focus our attention on the “justice system” in the state of Florida, we are conveniently provided instructions on what to think and how deeply we must care.

We have been treated to an abundance of experts were telling us and showing us with charts and models what the evidence shows and what inevitable conclusions we must draw. There is an unusually active interest in a potential prosecution – change.org has collected something over 1 million signatures demanding that George be charged with some sort of criminal homicide. Trayvon’s family “wants justice.”

That’s okay, everybody wants justice. Justice is defined by the public voices fairly simply: Arrest George.

The citizens rally in several cities. Mostly, the cry is “Arrest George.”

The Symphony of Marketeers also includes many who sound out the harmonics of some related issues, mostly about firearms, self-defense, and Florida’s so-called “stand your ground” statute. Others are playing instruments of racial profiling and stereotyping.

Those with “connections” to the case are leaking information strategically, information selected to support their self-interest.

At this point, this public nattering is so much hot air and silly talk talk.

So far, this national discussion has been worse than useless. There are times to be passionate and strident. Barry Goldwater was right – Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

In the pursuit of justice.

In the pursuit of justice.

But we have two independent problems here.

First, we know damn all little about the facts of the case.

Second, in bloviating from ignorance, those seeking what they have already decided is justice may feel all self-righteous, warm and fuzzy. They may believe that they are accomplishing something. But they are doing nothing – as most of us are doing nothing – to address any one of the issues which led to this shooting or any other genuine issue of justice.


Ignorance:

There’s nothing inherently wrong with ignorance. Let me be the first to say that I possess a great deal of ignorance about this shooting in Florida. The information I have comes third- and fourth- hand, filtered through sources who have all sorts of axes to grind and motives to ginger up the data.

Ignorance just means lack of knowledge.

Hell, I lack knowledge about a lot of things. For someone charged with a crime, hopefully I have enough information and can obtain further information to give meaningful advice. For someone wanting to do a leveraged buyout, it would be prohibitively time consuming for me to acquire sufficient information to make any sense at all. I’m just going to remain ignorant.

So, who has sufficient knowledge about Treyvon and George?

Well, you and I know that some basic facts are very likely true, but only because several official sources have agreed upon them. Trayvon was not armed. George was carrying a pistol. George called 911, and we have heard some snippets of the call. George shot and killed Trayvon.

That’s about all we know. The rest of what we’re hearing on the idiot box and reading in the press is from journalists and talking heads who are using the onageristic estimation method.

(An onager is a wild ass.)

The people who know the most (and most accurate) of what can be known about the entire affair are the investigating officers. Assuming there is normal communication between the police and prosecutor, the special prosecutor should also be up to speed.

Side note: I was interested to read about the political brouhaha special prosecutor Angela Corey survived to be elected Dade County District Attorney. She had just been fired by an old acquaintance of mine, Harry Shorstein. I met Harry in an insurance company liquidation case about 25 years ago.

I’m sure that George’s attorney would be quick to point out that George is the only survivor of the encounter so he is the one who has the most information. Well, there are a couple of problems with that. The obvious one is that he has a whole lot of self-interest in painting this very clearly as self-defense. That has absolutely nothing to do one way or another with whether it was self-defense. Because that position is self-serving, nobody’s going to take it on faith. Nor, for that matter, should they.

But the second problem is that with the absolute best of intentions, George may not be able to relate an absolutely accurate account of what happened. He shot and killed a guy. To pull and discharge a weapon at another human being requires that one believe (right or wrong) that they are doing something necessary, that they are in a lethal encounter. The “body alarm reaction” kicks in, floods the body with adrenaline, and otherwise prepares the person for “fight or flight.” Research done by proponents of self-defense shows that the “body alarm reaction” inhibits perception, memory and judgment.

It is also contrary to accurate analysis of what few facts are available that many of the experts are simply self-aggrandizing peacocks riding the gravy train. In doing so, they are ignoring logical boundaries. I caught an interview where some “activist” of one sort or another was saying that although a video of George was poorly focused, taken from a distance and from a bad angle, she could see that he did not have blood on his face and therefore there could not be self-defense.

How’s that again?

I have yet to hear a discussion where any hypothetical situations are set forth, that is, where anybody will concede that different conclusions will naturally flow from different factual findings. “If the facts are A, B and C, then conclusions of X and Y are warranted. However, if the facts are A, B and D, then the conclusions should be X and Z.”

It is simply does not follow that George must be charged because he shot someone. Police don’t do that. Prosecutors don’t do that.

There are three kinds of homicide: Justifiable homicide is, well, justified. Excusable homicide occurs where it was just one of those darn things, an accident. Criminal homicide occurs where there is a criminal intent.

For a prosecutor to take the case to the grand jury, she must believe that she has evidence upon which a jury can believe that what happened was criminal homicide. If it was justifiable or excusable, a decent prosecutor will have the guts to buck any public pressure to charge the shooter.

There are often shootings where the investigation is short, sweet and the conclusion obvious. I have in mind a video documenting a shooting at a robbery in Oklahoma City. Three youth robbed a pharmacy. They were armed. The pharmacist pulled a pistol and shot one of the youth. Had the event had ended there, the pharmacist never would have been arrested, and no prosecutor ever would have taken the case to the grand jury. (However, the pharmacist then reloaded and killed a robber who was already down and out of the fight. The pharmacist was charged and convicted of murder.)

Useless self-righteousness:

Our justice system is failing big-time, but it’s not because nobody has arrested George. Yet. Our justice system is failing because the number of young people entering it is staggering, the resources devoted to diverting them from unlawful activity in the first place are nearly nonexistent and the resources devoted to rehabilitating them after they are convicted are downright niggardly.

Oops, I think I’m hearing noise about spending money to rehabilitate criminals.

Fine, put them in the penitentiaries where the gangs run the prison and then at the end of the sentence return them to the streets with the gang identity or the self-identification as a criminal plus the drug addiction intact. Yes, that’s real smart.

We don’t guide or save these young people en masse. We can’t do that. There’s no grant program, no cookie-cutter class by which young people are going to see the wisdom of lawful behavior.

Most of these kids have had parenting of such a unbelievably low quality that it was worse than nothing. Had they been raised by wolves, at least we’d have a blank slate to work with. The young people who clog the justice system today do not know how to act like hard-working and responsible people because they have seen precious few models of hard-working and responsible people. Our commercial society has contributed to widespread laziness and lack of respect.

Was Trayvon like that? I have no idea.

Is George like that? I have no idea.

Oh, how terribly droll, what an awful elitist thing to suggest, that we should stifle our children’s creativity and force them to conform rather than running the streets or spending hours upon hours sitting on their asses playing video games! Honestly, it makes me sick that adults are too stupid, too lazy, and too scared ever to tell a young person what they’re thinking and ever to listen than to what the young person says.

But, oh, if we go to a rally and listen to Al Sharpton, the do-nothing mouth of the Democratic Party, or if we can go online and sign the petition with a bold “click”, we have taken strong action and we are part of the solution! We can feel good about ourselves! And if people disagree with us, we can even feel victimized.

And then, we have done our part. The mere details – educating youth, getting off our own asses and spending time with youth, addressing rampant drug addiction – well, the other guys can figure that stuff out, we’ve done the hard part just by caring so much.


Discussion, yes; Ignorance, no

This is not to say that the Florida situation and lots and lots of other violent confrontations before and after that event should not spark some discussion.

Discussion means actually giving thought to something and exchanging ideas. Parroting the slogans and mental flotsam of self-identified experts is more ritual than discussion.

There’s a good bit of misunderstanding of Florida’s “stand your ground” wall. It is not an “open season for gunslingers” law.

Tell you what - we’re going to do something really wild here, something that the press hasn’t gotten around to. Rather than just talking ABOUT the “stand your ground” statute, let’s just print the damn thing:

§776.013 Home protection; use of deadly force; presumption of fear of death or great bodily harm.—

(1) A person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another if:

(a) The person against whom the defensive force was used was in the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or had unlawfully and forcibly entered, a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle, or if that person had removed or was attempting to remove another against that person’s will from the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle; and

(b) The person who uses defensive force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act was occurring or had occurred.

***

(3) A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

(4) A person who unlawfully and by force enters or attempts to enter a person’s dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle is presumed to be doing so with the intent to commit an unlawful act involving force or violence.

***

(I’ve omitted what I consider irrelevant parts. Feel free to Google it and disagree.)

The effect (and purpose) of the “stand your ground” part was to codify the fact that it is not always a better choice to retreat from a confrontation. Legislators in Florida concluded that there might be some judges or juries dumb enough not to know that already.

That being said, as a very general rule, retreating from a fight to avoid the fight is most often the wise choice. In fact, in the literature and courses for people who choose to carry firearms, this habit of retreating is very clearly emphasized and encouraged.

Those students are told that it is much better to ignore an insult or throw a $20 bill at the kids hassling you and tell them go get a case on you or simply to walk away from an aggressive idiot than it is to pull a firearm. On some occasions, though, a particularly aggressive foe will take advantage of an attempt to retreat.

When one pulls a firearm, you are introducing lethal force into the mix. Anyone who is anxious to do that should not carry a firearm.

How does that general rule apply to Trayvon and George? We don’t know. We don’t know the facts.

I know that people out there are saying, oh, yes, we know all we need to know, and the answer is thus and so. Listen to me. Are you listening? You folks who “know” the facts are deluding yourselves. You are part of the problem.

Another rather obvious generality: Seeking out a confrontation is dumb. Police officers are the only ones who have a duty to go TO a fight.

Very little good can come of going toward a violent confrontation. Almost never will you bring the other person around to your point of view. Almost never will you “win” an argument. You may “win” a violent encounter but in doing so you put yourself at potential legal risk and also put yourself at the risk of having violence visited upon you.

I’ve talked to people right after they have justifiably injured or killed someone. Even for police officers, it didn’t “make their day.” It is a moral crisis for them.

How does all this apply to Trayvon and George? Was this a confrontation what was created by dumb decisions? That may be a closer call, but we still don’t know. We still don’t know the facts.

Consultant fees will be paid – and supermarket tabloids will trumpet all-seeing, all-knowing bullshit headlines and people will march and blowhard politicians will gnash teeth and rend garments. And all of the people who are working for justice, one person at a time, one kid at a time, will keep on working.

Mizpah!


Note: “Mizpah” is the signature sign-off of my friend, brother and writing mentor Oce Smith. He has given me permission to use it.

Sluts & Putz: Thank You, Rush Limbaugh!

A five point reprise of the week’s news:

1 - A law student testified at Congress in favor of the notion that contraception should be covered by insurance.

2 - Ever sharp Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show that makes her a slut since she now wants to be paid to have sex.

3 - Rush received a lot of negative feedback, mostly focusing on the personal attack on a non-public figure.

4 - Rush issued a sort of apology, saying that his point was right, that he often uses absurdity to make his points, but that his word choice was wrong.

5 - Several advertisers have pulled their ads from the Rush Limbaugh Radio Show.

Hey, what’s the buzz? Can’t you see that Rush Limbaugh has done a great service to the First Amendment (for a change)?

Mind you, I doubt that he really intended to perform such a service, but he did it anyway. Rush went so far overboard, so far into hostility and disrespect that even his buds are saying, Jeez, Rush, you really acted like a horse’s ass this time.

Now there is a fine distinction there. Note that I say “acted like.” This is the whole what-do-you-hate thing, the wrong or the wrongdoer. Recall that MADD originally stood for Mothers Against Drunk DrivERS. At some point, the organization decided that the focus should be on the wrongful act, so now it’s Mothers Against Drunk DrivING.

Rush has caught hell from “the Left,” and that’s nothing new.

But ... The Center! The “Silent Majority.” Responsible people who don’t huff, puff and blow people’s houses down with rhetorical wind! THEY have weighed in, and some have done so wielding the power of the purse.

About damn time. About time “normal people” have some guts to call mouthy blowhards on silly bloviating.

Our national discourse is swirling down the toilet. More and more, it is unacceptable to disagree by saying “So-and-so’s opinions sure could be better, and here’s why: ...” It’s unacceptable even to opine that “So-and-so is just flat-ass wrong, and here’s why: ...” The modern mode is to conclude and proclaim that So-and-so is Stupid and Evil.

That’s where we get idiotic bushwah like the suggestion that Obama sponsored the One Trillion Dollar Stimulus because he is a Muslim who wants to destroy America. Or that Rick Santorum isn’t just a right winger, he’s a maniac. Obama thought he had a good idea. (I think it was really dumb.) Santorum is sincere in his moral rigidity. (I think that sort of attitude may grab defeat out of the jaws of victory for the Republicans.)

And the viciousness isn’t always expressed as anger. I recall an episode of “The Young Turks” where the commentators ridiculed Sen. Byrd for his emotional reaction to the illness of his good friend Sen. Kennedy. Moses and the Seven Dwarves, now it's a bad thing to be human?

I’m not suggesting that this is a watershed moment and that our national discourse will take a quantum leap upwards. You see, negativism and political jingoism works pretty well. But this is a start.

The head of the Carbonite Company, one of Limbaugh’s sponsors, said when he pulled their advertising that he did so in the hope that it “... will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.”

And who knows? In the Fullness of Time, maybe the Washington Mall will see the Million Rational People March.

We see reason and respect all too seldom. Cal Thomas, a conservative writer, went overboard a touch criticizing Rachel Maddow at a big conservative do a few weeks ago. Immediately, he recognized that this violated his own code of honor, and he both apologized personally (and sincerely) to Maddow and explained to his readers what a trap this insult swamp can be. The guy is pure class.

Rush Limbaugh is not a bad guy. He has been richly rewarded for acting like a putz. If he were polite, he’d be the 3 AM talking head on Saturday night CSPAN or BookTV. I remember in college hearing him when he was a DJ at WIXZ in Pittsburgh. He was an outrageously funny guy. I still remember one improvised bit they did one July 4th where Limbaugh extolled Paul Revere’s midnight ride astride a whale on wheels. No, it didn’t make sense, but by God it was FUNNY.

We won’t hear about whales on wheels, at least for a while. Audiences are used to blood. So a question is whether the lovers of steak tartare can start to savor milder dishes simmered long enough to attain some mature flavor.

By the way, this whole national discourse thing is not Limbaugh’s fault or Rachel Maddow’s or whoever’s. WE bear equal responsibility. WE have demanded the blood and the bruises. WE are the ones who watch the races waiting for the wrecks, and who cheer when the other team’s quarterback is knocked out of the game. The political media couldn’t keep selling us sewage sandwiches if we didn’t keep ordering them.

We will not, we cannot change the national discourse over one incident. As President Reagan stated, to make progress, we have to “stay the course.”

Do we have the guts?

Did the Mormons Burn Anne Frank's Koran?

Okay, I spent February as a lazy, moribund writer.

I reflect tonight on what may be a different aspect of curmudgeon-liness.

Have you noticed that the news is junked up with lots of, well, junk? The implication is, we’re obviously supposed to care deeply about what the purveyors of news tell us to care deeply about.

And so, I’m thinking tonight about lots of random things that I’m supposed to shudder about that I just really find irrelevant, boring, stupid or simply unworthy of a whole hell of a lot of attention. I made a list. In no particular order:

George Clooney’s sexuality. Hell, I don’t know if the guy’s handsome. Looks to me like he needs to shave a little more often but maybe ladies these days go for the abrasive thing. I am told I’m supposed to care about who and what he likes. George: Stay away for me. Other than that, I just don’t care.

What anyone named Kardashian looks like with or without makeup. Or, for that matter, in any particular garment or combination of garments. If it makes the news because there are hordes of people who want to know, God bless them and I hope they acquire some taste or class at some point. But beyond that scant hope, it’s really not my problem.

What anyone named Kardashian has to say on any subject. As nearly as I can figure, these people don’t do anything useful in society and I’ve not heard any evidence that they know anything useful. I don’t see any reason to care about their opinions.

The political opinions of entertainers. Ted Nugent just endorsed somebody. I don’t know who. I don’t care. They want to tell me how to sing or how to act, I’ll listen if I want to know those things. If they want to tell me how to vote, I really find their opinions irrelevant and boring.

Burning the Bible. I intentionally start with this one due to other things in the news. Mind you, anybody that flames a Bible is a really flaming ass hole in my book. But this is America, and the First Amendment says they can do it. My God is a fairly robust God and I don’t think that weakens him. Giving flaming ass holes attention validates them. Ignoring them marginalizes them. Who knows, maybe that means I really do care in a way, but I’m still going to deny it.

Burning the American flag. This is another First Amendment thing, and the people that do this are equally flaming ass holes. But this is still America. I confess I have to work to ignore this one.


Burning the Koran. You could see this one coming. Muslims think the people that do this are worse than flaming ass holes, they are infidel religious terrorists or some silly shit like that. I think the people burning Korans are really boring. The Muslims reacting to it with Jihad, fatwas and so forth are certified whack jobs. They want to be victimized so they can react in self-righteousness. PS, they must think Allah is fairly weak if burning a book annoys him.

The guy who got all pissy because a judge would not jail a Muslim who hit him because he was mouthing off about Allah or Mohammed. Yo, even when you exercise your First Amendment rights, there are some consequences. The Muslim didn’t shoot you, he just mussed your hair, so either shut up or go home and stay with your mommy.

Gay relationships. Theoretically, if I were unattached, I might be interested in what some particular lady might do with me. Beyond that, I really don’t care what adult does what with what other adult or object. It’s really boring.

Anne Frank and the Mormons. Lots of Jewish “spokesmen” are really all in vapors because some fringe Mormons baptized Anne Frank in absentia and postmortem. Holy St. Bartholomew, guys, lighten up. If what the Mormons did was effective, you and I both had been barking up the wrong theological tree. If not, it was just a bunch of gibberish. Ok, let's try this. I just inducted Joseph Smith into the DAR. Hey, it’s official, I lit a candle and everything. Now, his spirit is going to have to attend high tea, act snooty, and complain about immigrants. Right? What a bunch of idiots.

Anything any cleric says based solely on his or her status as a cleric. Look, I bet the Pope is a really decent fellow. I kind of liked John Paul II better, but I think he probably a lot better press agents. But when he spoke ex cathedra, it was still him and not God. When Jimmy Swaggart says to stay away from hookers, I confess he know ought to know, but he didn’t learn that in seminary. Well, for that matter, his opinion is probably worth more than that of a genuinely celibate priest.

Anything Rush Limbaugh says. Boring.

Anything anyone says in reply to Rush Limbaugh. Equally boring.

Anything else the press says that people are “outraged” about.

I’m not outraged. I’m bored.

Prayer and Lamentation for a Crapped-Out Amazon Kindle

Oh Lord, Creator of all things, Founder of all ideas, Ruler of the universe, I come to you tonight seeking comfort, understanding of the mysterious ways of your Cosmos and a quieting of my jagged mind and thumping heart.

I rejoice in Your Creation, and I acknowledge You as the Architect and Intelligent Designer of all that is, ever has been and ever will be. I know that I understand so little and that my questions and insecurities are minuscule within the glory of Your Plan.

You have created as many galaxies as there are dust motes floating on the breezes, each containing as many suns as grains of sand on the broad beaches which caress your oceans. You have powered the many sextillion suns with an incomprehensible power from fusing together atoms of your very simplest elements. We poor mortals pretend to understand the process and yet all we can do to imitate it is strike sparks, awesome in their destructive power to us but only as notable to You as the power of a snowflake striking the earth.

I bow down in awe at Your creation of the brain within Your creatures, more especially the brains within Your human servants. We try to imitate Your creation with our puny machines and yet we know that if we created a microchip the size of our glorious mother West Virginia, it would contain only the tiniest power of the feeblest human mind and have within it no inspiration of life.

I praise You tonight for Your gift to us of language. I must admit to You, that I really don’t understand the whole Tower of Babel thing, for my finite knowledge cannot envision a tower built as high as Your Scriptures say without the use of structural steel or other metals in engineering forms unknown at the time of that construction. Sometimes in the darkness of my heart, such things lead me to wonder if Your word is indeed to be taken completely literally or as others suggest in deep and meaningful symbolism. I must also confess that this whole Revelation of St. John the Divine really adds to those questions within my heart. But, I digress. Back to language.

Your let us create about 100 symbols in a system for us to arrange them whereby we may record, transmit and preserve information, thoughts and ideas. Your doctrine of free will, even though that apparently is also a matter of some dispute, guarantees that some of the information, thoughts and ideas thus recorded, transmitted or preserved hold great wisdom, while others carried the metaphorical stench of the manure spread by the sturdy husbandman upon the fallow fields.

You have inspired Your servants to create ever more convenient and lasting methods to create and preserve the endless strings of these symbols, first inspiring mankind to carve them within stone. Thus did You send to us Your commandments which, regrettably, some of Your servants seem to treat as optional suggestions.

You inspired mankind to look to the products of Your animals and of Your plants to create inks and dyes to put upon thin sheets of plant fibers or animal skins, recognizing that that was awfully hard luck on the animals.

You inspired the scribes and monks to create volumes of illuminated beauty with these dyes and inks as well as with Your rare and beautiful lapis lazuli, pearl, malachite, jade and other rare minerals to create vibrant color.

You created the wondrous element lead with its low melting temperature and taught us to create movable type and paper made of dried fibers of Your many trees. Thus, the knowledge of Your people grew and expanded, filling libraries which became Your Temples of Knowledge.

And You enabled teachers, Lord God, to teach Your humble servant to encode and decode Your language symbols and thereby to share the fruits of human knowledge and even perhaps to add a single jot or perhaps a tittle.

I cannot question Your knowledge, don’t get me wrong. You’ve steered me away from the Rocky Shoals in so many ways. You created Your narcotics to aid the desperately ill, and yet the Evil One was never able successfully to tempt me into the use thereof. Your spectacular science of chemistry included fermentation and distillation and as a part of my learning, You sent me to West Virginia University, where ethanol flows like the milk of human kindness from all of Your saints. And in the spring, Your ramps are cooked, but that doesn’t have much to do with this prayer. And yet I and my liver survived WVU and as You so aptly put it in Your Scripture, I set aside childish things including ethanol and billiards and making humorous though sarcastic comments to the most odious of my classmates and moved ahead toward the door of Your kingdom.

Along the way, You engendered in my heart with love of knowledge which went overboard to the point of an addiction to reading and knowledge and the acquisition of and toting of many paper volumes of the written language. And yet, in my use thereof my shoulders were broad and my arms mighty and I lugged these books of words heavy in Your gravity with a light heart.

And then You unleashed the mind of man upon the electron. You taught us that conduction could be more than simply on-off, that there was an entire world of knowledge if we could only semi-conduct, and it was so. You whetted our appetite for semi-conducted prose displayed on phosphor screens illuminated by streams of electrons directed through cathodes. You burst into our minds with the light emitting diode and then lay before us the promised land of liquid crystals.

You permitted Your servants to improve battery technology by cramming ever more joules of energy into ever smaller packages. You enabled us to shrink filing cabinets and shelves of Your written word onto the tiniest silicon wafers and permit random-access thereof.

And then, Father God, through Your servant Jeff Bezos, You laid before us on the velvet pillow a vision of the heavenly host, the Amazon Kindle. The tiny silicon memory therein housed hundreds of books. The liquid crystal diode screen drew minimal power. Through the wonders of Your 3G system, You enabled Your servants to grab books from the ether and condense them into our very hands.

As the guys at Amazon hosed us now and then we were first insensate and then forgiving, for Your boon which they had delivered unto us was as the crossing of the lost tribes of Israel into the Promised Land. They promised us that we could obtain bestsellers for never more than $9.99, and that promise vanished into the smoke with the regretful notation “Price set by publisher.” And yet we believed. We downloaded books. We bought special covers, and we formed Facebook groups and babbled about our joys.

Fools that we were! We ignored Your words that pride goes before a fall. Okay, that was some Greek, but I’m sure that You inspired him. For the screen of the Amazon Kindle, that deceptive liquid crystal diode screen was designed by the Evil One.

Oh woe be unto me! So many days would I pick up my Amazon Kindle and turn it on and crawl through the window into a new world of knowledge and characters and action and thought and cleanliness and everlasting joy. And then, suddenly and without warning, I would turn on the Amazon Kindle and that accursed screen would be nothing but random lines with perhaps just a word or two blurry in the background.

And the Evil One mocked me. Every time this happened, I dutifully called Amazon Kindle Support. Six times did this happen and I probably got acceptable service five times. Considering that Meatloaf says two out of three ain’t bad, I probably beat the averages.

And then, Lord God, came the to the Seventh time and like the opening of the Seventh Seal, there was anguish therein.

I was at the end of the 10th volume of a fascinating 10 volume series by a favorite author. The stirring climax all had passed, and yet we were into the drawn out and delicious dénouement, where the waters of the burst dam spread across the vast plain. I was but a few pages from the end, my heart was singing, and the peace which passes all understanding was within my grasp.

And then the Evil One crashed my screen.

I was bereft. Quickly did I call Amazon Kindle Support, and yet I did not speak to one of my brothers or sisters upon this Continent. Your gravity and Your centrifugal force has let satellites remain in geostationary orbits so that my voice can carry to other continents and subcontinents and there talk with low-paid yet earnest people reading from scripts who understand not my culture and who cannot at the time that my night is their day hear the beating of my heart.

The Evil One chortled as he connected me to someone who said, yea, we can replace Your Amazon Kindle with two day delivery, but it’s the weekend, so wait until Monday.

Gadzooks, I replied! Look upon my account. Count the drachmas and shekels which have flown from my account to Amazon’s in the last 14 years and do not leave me high anbd dry, but send me a replacement Amazon Kindle by FedEx overnight.

Verily, the customer service representative replied, thou art blessed among customers and so I pledge by Vishnu and the seven dwarves (or something like that) that your replacement Amazon Kindle shall flee the shelves of our warehouse in Lexington, Kentucky, in moments and I promise to you that it shall be delivered be delivered unto you tomorrow, Friday, 3 February 2012.

You know the beating of my heart, my Father. You know the fall of the leaf and the flight of the sparrow. You know that the busy FedEx delivery driver sped all about Your kingdom on Friday, 3 February 2012, but came not unto me.

And so when I called Amazon Kindle support again I was again told, “Wait until Monday.” “What about your representative’s promise,” I inquired. “Oopsie,” said some supervisor, “Too bad, so sad.” Okay, You know she didn’t use those words, but that seem to me to be the sentiment.

And so, father, tonight I lament and seek understanding. I have been forsaken. Electrons do not stimulate photons which form symbols that bring joy to my eyes and into my heart. Anoint Your humble servant with holy oil and make the hours pass swiftly between now and Monday afternoon.

And tell the Evil One that if he has to be difficult, that there is this big company just itching for attention.

Amen.

Dear Danny Hembree: A Letter to Death Row

[Ed. Note: Danny Hembree is a prisoner on death row in North Carolina. In the fall of 2011, he was convicted a particularly brutal murder of a 17 year old girl.

Recently, he wrote a taunting letter to his local newspaper, the Gaston Gazette. He wrote about his good life on death row where he is a “man of leisure,” and how he watches color TV in the air-conditioning, takes a lot of naps, receives three balanced meals every day and has free health care. Danny made fun of the citizens for having spent $500,000 to put him on death row and closed with “Kill me if you can, suckers! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

I wanted to write a letter of encouragement to my buddy Danny.]


Dear Danny –

All of the guys got a real kick out of your letter to the Gazette last week. You always did have style, and you really pulled their tails this time! You hurt that family, and you have damn near everybody else foaming at the mouth. That one legislator who wants to bring back public hanging is a real loon. Way to go, buddy!

Honestly, we never did think you were going to amount to much. I know it bothered you when we called you a dopehead, but you’ve really showed them what you have. By the way, I’m sorry about the time I told you that there was a reason that they call it “dope.”

You’ve got it made, pal! You’re a man of leisure now. You can take all the naps you want, or sit back and watch color TV in air-conditioned comfort. (No HBO? Darn.) And just think – they put that all together for you in that neat little 10 x 12 cell on death row. I bet cleaning up is easy, it’s so small. Doesn’t all that steel and concrete make it even easier to keep clean?

No kidding, you get three well-balanced meals brought to you?! We are just green with envy, Danny. Out here in the world, we have to figure out what we want to eat and then go buy or maybe go to a restaurant and order it. You? They just bring it to you. What a life! On a hot summer day, I bet they bring you a nice cold brewski or two. Oh, right – it’s prison. Sorry.

That free medical care thing is really far out. I went to the doctor last week, and I had to drive myself there. Then I had to pay for it. You need a doctor, they take you! Okay, maybe you have to ask a prison guard, and I bet being handcuffed and shackled to go to the doctor is really inconvenient, but it’s still free. In fact, I heard that they don’t even let you out of your little room unless you’re handcuffed and shackled. At least you don’t have to go out very often. Your 30 minutes of recreation in a cinderblock room with a basketball and that one shower a week probably means the handcuff/shackle thing isn’t too big a deal.

To think about all the problems I have that you don’t. Social Security? What do you care? You’re not going to live long enough to retire. The interest rate on my car loan is killing me. You don’t even have to own a car.

We heard two guys talking about you down at the pub a couple of days ago. You know, I don’t think those guys minded the $500,000 of taxes spent on your trial. One of them said it was “money well spent,” and the other one hoisted his mug of the golden brew and added a “fuckin' A, bubba!”

I got to tell you, we all thought you were a real moron when you confessed, and when we heard the details we thought you were a warped & vicious puppy. You sly dog – you had this whole “man of leisure” thing planned all along!

Anyway, I have to close now - I have a hot date and ... oh, sorry, forgot. That’s the breaks, man.

Your buddy,
Roger Curry


[Further note: I've already gotten feedback to the effect that I'm a sarcastic SOB for writing this. (1) I really don't care. (2) I've never billed myself as Mahatma Gandhi. More Mahatma Kane Jeeves.]