The Reluctant Juror

Matt Taibbi: “The amount of money investors lost in this fraud scheme is probably gigantic. The ill-gotten money the banks made off that same fraud is probably similarly huge. And the damage to society, in the form of mass foreclosures and other losses, is incalculable.”

New York Times: “Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, has requested information and documents in recent weeks from three major Wall Street banks about their mortgage securities operations during the credit boom, indicating the existence of a new investigation into practices that contributed to billions in mortgage losses.”

A couple weeks ago I got another jury summons. Over the years, I've been summoned many times and have served on four juries. I have little recollection of the first experience beyond some vague images from the deliberation. The second case was a burglary: we found the defendant guilty. When I found out after the trial that this was his third strike, something they don't tell you during the proceedings, I was sick to my stomach. Yes, he was guilty, but did he deserve the third strike “punishment”? Hardly. The third case was a few years ago, a civil case for damages being brought against a doctor. I was the only one on the jury who found in favor of the defendant. Unfortunately for him, since it was a civil case, the jury didn't have to be unanimous, and the doctor won. My last jury was about a year ago. I guess they can call you now every year or so. I was an alternate. It was a murder trial. The two defendants were accused of killing a homeless man. The defendants were found guilty. I disagreed (on the basis of self-defense and other factors), but of course, since I was an alternate, I had no say in the matter. The whole experience was a bit disturbing: they took us out to the scene of the crime, the family of both parties were in the courtroom during the case, many witnesses were homeless, etc. I journaled the experience for personal purposes and perhaps I'll post it later.

These last two cases reinforced something I've known most of my life, i.e., I have a bit of a different perspective on things than most folks. But that's not the point of this post. The fact of the matter is, since I've received that summons, I've pretty much decided that I cannot serve on another jury. In the last year or so, as I've learned more about this country's financial “collapse” and what actually happened, how we were originally “told” this whole thing was a bunch of “circumstances” that just happened to result in horrible financial misfortune for thousands of people, how the bankers/Wall Streeters HAD to be saved, how they were “penalized” with a slap on the wrist, and yet, how now we realize these people were in fact CRIMINALS with knowledge aforethought about the whole thing and who were MANIPULATING the system and the suckers so they could further expand what they seem to feel is their birthright for yet more wealth and power at the expense of everyone else. And that so far NO CRIMINAL CHARGES have been brought against them, except that, God help him, New York's Attorney General (see above) MAY be doing something about it. Good luck on that, sir. Remember Elliot Spitzer?

On June 6, which just happens to be my father's 87^th birthday, I will probably (I have to call first) show up at the courthouse and wait to be questioned to see if I end up on a jury. Only this time, if I do get questioned, I don't think I will be able to say, with a clear conscience, that I can be impartial. I'm repulsed by the blatant two-tiered justice system in this country. Of course I know this has been the case forever, but to my mind, it's becoming too much the norm and too many members of the revolving door ivy league banker/legislator/lobbyist club are NOT EVEN BEING clandestine about it anymore and not a one of them is having to pay for anything. So when I look at that defendant in that courtroom, I will be partial towards their “situation” - I will not be able to look at anything in that courtroom with an open mind. And I suppose I will have to tell them how I feel.

TO BE CONTINUED

Pandora's Crawler

This recent cartoon got me thinking about the preservation of "web stuff" and the peculiarity of what really is a new era of preservation of all manner of data statistical, textual, visual, and aural. My first thought was a variation on a theme of some years ago, a new era of its kind, the subpoena of presidential guards somewhat over ten years ago. At that time, there was history from both Kennedy's and Nixon's presidency which related to the secret recording of presidential meetings, but none relating to forcing revelations from White House security insiders from the Secret Service or elsewhere. I wondered, could literally anything that had ever been posted on the web be grist for some legal mill? Party A posts a video of Party B picking her nose, and twenty years on it's used as part of a character assassination of Party B as a high office candidate.

As expected, the answer to the question involves quite a bit of complexity, and yet is fairly well-defined, perhaps. Courtesy the Solid Forensics blog, for instance:

Although there are a few ISP companies that offer a web interface to subpoena data (Sprint is one of them), there is no excitement in the ISP world for setting up a national system to handle this type of data. There are too many security and privacy issues to overcome. This is exacerbated by a recent Justice Department’s 289 page report that claimed the 'FBI obtained Americans’ telephone records by citing nonexistent emergencies and simply asking for the data or writing phone numbers on a sticky note rather than following procedures required by law.'


That implies, however, a potential for a fiduciary requirement, which would then imply something like the Ken Starr scenario writ large. The thing that's pretty fascinating, though, is how much is really preserved, as in the case of the Wayback Machine (whose name has a Rocky and Bullwinkle legacy), which allows the casual user the ability to poke around in a historical web-in-amber which is the Internet Archive, where everything that was there in 1994 (and later) is preserved. As it happens, a news story today highlights that era; Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, whose DNA is sought now in connection with the earlier Tylenol poisonings, coerced the New York Times into publishing his manifesto about then. Now it would be a simpler matter both to publish and to retrieve his ravings.

Having finished my brief investigation of web forensics, though, I noticed that the Internet Archive had a drop down called "All Media Types", and when I dropped it down, well below Wayback Machine itself, in the Audio subsection, there was a Grateful Dead selection. I decided to pick it, then put in "Cosmic" as the search term, and the first of a whopping 270 entries was a late 1970 "Grateful Dead Live at Sargent Gym, Boston University" recording of - you might well have guessed it - "Cosmic Charlie". It had been downloaded over two thousand times, but reviewed but once, by someone noting "Bobby very high-----strung on vocals."

And today, the aural rock historian site Wolfgang's Vault put voluminous video archives online. And neither these nor my ramblings will ever quite go away...

Whistling Past

On one of my rare trips to the supermarket near work recently, I chanced to hear someone whistling in the parking lot. I didn't bother to see who it was, and it was some days later before I thought about the fact that it had been months since I had at least noticed someone whistling, and I wished then that I could think about who it was who did it. I'm the only person I have ever heard whistling at work, for instance, and it may not be an accident that I'm also about the oldest person at my workplace. I'm beginning to think that there are few young people in our country who do it, or are even capable.

The general history of whistling from my point of view is one with fairly corny associations. I've written disparagingly earlier about Roger Whittaker, who however is a phenomenal whistler, very good at what he's done. I sort of think of the canonical whistled melody as being like the theme to "M. Hulot's Holiday", carefree, sentimental, stuck in the forties or fifties, technically as solid as Whittaker's delivery. A measure of how ingrained the taste for things like that was in that era was Guy Mitchell's hit "Singing the Blues", a nominal woe-is-me tune delivered in a suspiciously chirpy style.

The sixties probably were reckoned to be fairly daring just because the whistle was deployed for suspense in contexts like Ennio Morricone's "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly", not to mention Otis Redding's wan whistle which was the ultimate selling point for the lugubriousness of "Sitting On the Dock of the Bay." But since then, a dearth of whistling in popular music, and really popular anything, is observable - this list is probably a pretty good indicator of how rare it is. You could probably cut a swath in hipsterland by even including some whistling in some otherwise alt-like musical effort.

But then, someone would have to show you, and it's not particularly straightforward. The mouth-puckered type of whistle may be easier than either the tucked-lip or two-finger "hey!" whistle - the latter being, for the time being, beyond me - but I found it hard to describe to my daughter, and I suspect she's made little headway based on my attempts at instruction.

But then, I'm not particularly good at it, and if it makes me happy sometimes to whistle some of the up-and-downs of Debussy's "Arabesque", I'm going to make a point of avoiding public places.

Epigram, Unh! What is it Good For?

“Orin's special conscious horror, besides heights and the early morning, is roaches. There's been parts of metro Boston near the Bay he'd refused to go to, as a child. Roaches give him the howling fantods. The parishes around N.O. Had been having a spate or outbreak of a certain Latin origin breed of sinister tropical flying roaches...”

David Foster Wallace, INFINITE JEST

“The next time you step on a cockroach, think about this: the tiny brain you just crushed is loaded with so many antibacterial molecules that it makes prescription drugs look like sugar pills...Cockroach molecules, while being so lethal to bacteria, aren't harmful to human cells...But many issues need to be hashed out before cockroach juice hits the drugstores.”

David DiSalvo, Mental Floss magazine

“We continue to call for a true peaceful uprising against the means of mass communication that offers nothing but mass consumption as a prospect for our youth, contempt for the least powerful in our society, and for culture, general amnesia and the outrageous competition of all against all...TO CREATE IS TO RESIST. TO RESIST IS TO CREATE.

Stephane Hessel, INDIGNEZ-VOUS!

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2223

In Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), after a medical false alarm, Mickey (Woody Allen) has a crisis—he quits his job and nearly commits suicide, but then he wanders into a showing of the Marx Brothers' DUCK SOUP and finds it funny. He thinks, "What if the worst is true? What if there's no God, and you only go around once and that's it? Well, you know, don't you want to be part of the experience?"

Juliet Lapidos

Rufus T. Firefly: Lieutenant, why weren't the original indictment papers placed in my portfolio?

Bob Roland: Why, uh, I didn't think those papers were important at this time, your excellency.

Rufus T. Firefly: You didn't think they were important? Do you realize I had my dessert wrapped in those papers?

DUCK SOUP

Debatable

There's been a spate of articles about the Civil War as we've reached the sesquicentennial of the opening salvo on Fort Sumter. It's reopened the debate on race, as well as the nature of the union, and of course it's fascinating to think about why a black president was categorically impossible at the centennial point in 1961. But it made me think about the nature of debates now and then.

The Lincoln-Douglas debates just before the momentous election of 1860 were even more focused on slavery-related issues than our midterm elections were on the economy. And they established a pattern of official rules still used today for school debates, but they also were a good study in the rules of the game: finding isolate facts selected to buttress the case; appeals to emotion (usually fear) and ideology; invented facts and sometimes baseless assertions; and various levels of character assassination. Lincoln was very aware of being in a transitional realm between his moribund former party the Whigs and the emerging Republican party, and Douglas was aware of needing to alternately reassure and provide selective fearmongering for his Democratic base, which included Know-Nothings from the preceding years, arguably something like the Tea Party of the time in a way:

"The next question I put to [Mr. Lincoln] was, whether he was in favor of prohibiting the admission of any more Slave States into the Union. .. I asked him to answer me and you, whether he would vote to admit a State ...with slavery or without it... He did not answer that question. He dodges that question also, under the cover that he was not on the Committee at the time..."

And for every such thrust, Lincoln has a parry, and a similar thrust. Time-honored means keep repeating:

"The only concrete proposal in the President's plan that he'll roll out today is his plan to raise taxes, and I find that very unacceptable given we're several days out from tax day in this country. We don't believe that raising taxes is the answer here," - Eric Cantor, R-Va.

"As the President made clear, Democrats have a different view. We believe that the responsible approach is to make sure the wealthiest Americans contribute their fair share ..." - Harry Reid, D-Nev


What's interesting now, of course, is that all of the thrusts and parries are preserved forever on one or another web server just awaiting a query from all and sundry. Not only that, but there are a bevy of online debate sites operating within the classic structure, but adding the wrinkle of moderation by anyone, and participation by anyone. One difficulty now, as then, is distinguishing which elements are ideological first, and which are primarily a matter of pragmatic manipulation. For instance, many Republicans oppose in particular higher tax rates for the wealthy or big business first and foremost because they believe that those who have achieved success deserve to keep every penny. They may or may not pay lip service to the supply side argument of the inherent putative benefit of the most prosperous getting more prosperous, more jobs, and more spending creating more jobs. And Democrats tend to believe that the wealthy are predominantly greedy and power-mad, and in need of trammelling. But they'll tend to talk about idealistic social programs they want to use all those tax-the-wealthy dollars for rather than their mistrust of Big Oil.

Wouldn't it be a treat to see a site like createdebate.com, with its nifty side-by-sides and results rollups, have a debate on the deficit plan between, perhaps, Paul Krugman and Robert Samuelson, with voting by various knowledgable parties?

There's no reason, however, you couldn't press them into service for other pressing issues like the recently posted "New Heinz Ketchup Packets Or The Old Ones?"...

The Return of Casey

“The action wasn’t groovy for the Endsville nine that day,

The beat was 4 to 2 with just one chorus more to sway,

And when old Cooney conked at first, and Burrows also sacked,

A nowhere rumble bugged up all the cats who dug the act.”

from Mad Magazine

It was with great, groovy joy that I attended a baseball poetry reading last week to kick off the 2011 baseball season. What a night: nine women reading an incredible range of poems, with a couple of token guys thrown in for good measure. The whole event was inspired and breathtaking. Highlights included Ann Menebroker's always thrilling triple plays and chin music, Peggy Kincaid's surprising rookie explosion on the scene with new work and riveting execution, and the ninth inning antics of home run slugger Viola Weinberg, resplendent in eye-gear that hinted at Winged Eel Fingerling, with verbal gymnastics and spoken jazz/rock to match. The seventh inning stretch featured one of the above mentioned dudes, who recited portions of about a half dozen variations on Ernest Thayer's Casey at the Bat, including my personal favorite, Mad Magazine's Cool Casey at the Bat. And then, as an extra innings treat, one of the women (whose name I must confess I don't have), who arrived late and didn't even hear the Casey Variations, took the batter's box and recited the original Casey at the Bat in all its amazing, dramatic glory! Ah, baseball bliss!

As I listened to her rendition of the great baseball poem, some memories came flooding back from many years ago, memories that I hadn't thought of in years. I actually began my performing life in elementary school, around the sixth grade, reciting Casey at the Bat. It must have been a school talent show. I remember getting up on the multi-purpose/cafeteria stage and emoting my way through a stirring rendition. The crowd went wild and I was hooked, setting out on a path of performance that I have maintained, although lately much less, to this day. At the time, I wasn't really that interested in baseball or any other professional sport; I loved to play, but never followed any sport. I can't say why I picked Casey at the Bat; it wasn't until 15 years later that I began to come under baseball's spell, eventually becoming hopelessly addicted after moving to Los Angeles, very close to Chavez Ravine.

And what happened after that was called Baseball Diary, a zine I published and edited, devoted to baseball and art (!), whose back issues will begin to be posted here in the next week, and whose new incarnation will also begin here within a few weeks. Play ball, indeed.

Snapshots

When you are around 60, there are certain things that are completely terrifying. One of them is that you have made the wrong choices in life, and now it’s too late to do anything about them.

- Henning Mankell

I'm painfully aware that I will never have another hit record ... Believe me, it took me years to get comfortable with that conclusion... But once I was comfortable, I could look around at my life and be pretty happy.

- Janis Ian

In April 1951 a woman probably thought, as her fourth child arrived, that he probably was as good a marker of her transition from Bohemian living to prosperous, suburban living as any. He was his grandfather's namesake due to his birthday being two days away, close enough under the circumstances.

In April 1961 the boy had left behind suburban living, that was gone as he entered fourth grade; the houses in his part of Tuolumne County were an acre or more apart, and the neighbors lived in a log cabin and brushed their teeth with salt and soda. The boy in that family, roughly the same age, was adept at catching rattlesnakes sunning themselves on the granite boulders in the fields. But the log cabin family seemed fairly stable; something was wrong in his own family. It was clear the marriage was in trouble, money was short, and his father had difficulty holding a job or sustaining a business.

In April 1971, the father had been dead for years, a casualty of bad habits. The boy had gone to college, and its fascination had been undercut by the erosion of the counterculture - higher education was just another means of co-opting some imagined natural state. The remnants of the Aquarian Age in Nixon's presidency appeared to be the results of the water-bearer dumping a huge vat of bleach over America, and for awhile most things seemed gray, desiccated bones were everywhere.

By April 1981, however, the thirty-year-old was still pursuing rock-n-roll dreams in Los Angeles. He was on the verge of a new career, though, and there was a girl...

April 1991 saw the man in a high-tech maelstrom, married and with a young daughter. Technical things made the day go quickly for a man well-established as a nerd in early life, but the singleminded ambition and acquisitiveness of his colleagues seemed oppressive.

Shortly before April 2001, his wife was diagnosed with cancer, and was undergoing aggressive treatment. The trio, happy and prosperous enough as the year began, faced an uncertain future.

April 2011 found the healthy couple with old friends exploring train cars a short distance from where the young rattlesnake hunter plied his skill. Their daughter was launching her career, making discoveries. It appeared that fate had conspired to smooth the rough edges, illuminate just enough the dark corners, and provide abundant entertainment along the way. And perhaps it wasn't too much of a stretch to imagine that each decade had its object lesson, its annealing factor. And perhaps that annealing is what keeps the terror at bay, but perhaps only for the fortunate.