The weasel-worded case for bringing Roman Polanski to justice

Prof. Siegel at Concurring Opinions argues that Roman Polanski should be brought to justice in the the U.S., but says Polanski only "seduced" his victim.

He was very justifiably called out in the blog entry's comments for not using the term rape. As of this writing, Prof. Siegel hasn't answered the comments nor corrected his wording.

Let's be clear: when Roman Polanski slipped a 13-year-old a mickey and then had oral, vaginal, and anal sex with her while she continued to say "no," he raped a child. He did not merely "seduc[e] a 13-year-old girl with alcohol and drugs and then [have] sex with her."

Are Prof. Siegel and other writers using some new definition of the word seduce that I haven't been aware of before this week? Seduce does not mean "dose with champagne and 'ludes until passed out." Seducing someone romantically means persuading them, over their initial objection, to consent to have sex with you. But you can't persuade someone who's been drugged to consent with you, and a 13-year-old is presumed incapable of consent. This is rape law 101.

As for the filmmakers supporting him -- Woody Allen? Is Woody Allen really the best choice to be the John Hancock on a "Free Roman Polanski" petition? Do these supporters have children? Would they give someone a free pass to rape one of their children so long as the rapist was a respected auteur? Which auteurs would they give that pass to -- is there a minimum number of Oscars or Golden Bears or Palmes d'Or an auteur would have to win first?

Driberally tonight

Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at Triumph Brewery's upstairs bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!

Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).

This week's topic: Glenn Beck is not happy about the successful registration of "glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com," so he's filed an official complaint (PDF) of trademark infringement with the WIPO. What domain name should the respondent have registered to avoid the problems of confusing similarity, no legitimate interest, and bad faith?

Note that "didglennbeckrapeandmurderayounggirlin1990.com" redirects to the same exact website, and Beck does not appear to be challenging that domain name -- because he can't?!

Also note that the filed response (PDF) compares the website creator's efforts to the ad at issue in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988) (patently offensive ad is protected speech because parody directed at a public figure). Too funny!

Of course, the Hustler Magazine case was about intentional infliction of emotional distress, not defamation (both state tort-law claims, not criminal charges or constitutional challenges), but still,

"Yes, Your Honor, there is a public interest in making [Glenn Beck] look ludicrous -- insofar as there is a public interest in having [Respondent Eiland-Hall] express the point of view that [Glenn Beck] is full of B.S.! And [Respondent Eiland-Hall] has every right to express this view" (from 2:16):

The law geeks can read or listen to attorney Isaacman's actual, entire oral argument at Oyez.com, or even listen to it.

"Come for the beer, stay for the check"

Open letter to HuffPo crackpots

Dear Huffington Post,

Please stop posting articles that are dismissive of and untruthful about vaccinations and supportive of homeopathy (which kills babies).

Sincerely,

Glomarization

The ABA is enabling the legal industry's downfall, but it still won't buy me a drink

So I've been reading a few anti-ABA blogs written by lawyers lately. Some of them are written by relatively recent law school grads who are failing to make ends meet, between their crushing law-school debt and the extremely low-paying, temporary contract document-review jobs that they feel forced to take. Others are written by long-time associates who never made partner -- whether from lack of skill and drive, or from lack of cash to buy into an equity partnership.

The articles are interesting, but unfortunately in a trainwreck kind of way. As a rule they're fantastically bitter, and for good reason. Many of the authors (or their informants) work in filthy, airless, roach-infested cubicles in the basements of prestigious BigLaw firms, mostly in New York, doing mind-numbing document review. They work 50 or 70 hours per week for ever decreasing fees, like $28/hr before taxes, and with no benefits. The work pays so low because there's been a trend for BigLaw firms to outsource this kind of document review to India, with the blessing of the ABA, and because there is a lot of competition from new law grads.

Outsourcing low-level document review tasks can be cost-effective, and it can make running a law firm, which is a very expensive type of business to run, more profitable. You could even say that law firms are late to get on the off-shore bandwagon, considering how every other industry in America, from manufacturing to customer service, has been doing it for years. So it's really not surprising that the ABA, a mouthpiece for BigLaw and a group very interested in preserving the status quo of big law firms charging big fees and making big profits, has given 2 thumbs up to shipping document review jobs overseas.

But the ABA is trying to have it both ways. On the one hand it's accrediting new law schools left and right, generating literally thousands of new law grads every year that weren't flooding the marketplace just 5 and 10 years ago. Yay! More lawyers, more lawyering work, more big fees, and more big profits! Right? Well, wrong -- when the work that new law grads tend to do, namely, low-level document review, is now being outsourced, with the shiny stamp of ABA approval.

The predictable result when the economy tanks and firms lose both clients and lines of credit: layoffs, salary cuts, new hire deferrals, and rescinded offers to the class of 2009. It's not completely the ABA's fault, as some of the anti-ABA bloggers insist; but the ABA's position isn't helping. The ABA hasn't changed its offshoring policy, though it's been printing on its website and in its monthly magazine nice articles about spunky attorneys thinking outside the box and pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps and getting fabulously remunerative, non-lawyering jobs.

Some individuals at firms are seeing the writing on the wall. The chair of K&L Gates seems horrified to see that the economy appears to be driving more and more kids into law school lately, because "[w]e will be pouring tens of thousands of young people into a market that I suspect is not going to be able to absorb them at the remuneration levels that would have justified them taking on that debt" of 6 figures that law school will almost certainly leave them with.

Which makes me wonder if something isn't going to give soon. Shouldn't the invisible hand drive down law school prices one of these days? If there is a glut of law schools, and grads can't get decent-paying lawyering jobs afterward because they have a useless 4-year liberal arts degree, a law degree from a non-prestigious law school, and no life nor job experience because they're still in their early 20s -- sounds like a bubble to me.

I feel really bad for the low-paid contract document review lawyers. And I feel a heck of a lot of resentment that I've been getting zero help from my own law school's career office (though I wouldn't want to be in their position . . . except that they're getting paychecks). But mostly I feel sick and angry when I see people complaining about any aspect of their jobs right now, or about their lack of job when they have a partner at home helping out, and my tongue is starting to hurt from biting it so hard.

Today: The SoSo Block Party

Details from the image if you can't see it:

Experience the So-So (South of South) vibe: Live Music - Flea Market - Local Artists - Vintage Wares - Local Restaurants - Crafts

Sunday Sept. 27th
Bainbridge St (between 5th & 6th)
Noon to 4 p.m.

(List of artists, vendors, and other participants.)

Philly AIDS Thrift is a charity shop at 5th and Bainbridge that distributes its proceeds to AIDS Fund, which distributes funds to regional HIV/AIDS support agencies. It's where most of my clothes and housewares donations go, and not just because it's the closest charity shop to my home.

Hope to see you at the block party!

Poll: popular support for "Obamacare"

New York Times and CBS News poll: "Americans on Health Care and Afghanistan" asks, "Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a government-administered health insurance plan like Medicare that would compete with private health insurance plans?"

Favor: 65%

Oppose: 26%

No Opinion: 9%

I've found that when I say, "President Obama's plan is like an opt-in Medicare for non-seniors," people think that it's a good idea. It's not forced on anyone; you can still shop around for a low-cost catastrophic plan on your own if you want; and maybe an invisible hand will magically make the health insurance companies offer lower-cost plans as well.

The biggest (and, interestingly, least frequent) concern I hear is how to pay for it over the long term. I've heard "cut waste in Medicare" and "preventative care now is cheaper than hospitalization later," which I swear I've heard somewhere before.

Friday jukebox: Industrial Jazz Group

The Industrial Jazz Group will be touring the northeast next month, including a set at the Green Line Café at 4426 Locust Street on Friday 16 October:



From their website:

[T]he IJG has slowly pioneered the concept of “avant-garde party music”: an idiosyncratic, charming / disarming blend of jazz, rock, cartoon soundtracks, humor, blues, funk, costumes, doo wop, dada, and a lot of other stuff. It’s not really “industrial,” and it’s not really “jazz”: the IJG attempts to demonstrate that music can indeed be complex, sophisticated, sexy, fun, funny, critical, smart, and groovy all at once.

IJG: immensely talented musicians who dress in funny hats and give you a hell of an entertaining show. The October tour includes stops in and around New York, D.C., and New England.

A Civil Procedure prof's apologia for spending so much time teaching Erie

I think it is an error to imagine that the law school class time devoted to a particular subject needs to be proportional to the time students will spend on that subject in actual practice.

Out of the mouths of full-time law school professors who never practiced or clerked at the trial level.

Maybe Prof. Siegel is sore because his Civ Pro course is "[n]ot offered" this academic year.

HOLY SHIT: Census worker lynched in Kentucky, "fed" written on chest

A census worker was found lynched in Kentucky, and reportedly he was found with the word fed written on his body:

The FBI is investigating the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery. A law enforcement official says the word "fed" was scrawled on his chest.

He was found on the 12th. As in, 9/12.

Jesus-mother-of-god what the living fuck is the matter with Appalachia? You know, people look at me funny when I volunteer that you couldn't pay me enough to live south of the Mason-Dixon line. There is some crazy-ass shit going on down there. And the GOP isn't standing up and denouncing it, either.

Profoundness: on Burning Man

Sometimes I wish that I could make it to Burning Man one of these years.

Most of the time, though, I figure that I probably couldn't stand being around that many young white people of privilege for that long.

A very special Driberally tonight

Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at Triumph Brewery's upstairs bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!

Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).

This week's topic: Today is the 5th anniversary of Drinking Liberally's Center City Philadelphia chapter! Yes, 5 short years ago a small crowd of baby-killing, America-hating, filthy liberal hippies gathered at the Ten Stone and bemoaned their lot over pint after pint of sweet, sweet beer. Tonight, rumor has it we'll have party hats and a sheet cake. Hopefully the bakery won't mess up the cake, as apparently happened to the folks at DCist when they recently celebrated their own 5th anniversary. God, I love the Cake Wrecks blog.

Oh, and tonight we're downstairs, not upstairs. See ya!

"Come for the beer, stay for the check"

Orly Taitz update II: she's about to get sanctioned to the tune of $10,000

Remember the Rule 11 warning that Judge Clay Land gave "attorney" Orly Taitz when he dismissed her client's birther lawsuit this past week?

Furthermore, Plaintiff's counsel is hereby notified that the filing of any future actions in this Court, which are similarly frivolous, shall subject counsel to sanctions. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c).

(In English, that means, "If plaintiff's lawyer files any more papers in this court based on birther arguments, I will fine her for wasting the court's time and resources.")

Lawyers aren't often threatened with Rule 11 sanctions, and actual levies of Rule 11 sanctions are even more rare. So perhaps Taitz was thinking she could beat the odds when she filed her client's "emergency request for stay of deployment pending motions for rehearing" (PDF) with Judge Land, even though the paper included the following language:

Plaintiff avers that there is increasing evidence that the United States District Courts in the 11th Circuit are subject to political pressure, external control, and, mostly [sic] likely, subservience to the same illegitimate chain of command which Plaintiff has previously protested in this case, except that the de facto President is not even nominally the Commander-in-Chief of the Article III Judiciary.

"Commander-in-Chief of the Article III Judiciary"? I must have slept through that part of civics class. And law school. Or maybe it'll be in the user manual I get with my law license in a couple of months. But it must be a really important exception to the separation of powers concept, because Taitz put it all in bold print in her paper. She continues:

[B]oth Plaintiff and her counsel were denied meaningful access to the Courts by the very fact that this Court entered its September 16, 2009, ruling without reference to any of the key issues actually raised in Plaintiff’s Complaint or TRO. The fact that the Court’s 14 page order does not address any actual statements in Plaintiff’s complaint by page or paragraph number, or any page citation to her TRO, suggests to a reasonable and objective mind that the Court either did not read these documents or was summarily instructed by that same illegitimate “chain of command” alleged above not to address at least the three key questions asserted in Plaintiff's complaint[. . . . ] The Court’s failure to address these three key issues again, standing alone, is suggestive that the executive branch is exercising control over the Court’s decision-making process[.]

On the plus side, Taitz used a proper comma construction around the date there. I hate it when people leave off the comma after the year, which, syntactically speaking, is an appositive and requires a trailing comma.

On the minus side, Taitz is saying that the judge didn't engage in any legal analysis in his 16 September 2009 order, which is both untrue and also simply insulting. (Aside: when you use a pretentious Euro-style date convention rather than the American style, you avoid the comma issue altogether.) Furthermore, Taitz is saying that a reasonable, objective observer would conclude that there is a massive conspiracy, from the White House on down to the smallest individual federal district courts in the nation, between the Democratic President in his branch of government and the GWB-appointed judges in their own, aimed at keeping Taitz and her client from having their case heard in a court of law. Only an unreasonable observer would conclude, to the contrary, that Taitz is plainly incompetent -- apparently she's been failing to sign some of the documents filed with the court -- and is about to be $10,000 poorer. More:

[ . . . ] the obvious fact that [President Obama's] Father was an (admittedly disloyal and possibly treacherous) Subject of the British Crown when he was born, even though this fact alone would disqualify the President as a “natural born citizen”, regardless of his place of birth.

This is an incorrect statement of immigration and citizenship law. One of my parents was not an American citizen when I was born (the other had been naturalized). But because, like President Obama, I was born in an American state, I am a natural born citizen of the United States. 8 U.S.C. 1401(a). There were no relevant changes in that part of immigration and citizenship law between President Obama's birth and my own. And finally:

[ . . . ] the encroachment of anti-democratic, authoritarian, neo-Fascistic or Palaeo-Communistic dictatorship in this country [ . . . ]

This one needs a Zippy the Pinhead treatment: Neo-fascistic Palaeo-Communistic! Neo-fascistic Palaeo-Communistic! Neo-fascistic Palaeo-Communistic!

Anyway, long story short, Judge Land has rejected Plaintiff's emergency request (PDF), explicitly using words like contemptuously and phrases like illegitimate use of the federal judiciary to further her political agenda. The judge also uses a lot of Rule 11 language and then orders Taitz to show cause why he should not fine her 10 grand for her conduct. For one thing,

counsel contends that the Court dismissed her Complaint without giving her an opportunity to respond adequately[.] Counsel ignores that she sought to have the case heard in an expedited fashion in the first place because of Plaintiff’s imminent deployment. The Court modified its schedule to accommodate this request, and in fact held the hearing during the lunch break in an ongoing jury trial.

I'm sure that other trial's participants, especially the jury, were just so pleased to have the proceedings delayed for this nonsense.

And for another thing,

[i]f counsel had carefully read the Court’s order, she would have understood that the Court dismissed the Complaint based upon abstention principles [i.e., not on the merits of her argument, but because the court could not, under established legal precedent, interfere with a military deployment order]. Furthermore, competent counsel would have understood that the Court was required to address abstention prior to ruling upon the motion for a temporary restraining order.

In English, if there's a legal roadblock in the way, that is, if some other branch of the government has priority to make a decision regarding the lawsuit, then a court is not allowed to decide a case on its merits. This is called checks and balances. Here, the court decided that there was ample legal precedent showing that courts are not allowed to interfere in military deployment decisions. There are at least 2 reasons. First, the military has its own system of review. Second, the slippery slope: do you really want every disgruntled grunt to have recourse to the federal courts when he disagrees with a superior officer's order?

Also, in English, the judge just called Taitz a trained monkey who clearly skipped the week of Con Law where they studied justiciability.

Last comment, I'm tickled to see that the judge says pretty much what I said the other day when Taitz compared herself to Nelson Mandela:

Although the First Amendment may allow Plaintiff’s counsel to make these wild accusations on her blog or in her press conferences, the federal courts are reserved for hearing genuine legal disputes and not as a platform for political rhetoric that is disconnected from any legitimate legal cause of action.

But wait! It gets curiouser and curiouser: a document has come up that purports to be a letter faxed to Judge Land from Plaintiff Rhodes. In it, she appears to state that Ms. Taitz filed the emergency request without plaintiff's permission, and plaintiff, actually, "[does] not wish for Ms. Taitz to file any future motions or represent [her] in any way in this court." According to this document, plaintiff "[does] not wish to proceed" in the lawsuit but is on her way to Iraq.

Hat tip to the Native Born Citizen blog's Rhodes v. McDonald archive for providing links to the court records.

HHS Secretary Sebelius chastises Chuck Todd for sneezing on the press corps

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius briefs the press, notes NBC's Chuck Todd sneezing while another journo asks a question. She's about to let it go, but then she thinks again, glares at Todd, interrupts the journo asking her a question, and chastises Todd for sneezing into his hand rather than into his elbow. Watch how red Todd gets:



"Who's got some Purell? Give that to Mr. Todd, right away. A little hand sanitizer!"

RECAP update: it's probably OK

I'm a day (OK, almost a month) late and a dollar short with this update, but I'll post anyway. Public Citizen's Consumer Law & Policy blog reports that we should "feel free to use RECAP," the Firefox plug-in that helps you reduce your costs when you need to access documents filed in federal courts.

I had posted a few weeks ago that I would be wary of using a hackwork-around that would help an attorney avoid paying PACER fees. But, hey, if the Chief for Public Access and Records Management at the Administrative Office of the United States courts says it's OK to use RECAP, who am I to argue?

Um, this is not legal advice.

Index of religiosity correlates positively to index of teen births

Researchers from the civilized corners of Pennsylvania (i.e., universities in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh) are reporting that teen birth rates are higher in the very conservatively religious American states than in the more secular or liberally religious states. That is, the higher percentage a state has of people who agree with statements like "There is only one way to interpret the teachings of my religion" or who agree that the bible should be interpreted literally, the higher percentage that same state will have of teen pregnancies.

Mississippi tops both of the lists, i.e., the list of states that are the most conservatively religious, and the list of states with the highest rate of teen births. All but 1 of the other states on both lists are in the South, too. (Utah is, of course, conservatively religious; but it's not in the South.)

The researchers' conclusion: conservative religionists teach against contraception as well as against sex and abortion. Liberal religionists may well still teach against sex and abortion, but they'll also teach contraception. Thus, ifwhen a teen from a conservatively religious household has sex, they're not prepared to avoid pregnancy. But ifwhen a teen from a liberally religious household has sex, they're more likely to be prepared to avoid an unwanted pregnancy.

An abstract of the study is available online now. The full article will be published in an upcoming issue of Reproductive Health, presumably with Bristol Palin (video: start about 4:20) on the cover.

Orly Taitz update: she's as persecuted as Nelson Mandela was

"Attorney" Orly Taitz is not happy that her birther client's request for a restraining order was thrown out of court. Asked if she'll re-file in another district on her client's request, Taitz answered, "Oh, absolutely. [ ... ] Nelson Mandela stayed in prison for years in order to get to the truth and justice."

Unafraid of the Rule 11 sanctions Judge Clay D. Land threatened her with, she promptly called the judge (who is an immediate post-9/11 G.W. Bush appointee) a corrupt, out-of-control "puppet" of the Obama administration and told him to go back to Russia. Which, of course, is perfectly legally protected, non-sanctionable speech -- so long as she doesn't file it in his court.

Factcheck.org summarizes the D.C. teabagger crowd estimates, Malkin's lies

Factcheck.org has posted a summary of the crowd size estimates from the teabagger march in D.C. on the 12th. The site basically concludes that the city fire department estimate is probably the best to go with: 60,000 to 70,000, or maybe 75,000, "depending on the news organization reporting."

The 75,000 figure appears to have come from the Wall Street Journal. Other AP sources stick with the lower figure, and even Fox News conservatively reports "tens of thousands."

Has Michelle Malkin posted a retraction or even a mea culpa for her bizarre lie that ABC News reported 2 million protestors? She appears to have merely edited her blog entry to erase her responsibility in having started the false rumor.

Judge warns he'll go all Rule 11 against attorney Orly Taitz

Mithras discusses why Orly Taitz's most recent birther suit was thrown out, so I don't have to.

Welcome, Phawker readers

Welcome, Phawker readers. Feel free to browse, subscribe, comment, etc. Hope you come back early and often.

Overwhelming majority of Americans want Obamacare, actually

Bloomberg poll:

More than 8 out of 10 [Americans] support covering the uninsured, curbing costs, creating an insurance-purchasing exchange, and preventing insurers from dropping coverage or refusing to accept people with preexisting medical conditions. Majorities say employers should have to offer insurance and individuals should be required to have coverage.

Duh.

"Awesome" offer rates to Philly summer associates

The Above the Law blog writes about job offer rates to Philadelphia summer associates:

[A] 75% offer rate in Philadelphia sounds awesome.

Huh? Not if the numbers are skewed because firms had taken on smaller classes of summer associates the first place, it doesn't.

The math isn't hard, even for lawyers. Drinker Biddle, according the article, offered employment to 13 of 19 summer 2009 associates. That's 68% -- but it's still only 13 people. (And note that they reportedly laid off about 20 people last December, anyway.) If only they'd taken on a smaller class to begin with! If they'd recruited, say, 15 summer associates, their 87% offer rate would have beaten everybody else's in town!

The better question is, what was the flat number of offers given to Drinker Biddle's 2008 summer associates? Google isn't helpful, but something tells me it was more than 13.

Driberally tonight

Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at Triumph Brewery's upstairs bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!

Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).

This week's topic: Grassroots Skeptics meetup. Grassroots Skeptics is a new website that provides networking information, a database of local skeptics' groups, and (soon) resources for topical speakers. It's like Organizing for America, Rationalists' Edition. The local creator of Grassroots Skeptics, K.O. Myers, will attend, as will other Philadelphia-area freethinkers.

"Come for the beer, stay for the check"

Health insurer's delay kills "Norma Rae"

Crystal Lee Sutton, the textile union organizer whose true life story inspired the film Norma Rae, is dead of cancer because her health insurer's death panel delayed 2 months before choosing to cover her treatment. But, hey, in the end, the company saved money. Yay, for-profit health insurance! The market solves everything!

Will someone please teach me harmonica?

On a lighter note, literally, I want to learn how to play the harmonica. I found one among my boxes of stuff several months ago, though I can't remember where I got it from. Was it my ex-husband's? My grand-dad's? And how come I can't get that opening riff from "The Ghost of Tom Joad" to come out of it? Granted, I haven't really played an instrument for about 20 years. But I can pick out a lot of "In 'n' Out of Grace" by the time the song is over, so long as I'm using a guitar that's reasonably in tune and my fingernails aren't too long.

Engraved on the harmonica is the brand name Hohner and "MARINE BAND" and a "C" over on one side. From 2 minutes of googling I think that means it's a diatonic Hohner Marine Band harmonica in C major.

I don't have a case for it. How should I be storing it and caring for it?

Today: Philly for Change picnic at Clark Park

From e-mail:

Philly For Change P I C N I C

Sunday September 13

2:00 p.m. - ?

Clark Park, 43rd & Chester Ave.

RSVP: picnicforchange@gmail.com

Sponsor $50, or suggested donation $10, or student $5

Agenda:

1. Support PROGRESSIVE CHANGE in Philly, PA, & US.

2. Eat BBQ, carn or veg. Drink Beer (or soft drinks). Toast Teddy & Larry.

3. Listen.
Dill Pickles (feat. Brendan Skwire).
Shakey & the MoFos (feat. Sean Dorn).

4. Hang with Philly Progressive, um, Elite.

5. Seconds!

You know a woman who's had an abortion

I think I'll make this post a recurring feature, or if that's too annoying I'll find a way to work in this statement on a regular basis:

In America, about 1/3 of all women will have at least 1 abortion during their childbearing years (guttmacher.org). Thus, if you know some American women, then you know a woman who has had an abortion, whether she's told you or not.

This post is intended more for my male readers than my female readers. Here's why. It seems to me that when my female friends hear that statistic, they pause for brief moment and then say, "Oh, well, of course." But when my male friends hear it, they're often seriously taken aback.

I've got a theory as to why that happens. It's because many men, even Democrats and Greens and commies, can't imagine a woman they actually know getting an abortion, and they're reluctant to categorize any woman they know as a Woman Who's Had an Abortion. But why don't they want to categorize their female friends so? Well, I think one of the rules of order that we used when I was living in the commune is particularly apt here: check your assumptions. What are they assuming about Women Who've Had an Abortion? In contrast, what are they assuming about the women they know, love, work with, hang out with, sleep with? And why don't those assumptions jibe?

Are you unpleasantly surprised by the realization that about 1 out of every 3 women who attended Drinking Liberally last Tuesday (or who stood in line with you at the supermarket recently, or who graduated high school with you, or who worked on a political campaign with you, or who has dated you) has voluntarily aborted a pregnancy? Then I ask that you think about your reaction a little more critically. Stand back and reflect. Check your assumptions and your white, male, progressive privilege, even if you think you already do.

And for crying out loud, man up and don't show such a disgusted look on your face next time the topic comes up in conversation.

When it comes to reproductive rights politics, there are 2 kinds of women. But the 2 kinds are not "women who get abortions" and "women who don't get abortions." Rather, it's women who have had to decide whether to get an abortion, and women who haven't had to make the decision. Most American women fall pregnant, intentionally or not, at some time during their childbearing years. When a woman falls pregnant, she has to decide whether or not to terminate the pregnancy. And every year, over a million American women choose to terminate. You know a lot more of them than you think you do.

Tonight: the last Dill Pickles show of the summer at Fergie's

Old-time and bluegrass music all night long tonight at Fergie's Pub, 1214 Sansom Street in Center City Philadelphia.

No cover!

At least 3 bands! The Dill Pickles, the Ganesha Ramblers (from Trenton), and the Scrapple Creek Runners (from fabulous Newark, Delaware).

Then a possible surprise appearance by the Keystone Mountain Boys, and then the Dill Pickles again until last call.

Bring your earplugs and your cider jugs for free music from 6:00 to close!

September 11 should be a federal holiday

Brendan urges that September 11 should be a federal holiday like Martin Luther King Day, not just an opt-in national day of service (automatic video and sound).

9/11 was the catalyzing reason why we moved back East. We'd lived on the West Coast for about 10 years, and our daughter was born there. It was annoying but not fiscally impossible to fly back and forth to Bos-Wash a couple of times per year. But 9/11 made us -- or, at least, it made me -- seriously reconsider the wisdom of living 3,000 miles away from most of the rest of the family. So by July, 2002, we'd sold our car, left the Puget Sound, and crammed our household into a little rehabbed trinity just south of Center City.

I didn't lose anyone in the World Trade Center or the other airplanes. Nobody in my family is in the U.S. armed forces (I have no American cousins), though my daughter's paternal grandfather served in the Navy and is buried at Arlington. But still, I'd put my money where my mouth is and do some kind of public service every September 11 if it were a federal holiday. Martin Luther King, Jr., was only 1 person; surely we can carve out another day on the calendar to honor the 3,000 dead on 9/11.

"Clean, separate, cook, and chill"

The Obama administration's new Food Safety website includes an alert widget for your blog, an RSS feed of food recalls (that doesn't yet appear completely operational), information about food storage, "ask the experts" contact information, and information sheets about various food-borne illnesses.

The federal government could have been using Web technology years ago to provide consumer information about the food supply, but I'll take what I can get. I don't think I'll put the widget on my blog, but I'll subscribe to the RSS feed of food recall alerts when they're available.

Putting all this stuff on a website is a wonderful idea. A lot of people aren't learning the basics of food preparation any more, and I think there are a few reasons. First, with all the focus on teaching to standardized tests and raising test scores, I think a lot of kids don't take a home economics class in school. Not that home ec was terribly useful when I was a teen, but at least we did learn our way around the kitchen, from prep to clean-up. Now I'm not sure how many schools still even offer a family and consumer science course. (My daughter's school doesn't.)

Second, take-home restaurant meals and convenience foods are more elaborate and cheaper than they were 20 years ago. When I was a kid, the take-out options were pizza, a Kentucky Fried Chicken family meal, or lousy Chinese food; the convenience food options were limited to TV dinners (remember salisbury steak?) and macaroni and cheese from a box. There's a lot more take-out to choose from now, and convenience food technology sometimes leaves me with that "wow, I'm living in the future" feeling when I look at some of the shelf-stable products in the supermarket.

Third, and this one's probably peculiar to myself, television cooking shows don't focus on the basics the way they used to. In the '70s and '80s I remember watching chefs like the Frugal Gourmet, or Jacques Pépin, or Graham Kerr (mostly after his Galloping Gourmet days), or Justin Wilson. And Julia Child reruns, too. These shows taught how to hold a knife, how to dice an onion, how to remember "hot pan, cold oil, food won't stick," how to dress a chicken, how to make pastry. The Food Network shows -- and most of the new shows on PBS, too -- don't teach. They're entertainment: tours of great American restaurants; foods of the world that are least recognizable to the Western palate; championship cook-offs with world-renowned chefs using the most expensive, most out-of-season ingredients available in desert Las Vegas. Alton Brown explains the chemistry and history behind a lot of foods, but the most recent show of his I watched showed how to make baklava from store-boughten phyllo dough, interspersed with actors dressed up as carpet-flying Persians and nomadic Turks and their camels. If Brown had spent that time teaching how to make flake pastry, it would have been more worth my while to watch the show. Instead, he explained how to make your own home-made rosewater. This is entertainment, not teaching; it's not in and of itself a bad thing, just different from what people my age grew up with.

Luckily, I have a Joy of Cooking at home with illustrated instructions.

I think you really lose something when you jump from box macaroni and cheese to celebrity chef shows, without stopping for a visit with Fannie Farmer and Cooking with Claudine in-between. Until cooking is as obsolete as spinning and weaving your own cloth (as a household necessity), it's a money-saving life skill that kids need to learn.

My point, and I do have one, is that a lot of kids are not only not learning how to make healthy food choices and cook the most basic of meals, but they are also not learning how to wash their hands before they cook, how to keep a sanitary kitchen, or how to even tell if the milk has gone bad. Putting up a website that takes the place of old-timey home ec classes is a welcome way to address that problem.

May Jesus help the Philadelphia City Council in drafting new Dumpster regulations

We ask this in the name of our resurrected and soon-coming king, Jesus the christ, the anointed son of god.

Is this (A) the conclusion of a Thanksgiving dinner blessing; (B) the prayer after a particularly heartfelt intercession during Mass; or (C) a typical invocation preceding a session of the Philadelphia City Council?

You're right if you guessed (C). And you're right if you think these prayers massively fail the Lemon test, making the practice absurdly unconstitutional.

How absurd? The agenda for the next City Council meeting (PDF) includes discussions of a no-truck-parking zone on a single city block up Olney way; new Dumpster regulations; and a bond issuance for municipal improvements. The Council needs Jesus's guidance with truck parking, Dumpsters, and interest rate swaps? Lord help us all.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is urging Philadelphians to contact their Councilmembers and register a complaint about the extremely sectarian prayers used to open City Council meetings (PDF). Myself, I think the Sermon on the Mount gives City Council some pretty clear guidance as to their rules of order:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Matthew 6:5-6 (NIV).

Back-to-school jitters, I guess

I know the first day back to school can be tricky, but do those kids really need to be out in the alley smoking weed at 8:30 a.m.?

Driberally tonight

Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at Triumph Brewery's upstairs bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!

Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).

This week's topic: I'll do Brendan one better and present Billy Bragg's version of "Which Side Are You On":



"Come for the beer, stay for the check"

New group for freethinkers: Grassroots Skeptics

Introducing Grassroots Skeptics, "a volunteer organization that promotes critical thinking and a reason-centered worldview." The website acts as a clearinghouse and virtual meet-up space for small, localized groups of freethinkers, secular humanists, and skeptics who want to make critical thinking a social movement, not just a scientific method.

So far, the website includes a calendar of skeptics' events and an index of contact information for various clubs and organizations -- both in the States and around the world. They have a Facebook page.

Future plans for Grassroots Skeptics include maintaining a "Skeptical Speakers Bureau" and other resources for both new and established groups.

Atheists, rational thinkers, and believers in evolution: you are not alone! And Grassroots Skeptics is here to help you meet one another.

Latest issue of Grid is useful

Latest issue of Grid magazine includes a map of thrift stores, charity shops, and second-hand emporia in Center City, South Philly, West Philly, and a couple of other outlying areas within easy SEPTA reach.

Grid is available free at a lot of shops and groceries all over (there's a "where to find" link on the website there). The intended audience appears to be urban people in their 20s who are lacking some life skills; but there's usually 1 or 2 good gems of information in each issue. The full spread map of thrift stores, for instance, included a few places I'd never even heard of.

You can sort of read the magazine on the website; there's an embedded functionality to let you "flip" through the pages. But since it makes for better bathroom reading than desktop reading, you might as well stop by your local coffeeshop and pick it up in person.

Reagan's speech to schoolkids in 1988

I've found a few uncited, unsourced blog posts purporting to be a full or partial transcript of President Reagan's 14 November 1988 remarks and Q&A to a gaggle of schoolkids at the White House. The freeper link there looks plausible, so I'm happy to use it.

Reagan's speech included a reference to an unidentified "wise Frenchman," variously identified through Google searches as Oscar Wilde and François de la Rochefoucauld. The quote is, actually, one of La Rochefoucauld's Maximes (1664) and it tickles me that Reagan used it:

L'hypocrisie est un hommage que le vice rend à la vertu.

Hypocrisy is an homage that vice pays to virtue. It's La Rochefoucauld's maxim no. 218.

Applying the maxim to the current brouhaha would be flogging a dead horse, so I'll stop now.

I'm keeping my daughter home from school on the 8th!

I'm keeping my daughter home from school on the day of the President's back-to-school message!

. . . because her school doesn't start until later in the week. So we're going to watch it live, at home, as if we were homeschooling. The media player below will be active at noon on Tuesday 8 September 2009:

[Removed after the event]

Men I've dated, part n in a series

He's a musician and has worked as a musical director off-Broadway and in the Catskills. He appeared in a few episodes of a well-received cable sitcom, now off the air. He had a very brief speaking part (no close-up, but a credit in the end titles) in a film that won the Academy Award for best picture.

He's a cruciverbalist, a person who constructs crossword puzzles.

He lives in New York, and we met during the fringe festival a few years ago. That year, there was a late-night cabaret of various acts -- based on the vaudeville model -- that would open shortly after most of the evening shows had ended. I was working the door, taking cover charges, when the cabaret organizer and emcee walked over and said, "Hey, Glomarization, you like doing crossword puzzles. Here, someone wants you to give this a try." I was confused, but door traffic had frequent lulls, and the ID-checking bouncer and I had run out of conversational topics, so I dug out a pen and worked on the crossword.

I've just remembered that, at some point that week during the cabaret, I took out a sharpie that I'd been using to mark drinkers' hands and drew a fake tattoo on my arm. It was an anchor plus the name of a local filmmaker that I'd quit sleeping with, but who I still got along with really well, and who had showed up to the cabaret that night. When he saw it he laughed out loud, and I was happy to have entertained him. But I'm pretty certain that was a different night, and in any event this post isn't about that filmmaker.

Though I'll interject as a final aside that I believe it adds up to 4 men, now, that I've slept with who are in the IMDb. It's mostly a coincidence.

Back to the crossword constructor. He was at the cabaret because he was providing piano accompaniment to one of the acts, a voice actor and friend he performs with from time to time. They have a few songs, stories, and jokes, an entertaining schtick that they can keep up for a good hour. I found him backstage after their show, and I handed him his completed crossword. I think we charmed each other.

They returned a couple of years later to do their act again for the cabaret, and the voice actor got to keep the hotel room they were supposed to share all to himself. After the show, the 3 of us shared a cab to the hotel, where the crossword constructor retrieved his bag, and then the 2 of us came back to my place. The next morning, we had breakfast at a local deli and wandered through one of the monthly city flea markets.

In between the 2 cabaret gigs, I had visited him in New York, where he works for a book publisher to pay his rent. We got Indian take-out for dinner, and we watched what we could see of the sunset from the fire escape outside his tiny apartment. We shared the morning crossword on the subway into town. As a rule, I hate sharing a crossword. I would rather relinquish the entire crossword to the other person than solve it with a buddy, even a close friend. Maybe I tolerated it with him because we had a goal: finish the crossword before we get to midtown Manhattan. Maybe I tolerated it because it was novel to let myself share a crossword with someone. Maybe I tolerated it because we were an excellent match. Maybe I would have been able to tolerate it for the very long term.

For a while, I would buy the newspapers where his crosswords appeared and then clip and mail the completed crosswords to him in New York.

Recently I finally got around to seeing the movie he'd had a speaking part in. I blame my delay in seeing the film, as well as my discontinuing doing his crosswords, squarely on law school. Its twin exigencies of no time and no money. I should get back in touch with him, but I can't think of a way to do it that would leave us comfortable, or desirous. "Hey, last week I saw the movie you're in. I know it's been several years since the movie was released. They didn't show your face but it sounded just like you. I know it's been a couple of years since we've seen each other. I'm sorry I haven't sent you any of your crosswords lately."

I don't see him or his friend scheduled for the fringe festival's late-night cabaret events this year.

Odd customer service hours

There are some great mysteries in life.

One of those great mysteries is why SEPTA's customer service desk on the Route 100 side of the Norristown Transportation Center is open only on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.

Of course, the Wednesday closure exactly coincided with my unexpectedly spending Tuesday night in suburban Norristown and needing to get back to Center City Philadelphia on my own Wednesday morning, and I'd neglected to get my September TransPass when I had a chance to do so on Tuesday afternoon. But that part of the tale isn't so much a mystery as it is a relatively straightforward example of my usual luck.

Driberally tonight

Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at Triumph Brewery's upstairs bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!

Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).

This week's topic: Global warming has killed 2/3 of my tomatoes this year. Seriously: I've managed to grow 3 tomatoes on my sunless patio, and 2 of them have gotten black mold because the summer has been so wet, which has been the predicted result of global climate change for the mid-Atlantic. Rats. Though maybe the rats are enjoying the 2 rotten tomatoes I've lobbed into the alleyway.

"Come for the beer, stay for the check"