Last week, House Majority Leader John Boehner issued a plea to Republicans et al not to “spike the ball” should the Court strike down the law. It was a magnanimous, if futile gesture. Rush Limbaugh, never letting an opportunity to issue jowly gloats slide, admonished his followers to keep doing what they do best (i.e. commit mass asshattery). Here is what I imagine their ball-spiking party looks like today:
I’m surprised, first of all, at the way the vote split. The opinion just posted to the Supreme Court’s site, and I have not had a chance to read all 193 pages (go figure). I’m uploading a copy of the opinion below, if anyone wants to indulge.
Treating the individual mandate as a tax is an interesting outcome. I thought the Commerce Clause arguments were pretty solid, given precedent (stare decisis: look it up and explain it to Justice Scalia, please.)
At the moment, I doubt anyone outside the court itself has read the opinion, unless they have mad speed-reading skillz. It will be several days before there is any meaningful analysis or commentary. I will be ignoring the media drivel. If I can get around to it, I’ll delve into the topic some more.
Opinion of the Court, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, Supreme Court of the United States, June 28, 2012
Police pulled over a man in Roosevelt, New York because he allegedly did not have his 2 year-old correctly strapped into a car seat. Unfortunately, he also allegedly did not have a valid driver’s license, and now he faces charges of unlicensed driving and charges related to the child safety seat.
Oh yeah, he also faces two charges of second-degree assault, for alleged assaulting two police officers during the traffic stop. That’s where this gets, uh, weird:
Nassau County police said First Precinct officers stopped the 1994 BMW driven by [Jorge] Guevara as he drove with his three children on Nassau Road.
A license check then revealed that Guevara did not have a license, police said. Police said his license had been suspended at least three times — and was suspended at the time of the traffic stop.
Police said that, as he was being questioned, Guevara started to walk away. Officers attempted to stop him, but, police said, a struggle ensued.
Guevara suffered a facial contusion, police said. One officer suffered contusions, lacerations and a sprained finger. The other officer suffered several fractures to his hand.
Police said all three — Guevara and the two officers — were treated at a hospital and later released.
The story is from Officer.com, a law enforcement news site. I bolded the parts I found most interesting, because, well………how exactly does someone hurt another person’s hand with his face? It is an incredibly novel theory of the jurisprudence of criminal assault. If you’re going to commit an assault, most of us have other appendages at our disposal that work better. It is not clear if the first officer suffered contusions and lacerations somewhere other than his hand, so it may be a reporting issue.
There are at least two other possibilities besides the face-as-a-weapon theory:
– The story was misreported somehow.
– This is bullshit of epic proportions, and a guy has been charged with assault for being punched in the face.
Some people don’t like to be groped by strangers. Possibly most people. Some people, upon being groped, have the nerve to demand better treatment than that. In today’s world of constant vigilance pants-wetting fear, that cannot stand. One woman in Florida wondered how government agents would like it if we groped them.
The agent she allegedly groped did not like it one bit, and now the woman faces a misdemeanor battery charge.
Considering we are dealing with an agency that pats down cancer survivorsafter scanning them, and whose agents might threaten to sue you if you dare speak out about your groping, this should not be too surprising.
What makes this story slightly more interesting is that the woman is a former TSA agent herself, and she knew the “victim” of her groping demonstration: Continue reading →
The announcement just came down on Wednesday: the University of Texas School of Law has chosen a new dean:
Ward Farnsworth, associate dean for academic affairs at Boston University School of Law, has been named dean of the School of Law at the University of Texas at Austin.
Farnsworth’s appointment, effective June 1, fills the position currently held by Interim Dean Stefanie Lindquist.
“As a teacher, a scholar, and a leader, Ward Farnsworth is just what UT Law needs,” said President Bill Powers. “I’m confident he’ll not only continue the tradition of first-class legal education and service to society at the University of Texas, but take the Law School to even greater heights.”
I wish Dean Farnsworth the best of luck in the wacky madhouse that is UT Law School. The building is very confusing, but people are generally happy to give directions. I presume that you will not have any specifically professorial duties in your role as dean, but I hope you don’t mind if I at least think of you as Professor Farnsworth.
Yup, this whole post was a setup for a Futurama joke. What else did you expect from me?
I know many people from the state of North Carolina, and I know them all to be kind, decent, caring, generous people. I’m not sure how many of them still live there, if any, but I’m sorry if they have to live among that kind of bigotry. Of course, it’s not like Texas is much better.
A representative of the principle supporter of the amendment had this to say:
Tami Fitzgerald, chairwoman of Votes for Marriage NC, the main group behind the amendment, said: “We are not anti-gay, we are pro-marriage. The whole point is you don’t rewrite the nature of God’s design for marriage based on the demands of a group of adults.”
Apparently, however, she does get to marginalize an entire group of people who have done her no wrong, based on the demands of her group of adults (emphasis added because I’m furious). Not only that, but this amendment may have much a much farther-reaching impact than people seem to realize. It could affect more than just those icky gay people (that’s how I imagine Tami Fitzgerald phrasing it, anyway). I have no words for the supporters of this amendment that don’t include “rectums” and “rusty pitchforks,” so I shall turn to the words of friends and people whom I admire. Continue reading →
Have you ever been a frustrated food service employee, annoyed with that customer who never quite seems satisfied with their order? Have you ever joked about possibly spitting in someone’s food? (Full disclosure, I thought about it, but never did it, while working at the on-campus Coffeehouse in college.) As it turns out, it is not so funny when it happens in real life. For anybody.
A couple of weeks ago, a mother and daughter ordered food, including sweet tea, from the drive-thru at a McDonald’s in Simpsonville, South Carolina. Upon receiving their order, they learned that the tea was not sweet. Or at least not sweet to their liking, so they went back and asked for new drinks. They noticed that these weren’t sweet either, but they decided to go home and sweeten them there.
This is the part of the story where the phlegm comes in. Stay with me. Continue reading →
When a teacher is accused of inappropriate relations with a student, we as a society have a tendency to react differently depending on who occupies which position on the victim/perpetrator scale. Let me be abundantly clear here that sexual relationships between high school teachers and their students are bad. Unequivocally, uniformly bad, mmmkay? We tend to uniformly condemn male perpetrators who allegedly prey on anyone, long before the trial even starts. When the alleged perpetrator is a woman, though, we are sometimes less certain how to respond.
More than anything else, I want to smack that reporter in the face until he admits that he does not work for TMZ.
I don’t know what went on between Sarah Jones and her alleged, unnamed victim (justifiably unnamed because he’s a minor). Prosecutors in Kenton County, Kentucky say they have e-mails and other correspondence that proves the existence of a sexual relationship sometime between October and December 2011. Jones denies any inappropriate relationship. So does the alleged victim, or so we hear. Interestingly, joining the chorus of support for Jones is the alleged victim’s family. Whatever is going on in this case, it is getting interesting.
The twist in this case, at least culturally-speaking, is this:
(1) Sarah Jones is kind of a slamming hottie, particularly when she is all done up in her cheerleader garb. Your typical high school boy, again, culturally speaking, would have rather clear feelings about that. That would not justify a relationship in any way at all, because even a horny kid is still just a kid. The complication for the boy is that a great many people might be tempted not to view him as that much of a victim. This puts the kid in the untenable position of being a victim who is expected, in some circles, to be proud of his victimization. At times, this makes cases like these very difficult to prosecute. At other times, it could make prosecutors very eager to go after such a case, based on an assumption that the victim will not want to talk about it. Or will want to talk about it. If we could just deal with the case based on its particular facts, wouldn’t it be a great world?
(2) Sarah Jones is kind of a slamming hottie, particularly when she is all done up in her cheerleader garb. Some circles of our society (see the TODAY video above) may view her hotness and her choice of skimpy garb as evidence of her guilt, whether they realize it or not. The fact that Sarah Jones once earned supplemental income as a cheerleader has exactly zero to do with the question of her guilt or innocence. But damn if we don’t view that as somehow suspect. Here’s what would tend to go towards proving her guilt: (a) a confession; (b) direct evidence of sexual contact between her and the alleged victim, in the form of DNA, photographs, overt written or recorded references, or eyewitness testimony (which usually comes from one of the two parties to the relationship); or (c) indirect evidence, in the form of cell phone records, sightings of the two in public, the defendant’s car at the alleged victim’s house at 3:00 a.m., and so forth. Here’s what would not tend to go towards proving her guilt: (a) being a cheerleader; (b) wearing short skirts and skimpy tops; (c) getting paid to wear short skirts and skimpy tops; (d) being a young, hot high school teacher who also works as a cheerleader.
If she did it, she should go to jail. If she didn’t, everyone shut up about the cheerleader outfit. Actually, either way, everyone shut up about the cheerleader outfit.
Possibly the best mug shot in the history of law enforcement (a fact that was irrelevant to the question of her guilt.)
It might be tempting to think that women get some sort of….not free…but easier pass in cases like this. Debra LaFave only got house arrest and probation, for example, for her tryst with a 14 year-old. This is not the whole story. Remember that for every convicted female perpetrator that gets a seemingly light sentence, there is a male victim that isn’t really viewed as a victim. This is because of two cultural stereotypes: (a) dudes want to do the nasty, and (b) girls are delicate flowers who can’t really hurt us. That may turn out a lighter prison sentence for one female perpetrator, but the rest of humanity–male, female, trans*, and so forth–is worse off for it. It involves negative stereotypes on both sides, but the one against women (that they can’t really hurt men) easily feeds into the stereotype that they can’t really do many things. Then the dudes step in to do things for them.
What I am really saying in that last paragraph is, if you try to use this as an example of how men are the real victims in society, I will mock you. Mercilessly. Possibly using gay porn. Because I know you’d hate that. (Or would you???)
Photo credits: ‘Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader Sarah Jones after an NFL game on Sept. 3, 2009, in Cincinnati,’ AP Photo/David Kohl [Fair use], via CBS News; ‘Lafave’ by FL DOC [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
We went to Easter lunch today at my aunt & uncle’s house. As we were preparing for a drive to the land of my birth to commemorate the fact that we used to celebrate Easter, it occurred to us that we should bring something. It is, after all, customary to contribute something when you are a guest in someone’s home. After consulting with other family members, it became clear that we should keep it simple and just bring wine. Everyone likes the person who brings wine. It requires no effort, and who doesn’t like wine? (I don’t drink, but even I appreciate a visually-appealing wine bottle.)
Being the lazy fellow that I am, I waited until this morning to buy a bottle of wine. The big grocery store, H.E.B., was completely closed. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by that. We went to the nearby Walgreens, grabbed a bottle of white (my aunt and uncle like white wine), and headed to the register. It was 10:30 a.m.
“Um, I don’t think I can sell this to you right now,” said the clearly sympathetic clerk.
Because, as we all know, Texans like small government, and what better way to limit government’s pernicious influence over us than to allow it to dictate when we can and cannot buy booze? At least we know that no one will buy a box of wine, get drunk, and accidentally……do something that we, as a people, have a right to prevent people from doing when drunk on a Sunday morning. I’m sorry, I can’t even think of a sarcastic example of what this law might legitimately prohibit. It’s just that stupid.
The only reason these laws exist is to enforce some sort of religious standard that hasn’t existed in many communities for decades, if ever. Yet many of these laws apply statewide. Some Texas counties are “dry,” which often just means that you can’t buy alcohol unless you buy a “membership” to a restaurant. I’m not sure where that membership fee goes, although it would not surprise me if some part of it ended up in the county’s coffers. So the church-going folk get to pretend their community adheres to their own antiquated notion of morality, and the county (possibly) pockets a little extra change. Winners all around, right?
Except that it makes us all look like assholes.
Photo credit: ‘Unidentified white wine in glass’ by Basheer Tome (originally posted to Flickr as White Wine) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
Nothing remotely related to SXSW was going on in the building today
I began the last day of the Interactive festival in just the way that anyone trying to leave their law career behind would like to begin it. By going to court.
I also had a rather inauspicious beginning to the day due to an unfortunate goof. Since I spent the weekend at a sleepover of sorts, I had not had an opportunity to “spring forward” with any of the clocks at home. When I got home last night, tired from a day of learning and growing as a person, the time change of the previous day was the farthest thing from my mind.
When my alarm clock went off at 7:00 a.m., affording me a whole two hours to wake up, shower, remember how to tie a tie, and get my butt to the courthouse, I did not realize it was actually 8:00 a.m. For once, I’m glad I have this compulsive need to wake up earlier than is strictly necessary. Rather than make it to the courthouse with around 30 minutes to spare. I arrived with around 3 extra minutes. The simple fact that I arrived on time should be cause for a damn parade, but I still don’t see any bunting.
Miraculously, I was in an out of court in record time, arriving at just short of 9:15 a.m. and adjourning just after 9:30. With the catastrophic traffic, I was parking near the Convention Center by about 10:15, and comically changing clothes in the car. Luckily, no one walked by to see the show.
Since I had just been reminded that I am a lawyer…
I got in just in time for a CLE presentation, which I decided I should attend because hey! CLE credit!
I went to two CLE sessions, which I will delve into on my law blog:
I could tell I was burning out on panels, almost for good, as I fled the CLE room ahead of a panel on something like “Maximizing Revenues from Film.” You would think I could want to hear that, but I felt like just talking to people.
Once again, the bloggers’ lounge proved to be a great place to get free food and meet people. I met a fellow legal ghost-blogger. An interesting band called the Sweetness played, and then they kicked us out at 4:00 p.m., a couple hours earlier than on previous days.
SXSW NSFW
To cap off the conference, I headed with a friend to a session at the Sheraton Hotel. Thus involved a rather comical search for a Car2Go and a ponderous drive through absurd amounts of traffic. Our destination? A session titled “This Talk Is NSFW: Nudity and Online Journalism.” Thanks to traffic, we missed the first half, and I’m not sure I ever quite picked up the thread of the discussion.
As we walked in, the speaker, Keith Plocek, the Director of Web Content and Traffic at Village Voice Media, was showing slides of people in various states of undress and asking people to vote on whether they thought the image was “NSFW.” The issue was when a newspaper or other news source should tag an article or picture as NSFW. The general rule relates to context, but it can also be quite political. Whether or not to tag a picture, he said, largely depends on who is being sexy in the picture. Pictures that seem “gay” are much more likely to get tagged. Using the NSFW tag is a great way to get traffic, but it will get you angry comments if it’s too tame. You don’t want to deceive your readers about this issue, silly as it may seem, because that erodes your overall credibility.
He also talked about the importance of “covering” events as opposed to “pandering.” “Pandering” would be putting a naked woman somewhere and taking pictures, as opposed to covering a porn convention already in progress. He showed photos of the World Naked Bike Ride in Los Angeles from a few years ago. He said the page got about 800,000 views when they posted it, and then it leveled off. The page got even more hits the following year, in anticipation of the next ride, and now it’s up to about 2.5 million hits. Obviously, the NSFW tag gets attention.
They have to make some editorial decisions about what to cover, though, so they don’t over-use the tag. For example, they cannot cover every burlesque event in the city.
One question from the audience was about violent content. The NSFW can be used for violent content as well as sexual content. Apparently there is another tag, NSFL (“not safe for life” or “not safe for lunch”), used for particularly disturbing violent content. People tend to have certain expectations when they click on a link tagged “NSFW,” i.e. boobs. Don’t show them something really gross if they are expecting boobs.
We are now more than halfway through the excitement! Part of me is sad to think it will be over soon. The entire rest of me is exhausted, and slightly annoyed at that other part for continuing to make it do stuff.
The day started out cold and foggy. It abruptly turned warm and sunny mid-morning, but this was not an inspiring way to start the day.
Not that my dietary habits are of any particular interest, but I had an awesome breakfast at Kerbey Lane, followed by some aimless wandering. I have been on vacation in my own town for the past few days, but today I must return to my actual house because of some real-world obligations, alas.
Perhaps the most anticipated (by me) event of the whole conference was the Game of Thrones meetup in Palm Park around 11:00 a.m. For those of you who do not know what Game of Thrones is, I have to ask, like I asked the people who’d never heard of “Firefly,” what are you doing here???
Moving on, Game of Thrones is the first book of the epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. It is also a television series on HBO, starting its second season (roughly corresponding to the second book) on April 1.
The meetup was just a chance for fans of the books/show to hang out, talk about the books or show, avoid spoilers, and so on. It was great, after several days of feeling intimidated by my lack of technical know-how and slightly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of my own aspirations as a writer, to meet some like-minded people in an area that is more geeky than nerdy. I speak geek far better than I speak nerd. I happen to have strong opinions on the fundamental difference between “geeks” and “nerds.” That’s for another post, though.
So anyway, I met some awesome folks, found inspiration, learned a few new Westeros conspiracy theories, and fun was had by all.
Chillin’
After hanging out with same Game of Thrones fan friends for an hour or so, I decided to wander again. I’m honestly a bit burned out on panels and sessions. I would rather hang out and meet interesting people. After grabbing a sandwich and charging my phone, I decided to head back to the Samsung Bloggers’ Lounge. I actually found a seat and once again met interesting writer types.
Since the whole raison d’être of this conference is to meet people, that seemed like the best use of my time. Another enticing feature of SXSW is chance celebrity sightings and surprise apearances. As I sat in the lounge writing and chatting, the person next to me excitedly noted that Robert Rodriguez was sitting on the stage. Turns out he was there for a live interview with “What’s Trending,” a web series or something. I have now achieved my obligation to see a famous person.
Actually, I’m pretty sure I saw Rob Riggle walking around Saturday, although his badge had someone else’s name on it. When I stood in line to get my badge on Friday, I stood next to someone I call not-Ben-Affleck. This is because I determined that he was not, in fact, Ben Affleck.
There was also a musician named Daria Musk who apparently built a following on Google+ and plays “hangout concerts.” She played on the stage for a little while and broadcast it (is that the word?) on Google+. I’m not entirely sold on the concept yet. It might have been the song title “+1 Me.”
On an unrelated note, I missed a panel the other day that sounded interesting, “Sex Nets: Pickup Artists vs. Feminists.” There were not as many fireworks as one might expect with those two groups thrown together, but I was more interested in hearing what people had to say. Panel participant Amanda Marcotte has a write-up of how the panel went. Worth a look.
Police pulled over a man in Roosevelt, New York because he allegedly did not have his 2 year-old correctly strapped into a car seat. Unfortunately, he also allegedly did not have a valid driver’s license, and now he faces charges of unlicensed driving and charges related to the child safety seat.
!['New York City Proposition 8 Protest outside LDS temple 20' by David Shankbone (David Shankbone) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ANew_York_City_Proposition_8_Protest_outside_LDS_temple_20.jpg "'New York City Proposition 8 Protest outside LDS temple 20' by David Shankbone (David Shankbone) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons")
!['NCI iced tea,' Source: National Cancer Institute, Author: Renee Comet (photographer), AV Number: AV-9400-4169, Date Created: 1994 [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NCI_iced_tea.jpg "'NCI iced tea,' Source: National Cancer Institute, Author: Renee Comet (photographer), AV Number: AV-9400-4169, Date Created: 1994 [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons")
![Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader Sarah Jones after an NFL game on Sept. 3, 2009, in Cincinnati. Credit: AP Photo/David Kohl [Fair use]](http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2012/03/30/Bengals-Cheerleader-Sarah-Jones-02-Pic.jpg "Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader Sarah Jones after an NFL game on Sept. 3, 2009, in Cincinnati. Credit: AP Photo/David Kohl [Fair use]")
!['Lafave' by FL DOC [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALafave.jpg "'Lafave' by FL DOC [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons")
