Talking Shit

English has absorbed a myriad of influences, but our usage has tended to prioritise imported words over those of our Anglo-Saxon roots. In fact, our core profanities today derive originally from Anglo-Saxon words, which only became vulgar to use when French became the language of the court (this also explains why these curse words tend to be four letters long and have strong consonants). It’s not that those words – or these scatological topics – were inherently profane. It’s that we made them so by distancing ourselves from what use to be native. 

Black, Christina. "On Giving a Shit" book review of Between Two Stools: Scatology and its Representations in English Literature, Chaucer to Swift by Peter Smith. Review 31, Accessed on July 31, 2015, http://review31.co.uk/article/view/332/on-giving-a-shit

Dickens on Tears

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlaying our hard hearts.

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Oxford University Press: Oxford World's Classics, 2008, 145.

Bush League

An 81-year-old Stratford man has been charged with public indecency, accused of performing a sex act with some shrubbery.

WINY Radio, "From the Newsroom" Facebook Post, Accessed on July 29, 2015, https://www.facebook.com/topic/Stratford-Connecticut/103121246394551?source=whrt&position=10&trqid=6177036864848483383

Pip and the Emperor

I set off on the four-mile walk to our forge; pondering, as I went along, on all I had seen, and deeply revolving that I was a common labouring-boy; that my hands were coarse, that my boots were thick; that I had fallen into the despicable habit of calling knaves Jacks; that I was much more ignorant than I had considered myself last night, and generally that I was in a low-lived bad way.

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Oxford University Press: Oxford World's Classics, 2008, 59.

That's Pip as he returns home from his first meeting with Miss Havisham and her daughter, Estella. Pip is broken and hurt because he is of the opinion that their belittling him is bad. What would Marcus Aurelius say about that? As it happens, we know exactly what he'd say. He'd say to Pip:

Take away your opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, "I have been harmed." Take away the complaint, "I have been harmed," then the harm is taken away.

Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations. New York: Dover Thrift Edition, 1997, 14. 

The Panacea and the Problem

Many denizens of the Valley believe that tech is the solution to all ills and that government is just an annoyance that still lacks an algorithm. 

The Economist. "Empire of the Geeks" July 25th-31st, 2015, Accessed on July 26, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21659745-silicon-valley-should-be-celebrated-its-insularity-risks-backlash-empire-geeks

That's from a leader from The Economist as it reports on the current culture of Silicon Valley. The full article is here. It's interesting throughout. 

Stanza Sunday: from A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In the world’s broad field of battle,
   In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
   Be a hero in the strife!

Longellow, Henry Wadsworth. from "A Psalm of Life", Accessed on July 26, 2015, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173910

Stoic Saturday: How I Applied Stoic Principles to Lose Weight

But I do not despair even of a hardened sinner. There is nothing that will not surrender to persistent treatment, to concentrated and careful attention; however much the timber may be bent, you can make it straight again. Heat unbends curved beams, and wood that grew naturally in another shape is fashioned artificially according to our needs. How much more easily does the soul permit itself to be shaped, pliable as it is and more yielding than any liquid! For what else is the soul but air in a certain state? And you see that air is more adaptable than any other matter, in proportion as it is rarer than any other.  

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. Epistles, Volume 1: 1-65. Translated by Richard M. Gummere (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1917), 333-35. 

Mastering one's appetite is the very foundation of training in self-control. 

Robertson, Donald paraphrasing Musonius Rufus. Stoicism and the Art of Happiness. McGraw-Hill, 2013, 12.

Appetite and thirst are the natural 'sauce' of life and the secret to making even coarse bread and plain water taste delicious. 

Robertson, Donald. Stoicism and the Art of Happiness. McGraw-Hill, 2013, 8.

On June 2, 2015 I weighed 283 pounds. Today I weigh 267.8 pounds. Though there is still a long way to go in terms of achieving my target weight I am very happy with the results so far. I have stoic principles to thank for any success I've had and any success that I may have in the future. Since weight loss is an important issue for many people these days I thought I'd share what I've learned so far.

At the outset I should probably say that weight loss per se is something that falls outside of my control. So at best it's a preferred indifferent. But while weight loss is beyond my control, what I chose to consume is within my control. So diet, I've found, is an excellent method of building self-control and willpower after a stoic fashion. Further, according to Epictetus, we have roles to play in life. Some of mine are the roles of father and husband. As such I need to do all I can to be healthy so I can stick around for my wife and child. 

When I decided to lose weight I knew that the biggest challenge I'd face is portion control. Indeed, up until June 2nd I'd eaten like a wild, ravenous beast. If there was food in front of me, it wouldn't be there for long. I'd tried controlling portions before and always failed. This is where today's first quote from Seneca comes in. It reminded me that I could change so long as I made a serious effort. Habits can be amended. 

Which brings me to the final two quotes above. When I started studying stoicism last year during Stoic Week I began writing short stoic passages in a Moleskin pocket notebook which I now carry around with me at all times. Throughout the day I like to read from the notebook in an effort to ingrain their ideas into my mind. This practice has helped greatly in dieting. 

My diet is designed in accordance with the USDA's dietary guidelines. And it's significantly less food and less tasty food than what I'd long been accustomed to consuming. So I'd get hungry real quick. Now, whereas in my previous attempts at weight loss I'd give in and start eating, now I am armed with stoic philosophy to assist me. So every time I got hungry and wanted to eat something I'd take out my notebook and read those two quotes repeatedly until I convinced myself to abstain from eating anything not in my diet.

So far it's worked for me. It might work for you too.

A Curious Way to Forgive Those Who Have Trespassed Against You

Puerto Rican revolutionaries filed into the balcony of the U.S. House of Representatives, quietly recited the Lord's Prayer, then rose, whipped out guns, and opened fire on a crowd of congressmen below.

Burrough, Bryan. Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence. New York: Penguin Press, 2015, 325.

How Not to Recruit for Your Revolution

At the flat on Golden Gate, DeFreeze began to worry. He promised it was only a matter of time before the FBI found them. He genuinely believed that agents were checking every house in San Francisco in an effort to quash the revolution. He said no one could leave the apartment, which was a problem; after two days they ran out of food. At that point DeFreeze announced that the answer was to recruit new soldiers the FBI didn't know about. Taking Bill Harris with him, he marched out of the apartment and, to the others' dismay, began knocking on other doors in the building, introducing himself as "General Cinque of the SLA" and asking the occupants to join up. After one woman slammed the door in their faces, DeFreeze was convinced that recruitment in their own building might be a tad unwise.

Burrough, Bryan. Days of Rage: America's Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence. New York: Penguin Press, 2015, 293-94.

A Bite out of Apple

Apple's net income rose by 38%, year-on-year, to $10.7 billion, in three months to June; revenue increased by 33%, to $49.6 billion; sales in Greater China climbed by 112%, to $13.2 billion. The third quarter of Apple's financial year is usually a quiet one by the company's standards, with no new iPhones to worship - although the number of phones sold went up by 35%. The share price fell by around 7% after hours; analysts had hoped for an ever better report.

The Economist, "The World in Brief" The Economist Espresso App, Wednesday, July 22, 2015.

What a company. You know you're doing something right when you deliver a quarterly report like this and analysts are disappointed. 

We Believe Against Ourselves

I suppose that nature works on such a hopeful basis that we believe against ourselves that things will be as they ought to be, not as we should know that they will be.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Oxford: Oxford World's Classics, 2011, 313-14.

Avant-Garde Poetry and Information Overload

Avant-garde poetry may have a small role to play in our understanding of global information flows—on the other hand, the avant-garde has always aspired to be predictive, to keep up with the present, to stay ahead of history. The avant-garde’s attempts to maintain critical distance from mainstream bourgeois values may be grandiose and hyperbolic, but the questions raised by avant-garde movements should not be dismissed as nihilistic or unrepresentative of larger social developments. To adapt a question posed by Lyn Hejinian—“Isn’t the avant-garde always pedagogical?”—I would ask: “Isn’t the avant-garde always technological?” Much of the work of the twentieth-century avant-garde was extremely self-conscious of the rapid changes in technologies of communication and data storage. From Dada photomontage to hypertext poetry, avant-garde methodology has been deeply concerned with remediation and transcoding—the movement from one technological medium or format to another. As Brian Reed has recently written, “poetry is a language-based art with a penchant for reflecting on its channels of communication.” For Reed, poetry “offers unparalleled opportunities for coming to grips with the new media ecology. Poets, as they experiment with transmediation, serially bring to light each medium’s textures, contours, and inner logic.” While poetry may seem the most non-technological of literary genres, over the past century poets have frequently been obsessed with the changing nature of information and its dissemination. The news that there is more news than we can process is not so new; while avant-garde poetry may not figure prominently in the global information glut, the global information glut figures prominently in avant-garde poetry.

Stephens, Paul. "Stars in My Pocket Like Bits of Data" Guernica, July 15, 2015, Accessed on July 20, 2015, https://www.guernicamag.com/features/stars-in-my-pocket-like-bits-of-data/

Stanza Sunday: from The Fall of Tenochtitlan

Weep, my people:
know that with these disasters
we have lost the Mexican nation.
The water has turned bitter,
our food is bitter!
These are the acts of the Giver of Life . . .

León-Portilla, Miguel. "The Fall of Tenochtitlan" The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006, 146.

Stoic Saturday: Epictetus on How to Become an Ornament of Philosophy

For this is the greatest proof of unhappiness and misfortune. I desire something, and it does not happen: and what could be more wretched than I? It was because she was unable to endure this that Medea came to murder her own children, the action of a noble spirit in this regard at least, that she had a proper impression of what it means to be disappointed in one's desire. "Thus," she says, "shall I take vengeance on one who has injured and wronged me. Yet what shall I gain from putting him into such miserable plight? How is this to be achieved? I will murder the children. But that will be punishing myself. And what do I care?" This is the error of a soul endued with great vigour. For she knew not where the power to do what we wish lies; that it is not to be acquired from outside ourselves, nor by altering or disarranging things. Do not desire the man for your husband, and nothing which you desire will fail to happen. Do not desire to keep him for yourself. Do not desire to stay at Corinth, and, in a word, have no will but the will of god; and who shall hinder you, who shall compel you? Nobody could do so, any more than he could for Zeus. When you have such a leader, and conform your will and desires to his, what fear could you still have of failing? Offer up your desire and aversion to riches, and poverty: you will fail to get what you desire, you will fall into what you would avoid. Offer them up to health and you will fall into misfortune, and likewise if you offer them up to position, honours, your country, friends, children, in short, to anything outside the sphere of choice. But offer them up to Zeus and the other gods. Hand them over to these, for them to govern, let your desire and aversion be ranged on the same side as these; and how thenceforth can you be unhappy? But if, poor wretch, you fall prey to envy, and pity, and are jealous, and timorous, and never cease a single day from bewailing yourself and the gods, why do you continue to prate about your education? What kind of education, man? The fact is that you have studied syllogisms and arguments with equivocal premises? Will you not consent to unlearn all this, if at all possible, and make a fresh start, in the realization that hitherto you have not even touched on the principal matter? And, thenceforth, beginning from this foundation, establish the next point, as to how nothing shall be that you do not wish, and that nothing that do you wish shall fail to be. Give me but one young man who has come to the school with this purpose in mind, who has become an athlete in this field of action, and says, "I for my part yield up all the rest: it suffices me, if I become able to pass my life free from hindrance and distress, and to hold up my head in the face of events like a free man, and to look up to heaven as the friend of god, fearing nothing that can happen." Let any one of you show himself to be such a person, so that I may say, "Enter, young man, into what is rightly your own, for you are destined to be an ornament to philosophy."

Epictetus, and Gill, Christopher, ed., and Hard, Robin, trans. The Discourses of Epictetus. London: Everyman: 1995, 117-118.

Italics mine.

What is it Good For?

War is a poor form of arms control.

The Economist. "Nuclear Iran: Hiyatollah!" July 17, 2015 - July 24, 2015, Accessed July 17, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21657803-nuclear-deal-iran-better-alternativeswar-or-no-deal-all-hiyatollah

City of Los Angeles Developers Promotion Act of 2015?

[Los Angeles's] higher minimum wage, he said, will likely speed the conversion of the downtown area from warehouses and small factories to luxury lofts and high-end restaurants.

Morath, Eric and Lazo, Alejandro. "Wage Debate Upends L.A. Garment Makers" The Wall Street Journal., Thursday, July 16, 2015, B1, Accessed on July 16, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/los-angeles-garment-industry-frets-over-pay-hike-1436986903

That's from a supplier of clothing items commenting on the City of Los Angeles's recent decision to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2020. Garment industry employers tend to agree with the supplier, arguing that they will be priced out of the market and have to either cut back on hiring or close down and move to more friendly pastures. The mayor and labor activists claim, on the other hand, that the changes will bring more salutary effects such as the attraction of more productive workers and higher consumption spending. Economics says nothing will happen unless the wages turn out to be a binding price-floor in which case the employers may be on to something. Only time will tell. 

King Laugh Make Them All Dance to the Tune He Play

It is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of misery, and woes, and troubles; and yet when King Laugh come he make them all dance to the tune he play.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Oxford University: Oxford World's Classics, 2011, 163.

Bakunin Gets One Right

After Mikhail Bakunin, the Russian revolutionary and sometime anarchist, had heard [Beethoven's Ninth Symphony] for the first time, in Dresden in 1849, he told the conductor, Richard Wagner, that "if all the music that has ever been written were lost in the expected world-wide conflagration, we must pledge ourselves to rescue this symphony, even at the peril of our own lives."

Sachs, Harvey. The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2011, 5.

Amen, brother Mikhail. Amen.

Between a Whopper and a Double Cheeseburger

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday delayed rules requiring chain restaurants to post calorie counts on menus to help you make the hard call between a Whopper and a double cheeseburger.

The Wall Street Journal., "Government by the Pizza Slice," Monday, July 13, 2015, A14, Accessed on July 13, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/government-by-the-pizza-slice-1436741073

Today's passage comes from the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal as they comment on one of the myriad cases of federal regulatory overreach. It's the opening sentence but the closing sentence is just as good: "A government that tries to do everything ends up doing many things badly, which is why so many Americans lack confidence in government." 

Stanza Sunday: Breakfast by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

We ate our breakfast lying on our backs,

Because the shells were screeching overhead.

I bet a rasher to a loaf of bread

That Hull United would beat Halifax

When Jimmy Stainthorpe played full-back instead

of Billy Bradford. Ginger raised his head

And cursed, and took the bet; and dropt back dead.

We ate our breakfast lying on our backs,

Because the shells were screeching overhead.

Gibson, Wilfrid Wilson. "Breakfast" Accessed on July 12, 2015, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/248532

Stoic Saturday: Seneca on Personal Resolutions

Making noble resolutions is not as important as keeping the resolutions you have made already.

Seneca. Letters from a Stoic. "Letter XVI." London: Penguin Books, 2004, 63.

Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

Rosemary Kennedy, John F. Kennedy’s sister, had been left in a near-vegetative state after a lobotomy performed by Walter Freeman, a doctor who travelled around America severing the frontal lobes of more than 3,000 people with a kitchen ice pick. 

The Economist. "Making cruel unusual" July 11th - 17th, 2015, Accessed on July 10, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21657022-treatment-severe-mental-illness-used-be-barbaric-sometimes-it-still-making

This is from an article on the history of barbaric psychiatric practices and the recent turn towards a more humane treatment of mental illness. It's just one article from a special report by The Economist this week on mental illness in the rich world. In addition, there are articles about the proliferation of mental illness within developed nations, autism and ADHD in the youth, dementia in the elderly and a concluding piece on the neurology of mental illness. They're all worth reading this weekend if you have the chance. 

A Dreadful Combination

A man with homicidal and religious mania at once might be dangerous. The combination is a dreadful one.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Oxford: Oxford World's Classics, 2011, 95.

Open Up and Say "Ah"

The following concerns Kathy Boudin, a woman involved in the infamous Weathermen townhouse explosion of 1970: 

Detectives sifting through the rubble that day also discovered an appointment card indicating that Kathy Boudin was scheduled to see her dentist, March 9, three days after the explosion. Checking with the dentist later that week, they were amazed to find that she had kept it.

Burrough, Bryan. Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence. New York: Penguin Press, 2015, 112.

Criminal Justice Reform Now!

They say that any prosecutor worth his salt can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. It may be that a decent prosecutor could get a petit jury to convict a eunuch of rape.

Kozinski, Alex. "Criminal Law 2.0" 44 GEO. L.J. ANN. REV. CRIM. PROC, iii (2015). Accessed at http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/2015/06/Kozinski_Preface.pdf

***

Many defendants have been convicted and spent countless years in prison based on evidence by arson experts who were later shown to be little better than witch doctors.

Kozinski, Alex. "Criminal Law 2.0" 44 GEO. L.J. ANN. REV. CRIM. PROC, v (2015). Accessed at http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/2015/06/Kozinski_Preface.pdf, citing Paul Bieber, Anatomy of a Wrongful Arson Conviction, THE ARSON PROJECT, http://thearsonproject.org/charm/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/wrongful_convictions.pdf (since 1989, 29 exonerations have involved arson convictions).

***

Given the malleability of human memory, it should come as no surprise that many wrongful convictions have been the result of faulty witness memories, often manipulated by the police or the prosecution.

Kozinski, Alex. "Criminal Law 2.0" 44 GEO. L.J. ANN. REV. CRIM. PROC, vii (2015). Accessed at http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/2015/06/Kozinski_Preface.pdf

***

Innocent people do confess with surprising regularity. Harsh interrogation tactics, a variant of Stockholm syndrome, the desire to end the ordeal, emotional and financial exhaustion, family considerations and the youth or feeble-mindedness of the suspect can result in remarkably detailed confessions that are later shown to be utterly false.

Kozinski, Alex. "Criminal Law 2.0" 44 GEO. L.J. ANN. REV. CRIM. PROC, vii (2015). Accessed at http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/2015/06/Kozinski_Preface.pdf

***

The Supreme Court has told us in no uncertain terms that a prosecutor’s duty is to do justice, not merely to obtain a conviction. It has also laid down some specific rules about how prosecutors, and the people who work for them, must behave—principal among them that the prosecution turn over to the defense exculpatory evidence in the possession of the prosecution and the police. There is reason to doubt that prosecutors comply with these obligations fully. The U.S. Justice Department, for example, takes the position that exculpatory evidence must be produced only if it is material. This puts prosecutors in the position of deciding whether tidbits that could be helpful to the defense are significant enough that a reviewing court will find it to be material, which runs contrary to the philosophy of the Brady/Giglio line of cases and increases the risk that highly exculpatory evidence will be suppressed. Beyond that, we have what I have described elsewhere as an “epidemic of Brady violations abroad in the land,”a phrase that has caused much controversy but brought about little change in the way prosecutors operate in the United States.

Kozinski, Alex. "Criminal Law 2.0" 44 GEO. L.J. ANN. REV. CRIM. PROC, viii-ix (2015). Accessed at http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/2015/06/Kozinski_Preface.pdf

***

Police investigators have vast discretion about what leads to pursue, which witnesses to interview, what forensic tests to conduct and countless other aspects of the investigation. Police also have a unique opportunity to manufacture or destroy evidence, influence witnesses, extract confessions and otherwise direct the investigation so as to stack the deck against people they believe should be convicted. And not just small-town police in Podunk or Timbuktu. Just the other day, “[t]he Justice Department and FBI formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all [of the 268] trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.” Do they offer a class at Quantico called “Fudging Your Results To Get A Conviction” or “Lying On The Stand 101”? How can you trust the professionalism and objectivity of police anywhere after an admission like that? There are countless documented cases where innocent people have spent decades behind bars because the police manipulated or concealed evidence, but two examples will suffice:

In 2013, Debra Milke was released after 23 years on Arizona’s death row based entirely on a supposed oral confession she had made to one Detective Saldate who was much later shown to be a serial liar. And then there is the case of Ricky Jackson, who spent 39 years behind bars based entirely on the eyewitness identification of a 12-year-old boy who saw the crime from a distance and failed to pick Jackson out of a lineup. At that point, “the officers began to feed him information: the number of assailants, the weapon used, the make and model of the getaway car.” 39 years!

For some victims of police misconduct, exoneration comes too late: Mark Collin Sodersten died in prison while maintaining his innocence. After his death, a California appellate court determined that Sodersten had been denied a fair trial because police had failed to turn over exculpatory witness tapes. It posthumously set aside the conviction, which no doubt reduced Sodersten’s time in purgatory.

Kozinski, Alex. "Criminal Law 2.0" 44 GEO. L.J. ANN. REV. CRIM. PROC, x-xi (2015). Accessed at http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/2015/06/Kozinski_Preface.pdf

***

Many people, including judges, take comfort in knowing that an overwhelming number of criminal cases are resolved by guilty plea rather than trial. Whatever imperfections there may be in the trial and criminal charging process, they believe, are washed away by the fact that the defendant ultimately consents to a conviction. But this fails to take into account the trend of bringing multiple counts for a single incident—thereby vastly increasing the risk of a life-shattering sentence in case of conviction—as well as the creativity of prosecutors in hatching up criminal cases where no crime exists and the overcriminalization of virtually every aspect of American life.

Kozinski, Alex. "Criminal Law 2.0" 44 GEO. L.J. ANN. REV. CRIM. PROC, xi (2015). Accessed at http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/2015/06/Kozinski_Preface.pdf

***

We can be reasonably confident that the system reaches the correct result in most cases, but that is not the test. Rather, we must start by asking how confident we are that every one of the 2.2 million people in prisons and jails across the country are in fact guilty. And if we can’t be sure, then what is an acceptable error rate? How many innocent lives and families are we willing to sacrifice in order to have a workable criminal justice system? If we put the acceptable error rate at 5 percent, this would mean something like 110,000 innocent people incarcerated across the country. A 1 percent error rate would mean 22,000 innocent people—more or less the population of Nogales, Arizona—wrongly imprisoned. These numbers may seem tolerable unless, of course, you, your friend or loved one draws the short straw.

Kozinski, Alex. "Criminal Law 2.0" 44 GEO. L.J. ANN. REV. CRIM. PROC, xiv (2015). Accessed at http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/2015/06/Kozinski_Preface.pdf

***

Crime rates here are roughly equivalent to Canada and in many categories lower than other countries. And the crime rate has been dropping in the United States, as in many other industrialized nations. Yet, U.S. sentences are vastly, shockingly longer than just about anywhere else in the world.

Kozinski, Alex. "Criminal Law 2.0" 44 GEO. L.J. ANN. REV. CRIM. PROC, xvii (2015). Accessed at http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/2015/06/Kozinski_Preface.pdf

***

“[A prosecutor] is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor—indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones.” All prosecutors purport to operate just this way and I believe that most do. My direct experience is largely with federal prosecutors and, with a few exceptions, I have found them to be fair-minded, forthright and highly conscientious. But there are disturbing indications that a non-trivial number of prosecutors—and sometimes entire prosecutorial offices— engage in misconduct that seriously undermines the fairness of criminal trials. The misconduct ranges from misleading the jury, to outright lying in court and tacitly acquiescing or actively participating in the presentation of false evidence by police.

Prosecutorial misconduct is a particularly difficult problem to deal with because so much of what prosecutors do is secret. If a prosecutor fails to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense, who is to know? Or if a prosecutor delays disclosure of evidence helpful to the defense until the defendant has accepted an unfavorable plea bargain, no one will be the wiser. Or if prosecutors rely on the testimony of cops they know to be liars, or if they acquiesce in a police scheme to create inculpatory evidence, it will take an extraordinary degree of luck and persistence to discover it—and in most cases it will never be discovered.

Kozinski, Alex. "Criminal Law 2.0" 44 GEO. L.J. ANN. REV. CRIM. PROC, xxii-xxiii (2015). Accessed at http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/2015/06/Kozinski_Preface.pdf

***

While most prosecutors are fair and honest, a legal environment that tolerates sharp prosecutorial practices gives important and undeserved career advantages to prosecutors who are willing to step over the line, tempting others to do the same.

Kozinski, Alex. "Criminal Law 2.0" 44 GEO. L.J. ANN. REV. CRIM. PROC, xxvi (2015). Accessed at http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/2015/06/Kozinski_Preface.pdf

***

Professor Tim Wu of Columbia Law School recounted a “darkly humorous game” played by Assistant U.S. Attorneys in the Southern District of New York:

[S]omeone would name a random celebrity—say, Mother Theresa or John Lennon. It would then be up to the junior prosecutors to figure out a plausible crime for which to indict him or her. The crimes were not usually rape, murder, or other crimes you’d see on Law & Order but rather the incredibly broad yet obscure crimes that populate the U.S. Code like a kind of jurisprudential minefield: Crimes like “false statements” (a felony, up to five years), “obstructing the mails” (five years), or “false pretenses on the high seas” (also five years). The trick and skill lay in finding the more obscure offenses that fit the character of the celebrity and carried the toughest sentences.

A big reason prosecutors have so much leverage in plea negotiations is that there are many laws written in vague and sweeping language, inviting prosecutorial adventurism. It is thus difficult for individuals charged with a crime to know how to defend themselves and to gauge the likelihood of being acquitted.

Kozinski, Alex. "Criminal Law 2.0" 44 GEO. L.J. ANN. REV. CRIM. PROC, xliv (2015). Accessed at http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/2015/06/Kozinski_Preface.pdf

***

The list of lives and businesses ruined by baseless prosecutions is long. And, in the words of George Will, “as the mens rea requirement withers when the quantity and complexity of laws increase, the doctrine of ignorantia legis neminem excusat— ignorance of the law does not excuse—becomes problematic. The regulatory state is rendering unrealistic the presumption that a responsible citizen should be presumed to have knowledge of the law.” Repealing a thousand vague and over-reaching laws and replacing them with laws that are cast narrowly to punish morally reprehensible conduct and give fair notice as to what is criminal may not solve the problem altogether, but it would be a good start.

Kozinski, Alex. "Criminal Law 2.0" 44 GEO. L.J. ANN. REV. CRIM. PROC, xliv (2015). Accessed at http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/2015/06/Kozinski_Preface.pdf

This is a very important journal article. It's definitely worth reading in its entirety.

Binge Nation

A new research study from TiVo found that 92% of respondents said they have "binge viewed" a show - defined in the report as watching at least three episodes of the same program on the same day - up slightly from last year's 91%. 

But what's even more stark may be what viewers are willing to sacrifice for their marathon viewing sessions. 

About 31% of respondents have lost sleep thanks to binge watching, and 37% have spent an entire weekend binge watching a show. Two-thirds of so-called "season bingers" turn to Netflix to watch a show's entire season within a few weeks.

Tadena, Nathalie. "TV Viewers Willing to Lose Sleep to Binge Watch" CMO Today, The Wall Street Journal., Monday, July 6, 2015, B4.

I'm part of this 92% for sure. Though when I binge it's typically to cycle through a few, select shows. Every so often I'll binge on Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Wire, The Office and The Sopranos. I've watched the entirety of those series multiple times now. I don't think I'll ever get tired of any of them. 

Read the cited study here. 

Stanza Sunday: from The Fête by Charlotte Mew

To-night again the moon’s white mat
     Stretches across the dormitory floor
While outside, like an evil cat
     The pion prowls down the dark corridor,
     Planning, I know, to pounce on me, in spiteFor getting leave to sleep in town last night.But it was none of us who made that noise,
Only the old brown owl that hoots and flies
Out of the ivy—he will say it was us boys—
     Seigneur mon Dieu: the sacré soul of spies!
     He would like to catch each dream that lies
      Hidden behind our sleepy eyes:
Their dream? But mine—it is the moon and the wood that sees;
All my long life how I shall hate the trees!

Mew, Charlotte. "The Fête" Accessed June 5, 2015, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/243438

Stoic Saturday: How Marcus Wakes Up

In the morning, when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present: I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie under the blankets and keep myself warm? But this is more pleasant. Do you exist then to take your pleasure, and not at all for action or exertion? Do you not see the little plants, the little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees working together to put in order their separate parts of the universe? And are you unwilling to do the work of a human being, and do you not make haste to do that which is according to your nature?

Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations. New York: Dover Thrift Editions, 1997, 28.

Not a High Point for the Country of Plato

Sunday’s vote will ask Greeks to assess the creditors’ restructuring plan (which is no longer on offer) and their debt-sustainability analysis (which requires a degree in economics). The prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, says a No will strengthen his hand with creditors and so help keep Greece in the euro. European leaders retort that a No is in fact a vote to leave. After a Yes, Mr Tsipras might cling on or, if he goes, Greece might re-elect Syriza, but both have campaigned for a No. It is not a high point for the country of Plato.

The Economist. "Europe's Future in Greece's Hands" July 4th-10th, 2015, Accessed on July 3, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21656662-whatever-its-outcome-greek-crisis-will-change-eu-ever-europes-future-greeces

No, indeed. 

The Greek crisis is something I've been following closely albeit only through two sources, The Wall Street Journal and The Economist. In my opinion The Economist has the best, most insightful coverage while The Wall Street Journal excellently covers the day-to-day machinations of the tragedy. 

We live, as they say, in interesting times. 

The Morality of Bomb Making

"So," I say, "I've been told what your role was." 

Her eyelids flutter. She reaches down and begins to rock the stroller. "You think you know?" she asks. 

"Yes," I say. "You were the West Coast bomb maker." 

There is a long pause. She glances down at her grandson. He begins to spit up. She reaches down, wipes off his chin, and takes him into her arms, gently guiding a bottle between his lips. 

"Look," she finally says. "I felt I had a responsibility to make the design safe after the Townhouse." The bomb design, she means. "I didn't want any more people to die."

Burrough, Bryan. Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence. New York: Penguin Press, 2015, 2.

This struck me as a fairly risible statement about the creation of a product whose sole business is destruction and mayhem. But then I thought about an article I read recently about human violence and the woman's thinking started to make some sense. The basic thesis of the article is that individuals commit acts of violence and destruction out of a sense of moral obligation and an effort to regulate social relationships. Here the bomb maker justifies her participation in violence with an appeal to morality. Sure, she's going to bomb first, but she's doing it to make people safe. 

In the end, it's probably the case that statements like this arise due to mankind's congenital predilection to do violence while simultaneously desiring to be thought lovely. 

Bobby Bonilla is a Genius

Bobby Bonilla was smart enough to secure one of the most forward thinking contracts in sports history. He knew The Mets wanted him gone, but technically, they owed him $5.9 million. He also knew he had a young son and daughter who would be looking to go to college, and as a 36-year-old, he likely had many years worth of life to live. So at this point, Bobby and his agents offered a unique compromise: The Mets would release Bobby to play for another team and they would delay the $5.9 million payment for 11 years, with interest. In essence, The Mets agreed to pay Bobby a total of $29.8 million (instead of $5.9 million) in 25 annual installments of $1.192 million, starting in the year 2011. When he received his first $1.192 payment, Bobby was 48 years old and had not played in the big leagues for 10 years. He has basically guaranteed himself a big league salary every year for the rest of his life.

Warner, Brian. "When Bobby Bonilla Wakes Up Tomorrow, He'll be $1.2 Million Richer" celebritynetwork.com, June 30, 2015, Accessed on July 1, 2015, http://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/sports-news/when-bobby-bonilla-wakes-up-tomorrow-hell-be-1-2-million-richer/