1:30am
It has been about a week since I have written anything. (I apologize about that to my loyal readers). The only reason that I am still up at this hour is that I am worried about a friend that was supposed to contact me.

School

The first week back to school has been hectic. Monday started the countdown – 6 weeks till finals. I am not exactly looking forward to that grueling procedure. I’d rather have all my teeth pulled at once. But it is coming like a freight train and there is nothing we can do to stop it. The stress is about to kick in again. It is a little scary. My grades are not exactly stellar and I don’t have a lot of room to screw up.

Things around my apartment today

To the Asian lady down the corridor:
What the hell are you cooking with. It smells like rotting fish and curry boiling. Stop doing that.

To the little girls playing on the grass this after noon:
The dance you were doing was one that I had seen once on a rap video. It looked slutty then when done by a full grown woman. I did not enjoy seeing it done by a pre-teen fat kid. I realized society is going to hell when I realized your older sister was teaching it to you. I realized that your whole family will probably go to hell when I realized your mom was watching as well. Please stop doing that.

To the kids getting off the school bus:
Look both ways you freakin’ idiots. You nearly get run over every day. The law of averages is going to catch up with you. I don’t want to have to point out to my friends the greasy spot on the pavement that used to be you.

To the repair men that work at my apartments:
Stop dropping stuff in the parking lot when you leave (tacks, screws, nails, bolts, odd pieces of metal). If I get a flat then odds are that you will too (law of averages or revenge – you decide).

To the grounds crew guys at my apartment:
Why do you hire an idiot to run the leaf blower? Why does he go to work insanely early?
Stop doing that.

To the ducks in the pond outside my apartment:
People enjoy seeing you in the daytime. They do not enjoy being awakened by your loud nocturnal activity at 3am. Stop doing that.

To the ghetto thugs who have an apartment across the parking lot:
Just stop everything in general and move away.

The Graveyard Run

This afternoon I decided to take break and go for a run (ok not really a run – a brisk walk – ok, ok it was a lumbering stroll – whatever, lets not get stuck on exercise terminology here) Anyway, her neighborhood is pretty busy and not really conducive to such activity. I rode around for a bit looking for a park but they were all near elementary schools and as I dont really want to be mistaken as a pedophile, I gave up and settled on a cemetery that looked semi deserted (I mean except for all the dead bodies).
A while after I started off I noticed a strange thing. This was not one of those normal cemeteries with headstones and monuments, but it was the kind where all the grave markers were low to the ground. It was the kind that you can drive over all of it with a lawn mower without bumping into anything. It was much too orderly and plain. A final resting place for the anal retentive so to speak.

I cut through a path and stopped when I noticed my name on a marker. Not my whole name of course, that would be TOO FREAKY. It was just my last name. But it got me to thinking. I decided something right then and there. I do not want to be buried in a place like this.
I want a great big monument at the top of a hill. Heck I may get rich and put some land in a trust to start my own. After all, foot per foot cemeteries are some of the most expensive land that you can buy. I couldn’t decide on an inscription for my large memorial that will be nestled between large oaks on top of the hill. But I did come up with my own obituary.
Here goes.

A nation in mourning

A shocked nation woke to the sad news that Jake (come on you didn’t expect me to give out my whole name – I’ve got too many stalkers as it is) was found dead Saturday at his palatial mansion.
Authorities claim that the 99 year old Mr. Jake was killed by his wife (several years his junior) early Saturday morning. Mrs. Jake claims that the death was a result self defense. Apparently the elderly but spry gentleman had overdosed on Viagra.
Mrs. Jake is currently recovering from exhaustion and being treated for depression. Doctors are confident that she will make a full recovery and will be able to walk again very soon.

The Jake estate is expected to be tied up in litigation for several years due to the vast sum of wealth that he had accumulated. Mr. Jake, a wealthy litigator, was renowned for his court room appeal and large judgments. Mr. Jake is most well known for causing the bankruptcy of Microsoft due to the large award that he attained for his client (who had rubbed a callus on her finger due to a “defective” track ball device that the company had manufactured).

City and state officials have called for all flags to be flown at half mast and for schools to be dismissed early.

Jake memorabilia has skyrocketed on eBay since his death. An ink pen that was once owned by Mr. Jake was sold yesterday for an undisclosed amount that was rumored to have surpassed the amount paid for Elvis Presley’s air plane. The Bic ink pen was out of ink and had a missing top.

The president is expected to call for a national day of mourning as dignitaries fly in for the funeral. Due to the large number expected visitors, the funeral has been moved from the local church to Legion Field Stadium this week.

The Easter Bunny hates you

This weekend my sister was baby sitting for a little girl who is absolutely terrified of the easter bunny.
Terrified of the easter bunny?? How can you be terrified of the easter bunny? He is cute, loveable, and brings you chocolate (I never really understood why we hid eggs and ate chocolate to celebrate the resurection of Jesus. But hey, that is what we do.)
But how can a kid be terrified of the easter bunny??
-

Maybe this is why.

Drama

Anyone who knows me knows that I hate drama. I hate drama queens. I hate people who thrive on drama. I hate the people who thrive on causing other people drama. I hate dramatic readings. Heck, I even hate the name “Johnny Drama” from the show Entourage. I won’t be practicing family law because that would involve “my baby’s daddy” drama, which is the worst kind of Jerry Springer drama and only one step above “a clown touched me on my no-no spot at my 7th birthday party” drama.

But it seems like nothing I do at law school and nothing I see at law school is drama free.

You see, Jones is a small law school (about 100 incoming 1Ls) on a small campus. Law school is just one of those things that force you to be around people that you don’t like and situations that you would rather not be in. There is just so much time that has to be spent at the school that you have little choice but to just endure it - drama and all. Because it is so small, you know all the drama. And we have more than our share.

Anyway,
I can’t figure out how to explain the drama without going into infinite detail and thus reliving the drama all over again. So I will just say this:
There was a misunderstanding
That turned into a full out sorority bitch fest
And “Al Gore” style drama ensued.
And…
I may have said something that might institute more drama (that I was semi-sorry for saying)

Also I dropped out of running for an office in my law fraternity because my GPA was in the “questionable zone”. And that was more drama that I didn’t need.

My life is an open book people. You see me here and this is me. Drama free.

That last thing is totally BS – Drama follows me like a lost puppy.
Heck that is why you read this thing, because my drama is… well the crap is kind of funny. And it makes your drama seem… well, so much less like drama that it makes it ok. And while I may stretch the truth to make the story more appealing, I won’t lie to you.
Unless you bring up some useless drama -
At which point I will pretend that my phone is vibrating and that I have to answer it.

The law week Heist (or - Tornadoes, blow darts, and pickpockets)

We have this thing at law school called law week.
All week long we have distinguished speakers come in and give a short lecture on their specialized topic and take questions. It is pretty cool because even if the speaker sucks, they still feed you lunch.

One of our speakers commented early on that she didn’t think that she had enough material to cover the entire half hour allotted.
Yea, whatever.
45 minutes AFTER her original half hour was up, we were still sitting there.
Politicians… Who knew?

Anyway, the rain was beating down and the entire area was under tornado watches / warnings. (Who really cares about the difference anymore except for old people and the guy who drones on endlessly on the local TV news. You have to listen to him because you can’t see his face due to the fact that the entire screen is covered with pictures of the “super doplar ten million jigawatt mega fantastic” local radar, storm warnings, severe weather warnings, tornado alerts, and logos.)

“This just in - Breaking coverage: It is raining.”

No kidding? I was wondering what all that wet stuff was blowing up against the window.

As the speech droned on…
School was canceled and closed for the rest of the day due to the weather.
I think the speaker thought that this meant that she had us captive until someone actually died from boredom.
The dean came to the side door and was making all kinds of hand signals to those of us that could see her.
Now, for some reason I don’t think the dean is all that fluent in sign language.
What she was trying to tell us was that school was closed, there was a tornado, and we needed to finish up, get out, and get somewhere safe.
But…
Through her extraordinary use of sign language (something akin to what the first settlers must have used with the Indians). I was able to decipher that she was thinking of washing a pot or perhaps making soup. Or perhaps she had been bitten by a dangerous insect. I couldn’t really tell. She could have used smoke signals and it would have been clearer.
What we finally figured out was that she was telling us to shut the speaker up even if we had to choke her out.
I think somebody in the back of the room was busy fashioning a blow dart knock out weapon out of ink pens and Tylenol.
The speaker got to the end of sentence and took a breath.
We all started clapping.

“Oh, my time must be up.” She said.
No kidding lady. I was thinking of sending a bill to your office for the time I wasted here and perhaps a tort claim for unlawful imprisonment. (Actually she wasn’t all that bad – just long winded).

So the whole big crowd grabs up their books and hurries out into the parking lot to get into their cars. They do this because a giant tornado is coming and it is of course safer to be on the road in a blinding rain than to sit quietly for another half hour till the thing blows over.

Here is the sucky part.
While we were trapped at the meeting upstairs we had left our books in the room downstairs because we were supposed to have a class right afterwards.
Two of my friends happened to leave their bags in the room. While we were in the meeting, some thief stole their wallets.
I’m not sure if the speaker was in on it or not. It might have been some kind of bait and switch delay tactic they had been practicing or something.

I promise the next blogs wont be so serious.

China, human rights, internet freedom, and the Great Wall of Filtering

This post may seem a bit strange to you.
After my last post I was checking my counter stats and noticed something funny. Suddenly I got a lot of hits from China. From sources like: CNC Group and Chinanet
Places like: Shandong province; Hunan province; Shanxi, to name a few.
Wow, I thought to myself. Are all of these people that interested in the American Civil Rights movement? I was wondering: Are these people “googling” civil rights information?
Or is it something more sinister?
Say maybe a government looking for information that they wish to block their citizens from viewing or having access to. The type of hits I received do not appear to be people reading the blog. The site visits are of too short a duration. (If you don’t already know – counter statistics can be quite detailed – go to the bottom of the page and click on the icon to see for yourself)

China is commonly criticized for violations of basic human rights. Under the guise of blocking pornography, China was widely known to have purchased Microsoft programs and to have made deals with other software, search engines and platforms that have been modified to filter out content that the Chinese government finds objectionable. According to http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china it appears that the set of sites blocked in China is by no means static: whoever maintains the lists is actively updating them, and certain general-interest high-profile sites whose content changes frequently appear to be blocked and unblocked as those changes are evaluated. I took a look a list of blocked sites. Trust me, they are not blocking porn.
Interested in more? Check out here - http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/resources.html

For instance there is a topic that is still taboo in mainland China and an image that the entire world (minus a big chunk of China) has seen. A picture that many of us will never forget.

The Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989, where students, intellectuals, and urban workers protested against the government. Martial law was declared and troops moved in. The communist party claimed that there were only 23 civilian deaths. The CIA averaged that the number was around 400 to 800. And the Chinese red cross estimated that there were 2600 deaths.
Like Mark Twain said: “There are three types of lies: Lies; Damn lies; and statistics.”
In any event, at the very least, there were thousands that were injured. The Chinese authorities apparently don’t use riot gear and tear gas. They used tanks and bullets. It still works. But it is a little heavy handed. Don’t you think? The point is that this is old news to you and me, but rarely seen in China.

So here is my question? Especially after this post, am I persona non grata in China?
Am I blocked? Am I filtered? Have I been placed outside “The Great Wall”? Or have I fallen victim to my own conspiracy theory-ism?

If you have access to someone in China, have them Google this site and let me know.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

This Sunday - 42 years ago

On March 7, 1965 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma. Discrimination and intimidation had prevented Selma's black population, roughly half of the city, from registering to vote. The marchers hoped to bring notice to the violations of their rights by marching to the state capitol in Montgomery.

They made it only as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Alabama State troopers and the local Sheriff's Department, some mounted on horseback, awaited them. In the presence of the news media, they attacked the peaceful demonstrators with billy clubs, tear gas, and bull whips.


Brutal televised images of the attack, which presented people with horrifying images of people left bloodied and severely injured, roused support for the US civil rights movement.

Amelia Robinson was beaten and gassed nearly to death — her photo appeared on the front page of papers and newsmagazines around the world.


Food for thought.

I, as a white, southern, male, law student, in Montgomery, AL almost roll my eyes sometimes when we have at our school yet another civil rights speaker.
Being from a poor white family - attending a public school - paying my way through college with work, loans, and the GI Bill – paying my way through law school on loans - In an era where race related crimes are overwhelmingly not against black people by white people BUT AGAINST white people by black people -
Sometimes I wonder “What does this really all have to do with me?”
This did not happen in my life time. I didn’t profit from the subjugation or poor blacks. My family didn’t own a plantation. We never had slaves. We were dirt poor farmers and laborers.

Then again…
This all happened less than 50 miles from where I now sit. And while it may not have happened in my life time, it certainly happened in the lifetime of many people that I know.

We, as we struggle to become attorneys (and when we do become attorneys), must be aware and constantly vigilant that those in authority will use that authority (and abuse that authority) in ways that take away the very liberties and justice that we set out to secure and defend over 2 and a quarter centuries ago.

This is what we fight. This is what we stand against. This is what we are duty bound to defend against.
This, my friends, is why we learn the law:
To protect the blessings of liberty for all.

The Cat in the Hat turns 50

50 years ago today Theodore Seuss Geisel wrote one of the all time favorite children’s books.

Seuss was contacted by Houghton Mifflin because the current Dick and Jane books being used by schools were doing a poor job of educating and prompting children to read because they were…
Boring.
In a 1954 Life magazine article by the writer John Hersey the question was asked: Why can't Johnny read? Hersey concluded that the "Dick and Jane" readers that most schools used were just too boring. Hersey suggested that Dr. Seuss write a new reading primer for the nation's schoolchildren.
The editors of Houghton Mifflin sent Dr. Seuss a 200-word vocabulary list for 6 and 7 year olds. Dr. Seuss agreed to take on the task and figured that he would knock it out in a few days.
It took him a year and a half.
He read through the list and on the third try decided to find two words that rhymed and to make that his title. The two words were “cat” and “hat”.

236 words later we have one of the most timeless children’s classics to ever be created. It is a book that drove millions to read.

However, the book was never used in public schools because the school systems found it to be too “subversive”.

The cat in the hat was TOO SUBVERSIVE??????

That’s crazy as can be.
I do not agree with that
And that does not agree with me

Now, as Paul Harvey says, you know the rest of the story.