Wickersham's Conscience

The National Rifle Association has told us endlessly that “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” Which causes WC to ask why the NRA and its enthusiasts in the Alaska Legislature are pressing so hard to put firearms in the hands of convicted felons, domestic violence offenders and drug dealers.

Felon firearm possession is governed by two bodies of law: state law and federal law. In Alaska, for the last 15 years, the law has provided a felon may possess a firearm if:

A period of 10 years or more has elapsed between the date of the person’s unconditional discharge on the prior offense or adjudication of juvenile delinquency and the date of the violation of (a)(1) of this section, and the prior conviction or adjudication of juvenile delinquency did not result from a violation of AS 11.41 or of a similar law of the United States or of another state or territory

The practical effect of limiting permanent denial to AS 11.41 – crimes against the person – is that there is no obstacle to pimps, gang members, and domestic violence offenders getting their firearms back in ten years. Or sooner, if the NRA gets its way. Because those crimes don’t arise under AS 11.41. Pimping arises under AS 11.66. Gang membership crimes are under AS 11.61. Even weapons misconduct – use of a firearm in committing some crimes, for example – doesn’t result in permanent loss odd the right to carry firearms. Domestic violence crimes aren’t even under Title 11.

A sensible Legislature would amend Alaska law to address crimes of violence beyond AS 11.41. Why should gun-wielding gang members be entitled to recover their right to carry a firearm when someone who punches someone with a fist can’t? But, of course, this is an NRA issue, so logic doesn’t enter into it. Public safety doesn’t enter in to it. The problem is hardly limited to Alaska; a long New York Times article documents the extent of the problem.

It’s probably too much to hope that sanity will prevail. But WC does.

WC complained – well, more of a screed, actually – that the proposed settlement between the U.S. and Citigroup over the latter’s patent fraudulent activity was patently unfair.

To WC’s astonishment, the trial judge asked to approve the settlement has refused to do so.

Gasp! Justice?

The judge, Jed S. Rakoff of United States District Court in Manhattan, ruled that the S.E.C.’s $285 million settlement, announced October 19, is “neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest” because it does not provide the court with evidence on which to judge the settlement. The court had a couple of interesting points:

As these and similar authorities make plain, a court, while giving substantial deference to the views of an administrative body vested with authority over a particular area, must still exercise a modicum of independent judgment in determining whether the requested deployment its injunctive powers will serve, or disserve, public interest. Anything less would not only violate the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers but would undermine the independence that is the indispensable attribute of the federal judiciary.

The U.S. District Judge is saying that while he will give deference to a settlement the SEC proposes, he won’t rubber stamp them without evidence they comply with the law.

Applying these standards to the case in hand, the Court concludes, regretfully, that the proposed Consent Judgment is neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest. Most fundamentally, this is because it does not provide the Court with a sufficient evidentiary basis to know whether the requested relief is justified under any of these standards.

So far it’s a U.S .District Judge demanding more information before blessing a deal. Unusual, but not extraordinary. But Judge Rakoff went further, closing the door on secret SEC deals:

Here, the S.E.C.’s long-standing policy – hallowed by history, but not by reason – of allowing defendants to enter into Consent Judgments without admitting or denying the underlying allegations, deprives the Court of even the most minimal assurance that the substantial injunctive relief it is being asked to impose has any basis in fact.

In effect, the judge is calling out the SEC for not properly doing its job. He’s refusing to play their little game.

Of course, the policy of accepting settlements without any admissions serves various narrow interests of the parties. In this case, for example, Citigroup was able, without admitting anything, to negotiate a settlement that (a) charges it only with negligence, (b) results in a very modest penalty, (c) imposes the kind of injunctive relief that Citigroup (a recidivist) knew that the S.E.C. had not sought to enforce against any financial institution for at least the last 10 years, see SEC Mem. at 23, and (d) imposes relatively inexpensive prophylactic measures for the next three years. In exchange, Citigroup not only settles what it states was a broad-ranging four-year investigation by the S.E.C. of Citigroup’s mortgage-backed securities offerings, Tr. 27, but also avoids any investors’ relying in any respect on the S.E.C. Consent Judgment in seeking return of their losses. If the allegations of the Complaint are true, this is a very good deal for Citigroup; and, even if they are untrue, it is a mild and modest cost of doing business.

The SEC’s complaint alleged fraud, intentional misconduct, by Citigroup. And made a forceful case. That’s punitive damage territory. If the SEC proceeded to trial and proved it, Citigroup would face extremely serious damages, billions of dollars. And, more importantly, the investors who were ripped off would have a prepaid ticket to recover their full losses, and maybe some more punitives. Citigroup might be, you know, deterred.

It is harder to discern from the limited information before the Court what the S.E.C. is getting from this settlement other than a quick headline. By the S.E.C.’s own account, Citigroup is a recidivist, SEC Mem. at 21, and yet, in terms of deterrence, the $95 million civil penalty that the Consent Judgment proposes is pocket change to any entity as large as Citigroup. While the S.E.C. claims. Although the S.E.C. asserts that it is devoted, not just to the protection of investors but also to helping them recover their losses, the proposed Consent Judgment, in the form submitted to the Court, does not commit the S.E.C. to returning any of the total of $285 million obtained from Citigroup to the defrauded investors but only suggests that the S.E.C. “may” do so. Consent Judgment at 3. In any event, this still leaves the defrauded investors substantially short-changed.

Here’s the punchline:

The point, however, is not that certain narrow interests of the parties might not be served by the Consent Judgment, but rather that the parties successful resolution of their competing interests cannot be automatically equated with the public interest, especially in the absence of a factual base on which to assess whether the resolution was fair, adequate, and reasonable.

Judge Rakoff is saying that it is not going to be business as usual. The S.E.C., if it wants to gain approval of consent judgments, is going to have to show the court that it is in the public interest to do so. And that may require the S.E.C. to do its job, rather than slapping the wrists of  the super-rich.

As WC said, a modest victory, but potentially an important one. These days, we must cherish even the modest wins.

WC has written earlier about the sad fate of the M/V Polar Star, the expedition-class cruise ship that carried WC to Antarctica in 2010.

Now comes word that what ever value the ship had may have been lost through neglect. Ted Cheeseman, of frequent Polar Star charterer Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris reports that the ship has not been well-maintained in Las Palmas, where she is in dry dock, and may now be headed for the scrap heap.

He said some potential partners in a [proposed] purchase of the Polar Star recently had to do a walk-through with flashlights and concluded the 86.5-metre cruise ship could be relegated to the scrap heap.

Loosely speaking, reptiles are proto-birds. More precisely, modern reptiles are from a different branch of the same limb that evolved into birds. Birds are the surviving relatives of theropod dinosaurs.

Evolution of Dinosaurs and Birds

While WC is sometimes accused of photographing nothing but birds, in fact he has occasionally photographed reptiles, and in particular iguanas. WC offers some samples here.

Galapagos Land Iguana

In 2002, WC was lucky enough to be invited on a trip to the Galapagos Islands. There are numerous species of reptiles on the Enchanted Isles, including the Land Iguana shown above. The color and size of Land Iguanas varies widely from island to island, and science is still working on whether they are different species or just subspecies.

Another common iguana on the Galapagos Islands is the Marine Iguana:

Marine Iguana

The Marine Iguana fascinated Charles Darwin; its adaptation to its environment is extreme. It’s an air breather, but it has adapted to swim, dive underwater and gnaw algae growing on rocks. WC managed a photo of a marine iguana feeding, but it was taken with a throwaway underwater film camera (remember film?) and then scanned to digital.

Marine Iguana Feeding Underwater

In February 2011, WC was back in Ecuador, this time in Guayaquil, which is the home of Iguana Park. The density of iguanas in this small, urban park in tropical Guayaquil is astonishing, with at least three species of iguanas.

Green Iguana

If you look carefully, you can see part of the tail of another species in the fork of the tree. The animal density is such that it’s very difficult to get an uncluttered shot.

Guayaquil is not a safe city. There are cops and private security guards everywhere. Which explains this shot. Note that more than pigeons are being fed in violation of the posted warning:

Trying Not to Get Caught

The photo gives you some scale for the size of the land iguanas in Parque de Las Iguanas. WC would put some of them at five feet in length, anyway.

But as amazing as iguanas are and reptiles generally, they can’t hold a candle to their more recently evolved cousins. Which is why you’ll see mostly bird photos here. Not all the time, but mostly.

WC is used to the Neocons and Teabaggers lying. It’s rarely worthy of a blog post. But the lies they tell about taxes are so outrageous, so over the top that WC has to call them out. Not just because there so many gullible voters who buy into the Neocon lies about taxes, like chickens clapping for Col Sanders, but because the real reasons for Neocon opposition to taxes are transparently obvious.

To understand the brazenness of the tax lies, you have to look at both the avowed motive for the opposition to taxes and the real reasons. WC will start with the avowed reasons.

The Big Lie is that taxes will hurt the economic recovery by taxing the “job creators.” Neocons are pretty vague about who these “job creators” are or what they do, but the generic description is that they are the wealthy who, if more taxes were imposed upon them, would stop spending the money that will end the recession, restore jobs and float the boat of the U.S. economy. Never mind that for two years the super-rich, under the Neocon claims, should have saved us from recession. It hasn’t worked.

Record Low Taxes

Taxes, by almost any measure, are at record lows. And yet the economy remains sick.

The first problem for Neocons is that no one is proposing changing the taxes on capital investments, only on income. Capital gains – taxes on investments – are at their lowest rates in history and, the last time WC checked, we were still in a recession. When capital gains tax rates were much higher, the economy was a lot healthier. In fact, logical fallacies aside, the recession started not that long after capital gains rates were lowered. There is no credible evidence in economics or in history that tax rates discourage investment.

And let’s think about this for a moment. Is there anyone who seriously believes that a business person would say, “oh dear, if I invest in this new company and it makes a butt-load of money, I’ll have to pay taxes?” Or, “If I put this money in a bank certificate of deposit so the bank can loan it out, I’ll have to pay taxes on the interest I earn”? By definition, what else are they going to do?

Now if the ambiguous, vague Neocon argument is that the super-rich won’t do as much consumer spending, and that it is their consumer spending which floats the economy, well, someone hasn’t done their arithmetic. The super-rich are never going to spend enough on their own, not even in the feudalistic economy of Speaker Boehner’s wet dreams, to carry the U.S. economy on their own. And, again, if low tax rates were the answer why wouldn’t our economy be splenderiferous in this time of record low tax rates on the zillionaires?

Paul Krugman makes the underlying point well:

Yet textbook economics says that in a competitive economy, the contribution any individual (or for that matter any factor of production) makes to the economy at the margin is what that individual earns — period. What a worker contributes to GDP with an additional hour of work is that worker’s hourly wage, whether that hourly wage is $6 or $60,000 an hour. This in turn means that the effect on everyone else’s income if a worker chooses to work one hour less is precisely zero. If a hedge fund manager gets $60,000 an hour, and he works one hour less, he reduces GDP by $60,000 — but he also reduces his pay by $60,000, so the net effect on other peoples’ incomes is zip.

What about other nations? Any lessons there?

Yet, miracle of miracles, these seven countries collect higher taxes as a share of GDP than does the U.S. Total government revenues in the U.S. (adding federal, state, and local taxes) totaled 31.6 percent of GDP in 2010. This compares with 56.5, 34.2, 39.5, 45.9, 52.7, 43.4, and 55.3 percent of GDP in Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, and Denmark, respectively. These much higher levels of taxation are raised through a combination of personal, corporate, payroll, and value-added taxes.

Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, and Denmark all have comparatively stronger economies than the U.S.

The claim about raising taxes on the richest 1% of Americans is a Big Lie. It’s not supported by history, experience, economics or common sense.

So if the avowed reason isn’t the real reason, what is. WC can suggest two.

First, to borrow Bobby Kennedy, Jr.’s phrase, the Neocons are the sock puppets for the super-rich. The votes, tactics and claims are bought and paid for. Readers don’t have to look further than political contribution records to understand the precise price point for a Congressman.

Second, if the super-rich’s sock puppets needed any additional reason to whine about taxes, they need look no further than their own balance sheets. As WC has shown earlier, to a considerable extent we have a Congress composed of the super-rich; after all, why would they buy anything but their own kind?

There is no reason in logic or economics not to tax the wealthiest Americans. It’s pure power politics. It’s Neocons being the sock puppets of the super-rich.

WC’s frequent – one reader called it “unrelenting” – sarcasm  turns out to distinctly helpful to WC’s readers. Seriously. Smithsonian Magazine reports,

Sarcasm seems to exercise the brain more than sincere statements do. Scientists who have monitored the electrical activity of the brains of test subjects exposed to sarcastic statements have found that brains have to work harder to understand sarcasm.

That extra work may make our brains sharper, according to another study. College students in Israel listened to complaints to a cellphone company’s customer service line. The students were better able to solve problems creatively when the complaints were sarcastic as opposed to just plain angry. Sarcasm “appears to stimulate complex thinking and to attenuate the otherwise negative effects of anger,” according to the study authors.

Feel free to insert your sarcastic rejoinder here, but this conclusion is backed by serious science. John Haiman, a linguist at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, his Talk is Cheap: Sarcasm, Alienation and the Evolution of Language, wrote, “Sarcastic statements are sort of a true lie. You’re saying something you don’t literally mean, and the communication works as intended only if your listener gets that you’re insincere.” Because appreciating sarcasm requires a bit more thinking, and because exercise is good for the brain, appreciating sarcasm makes to just a little smarter.

Note the equivocation: “appreciating.” Your average Dunning-Kruger challenged Teabagger misses all the exercise because he (or she) is unable to recognize, let alone appreciate, sarcasm.

Overall, this is good news. If your four year old chid says, “Smooth move, Mom” after you’ve done something clumsy, your child’s sarcasm is a sign of intelligence and not just a smart mouth. If you have a brain injury, or a psychological condition, you are much less likely be able to recognize sarcasm.

Unfortunately, there’s no data for WC’s preferred writing tone: irony. It’s WC’s gentler cousin. Great.

Thomas Kuhn, 1922-1996

The single most often-cited book in scientific literature is the late Thomas Kuhn‘s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. it certainly had an immense impact on WC, who had the chance to live through the kind of paradigm shift that Kuhn described while chasing a minor in geology in 1971. It may be that we are on the cusp of a similar paradigm shift in physics.

Kuhn posited “normal science” when research is focused on a broadly accepted theory or “paradigm.” A scientific revolution occurs when results become irreconcilable with the existing paradigm, resulting in a paradigm shift, a new paradigm and a new form of normal science. Kuhn argued persuasively that the linear progress of science was a myth. Most of science is a series of revolutions in thinking and understanding.

Copernicus and Galileo created a paradigm shift with heliocentricity, with the sun and not the earth as the center of things. Darwin’s work on evolution of species triggered a similar revolution in biology. Einsteinian physics replacing Newtonian physics. In WC’s own lifetime and experience, plate tectonics completely revolutionized geological thinking.

In physics we are seeing a predictive Kuhn pattern, increasing numbers of observations that cannot be reconciled with current theories of physics. WC can point to four obvious examples:

1. It turns out the overwhelming matter mass of the universe is compose of “dark matter,” stuff that exists but we cannot observe. It barely interacts with normal matter. Physics struggles to explain what the stuff might be.
2. The universe isn’t just expanding; the rate at which it is expanding is increasing. The fact is the most astonishing observation in science in decades. Scientists posit something called “dark energy” as the cause of the entirely unexpected acceleration, but haven’t a clue what it is or why it exists.
3. Twice now, physicists have observed elementary particles called neutrinos going faster than the speed of light. That’s impossible by the known rules of physics; the speed of light is universal speed limit.
4. The Higgs Boson, an obscure elementary particle whose existence and characteristics are predicted by physics, cannot be found, despite strenuous efforts to produce it.

Expressed as a pie chart, the size of the problems facing modern physics theories is evident:

Mass-Energy Pie

Modern physics understands and explains just 4% of what it can directly and indirectly observe. The remaining 96% is as opaque to science as its name suggests. When a scientific theory, what Kuhn called a “paradigm,” can no longer explain what is observed, we are ripe for a scientific revolution, for a paradigm shift. Physics would appear to be ripe for just such an event. Kuhn, WC thinks, would predict a coming paradigm shift in physics.

The last paradigm shift in physics gave us wonders and perils: everything from GPS technology to black holes to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What wonders and perils would a new paradigm give to us?

Since he was just a pup, about 30-45 minutes after wolfing down a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, WC would be asleep on the couch. In the late 1970′s, a physiologist who was WC’s Thanksgiving guest explained it as a reaction to all of the tryptophan in turkey meat. Just before dropping off to sleep.

As a service to all of his Thanksgiving Day readers who even now are struggling to stay awake, WC will examine the reality of the claim that it is “all that tryptophan.”

First, tryptophan is is an essential amino acid. This means that it cannot be synthesized by our bodies and therefore must be part of our diet. Amino acids, including tryptophan, act as building blocks in protein biosynthesis. In addition, tryptophan functions as a biochemical precursor for the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter, synthesized via tryptophan hydroxylase. Serotonin, in turn, can be converted to melatonin (a neurohormone), via N-acetyltransferase and 5-hydroxyindole-O-methyltransferase activities. The melatonin signal, in turn, forms part of the system that regulates the sleep-wake cycle by chemically causing drowsiness and lowering the body temperature, but it is the central nervous system (specifically the suprachiasmatic nuclei, or SCN) that controls the daily cycle in most components of the paracrine and endocrine systems rather than the melatonin signal (as was once postulated).

Trytophan can be synthesized, although it is a fairly complex, multi-step synthesis and the manufacture is regulated. It’s an interesting process:

Simplified tryptophan biosynthesis

You still awake? Oh, good.

So tryptophan is linked, albeit remotely, with the sleep/wake cycle. The problem is that while turkey does contain high levels of tryptophan, the amount is comparable to that contained in most other meats.

Post-meal drowsiness on Thanksgiving may have more to do with what else is consumed along with the turkey and, in particular, carbohydrates. Studies on both animal models and humans show that ingestion of a meal rich in carbohydrates triggers release of insulin. Insulin in turn stimulates the uptake of large neutral branched-chain amino acids (BCAA), but not tryptophan, which is an aromatic amino acid, into muscle, increasing the ratio of tryptophan to BCAA in the blood stream. The resulting increased ratio of tryptophan to BCAA in the blood reduces competition at the large neutral amino acid transporter (which transports both BCAA and aromatic amino acids), resulting in the uptake of tryptophan across the blood-brain barrier into the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).

Once in the CSF, tryptophan is converted into serotonin in the raphe nuclei by the normal enzymatic pathway. The resultant serotonin is further metabolised into melatonin by the pineal gland.

All of this suggests that “feast-induced drowsiness” — and, in particular, the common post-Thanksgiving turkey dinner drowsiness — may be the result of a heavy meal rich in carbohydrates, which, via an indirect mechanism, increases the production of sleep-promoting melatonin in the brain.

Wake up, there. This is very nearly important.

So the answer is that the turkey doesn’t have much to do with it. It’s the mashed potatoes and your metabolism. The turkey/tryptophan business is mostly untrue.

Any readers who are still awake may take their naps now. And Happy Thanksgiving.

[Credit for much of this article to Wikipedia, which WC has shamelessly pasted into this blog post. WC slept through most of organic chemistry, which he took shortly after Kekule discovered benzene rings. It couldn't have been melatonin that made WC nap through organic; it hadn't been discovered yet.]

This is a re-post, but it’s a pretty good re-post. From tiny Quinhagak, Alaska, a community video of the Hallelujah Chorus to Handel’s Messsiah:

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Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

/WC

Why Fairbanksans have been a little cranky lately.

Six of the last seven days set new record lows. Any questions?

Update: as of this morning, it has less colded (“warmed up” just doesn’t seem appropriate) to 2 above zero. Cue up Martha Reeves! It’s a heat wave.

Although most folks are unaware of it, there’s a third species of squirrel in Interior Alaska besides the Red Squirrel and the Arctic Ground Squirrel: the Northern Flying Squirrel, Glaucomys sabrinus. It’s less well known because, unlike its familiar cousin, it’s primarily nocturnal.

Northern Flying Squirrel

This rascal was photographed in the bird feeder, helping himself to the expensive sunflower chips Sunday night. They can’t fly, of course, but they can glide impressively long distances. WC watched one glide entirely across the clearing below the house, a distance of about 200 feet. They have furred membranes called a patagium extending from the wrist of the front leg to the wrist of the back leg. The flappy membranes make their tracks in the snow messy and blurred.

The photo shows the large, night-adapted eye. The long whiskers are another night adaptation. They don’t hibernate; they are active year around. Like most nocturnal animals, they are just hard to find. Unless you have bird feeders.

WC’s readers will recall that back in June 2011, WC was critical – well, vitriolic, really – of Governor Parnell’s decision to litigate the endangered species classification of the Cook Inlet Beluga Whales. Because Parnell’s other bad decisions had removed Alaskan officials from the group that develops the recovery plan, Alaska had no seat at the table that would affect use of Cook Inlet for decades. All the eggs were in the litigation basket, and the basket was ridiculously flimsy.

Today the State’s basket collapsed and its eggs all broke: Chief U.S. District Judge Lambreth threw out the State’s case. It wasn’t even close. No, WC will go further: there was never any doubt. The law under the Endangered Species Act is extremely well-developed and settled. Let WC translate that for non-lawyers: the issues the State is trying to raise have been raised dozens of times before and each and every time the party challenging the endangered species classification has lost.

Predictably, the Comments on the Anchorage Daily News article on the subject blow a lot of smoke but precious little light. They attack the scientists, blames environmentalists and the rail against the federal government. Curiously, no one blames Anchorage’s untreated sewage, the incredible amounts of oil and drilling sludge from oil and gas wells in the Inlet or Anchorage port expansion and dredging. It’s always easier to blame someone else, but perhaps not very honest.

Neither the Governor nor the Attorney General have found time yet to respond to the court’s slap-down of their lame lawsuit. WC hopes that the State won’t waste still more money by appealing to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Frankly, the money would be better spent burning it on a street corner, where it might provide a little warmth on a cold winter night, and provide a little illumination into the Governor’s strategic thinking.

Because now the State’s options are pretty pathetic and narrowed to one choice. Withdraw the silly gag order, making State biologists eligible for the Recovery Team so the State’s voice could be heard going forward. Of course, that would involve the Governor’s very publicly swallowing a massive amount of Common Raven. Crow just wouldn’t do. His pride and dignity would suffer. But it’s orders of magnitude more likely to be helpful than continuing the silly, stupid lawsuit.

In the meantime, perhaps the Governor can tell us how much money has been squandered in legal fees so far?

Lock up your children, especially the teenage girls! Buff up your ethics! Hide your wallets! Install surveillance cameras on all Alaska legislators!

Why hello, Bill Allen. When did you get out?

Just today? Huh. I thought you had a bit more time to serve. Wishful thinking, I guess.

So what are your plans?

Yes, as a matter of fact there is a oil industry tax bill pending in the legislature. Why do you ask?

I have no idea if there are rooms available at the Baranof.

I think you’d probably have to bring someone up from Seattle if you wanted to sweep a room for bugs.

I don’t know where Frank Prewitt is. Or care. For all I know, he’s in the Federal witness protection program.

Does your probation officer know about this plan?

If you swear like that, people are going to stare. Get a grip, man.

Yeah, I think there are a few people looking for you. Besides maybe your probation officer.

Well, Weyhrauch, Kott and Kohring, to name three. Probably others.

No, not Weyhrauch, but you know how they are about guns out in the Valley.

Yeah, good running in to you, too. Oh, and Bill? Lose the CBC hat, okay?

Collector's Item

Is there was men’s room near here? Need to wash my hands…

The special investigator appointed by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to look into the government misconduct in the Polar Probe affair has issued his report. The investigator, Henry F. Schuelke, III, took 30.5 months to issue his report. The report itself is presently under seal, but Judge Sullivan has issued an order laying out the process by which it will be made public, and issuing a stern warning that he is strongly inclined to make the entire 500-page report public.

While the Schuelke Report isn’t public, Judge Sullivan’s order discloses three important things:

1. We haven’t yet seen the full extent of prosecutorial misconduct. Judge Sullivan states Schuelke found more.
2. Schuelke concluded there was insufficient evidence to support charges of criminal contempt against the government attorneys. He hints that there may be a basis for charges of obstruction of justice. We learn nothing about bar association discipline.
3. Judge Sullivan really, really wants the report made public.

WC very recently wrote about a different pattern of prosecutorial misconduct in Illinois. The Illinois prosecutor is an elected official, which in Illinois means a high risk of corruption. These attorneys, most of them members of the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section, can’t make that excuse. The public Integrity Section; quis custodient ipsos custodes, indeed.

The first filing deadline under Judge Sullivan’s Order is January 6, 2012. Depending on what gets filed, we could know that soon when The Schuelke Report will be public.

How crass are the auto-racing crowds at NASCAR?

NASCAR crass.

The crowds at the season ending NASCAR race in Homestead, Florida booed the First Lady and Jill Biden at the race’s start. Obama and Biden were there to promote the Joining Forces Initiative, a program championed by the First Lady to help veterans returning home from the wars in the Middle East.

WC admittedly has serious problems with automobile racing. Watching noisy cars race around a track, polluting the air and consuming our precious, limited remaining supplies of petroleum, ranks off the bottom of WC’s list of fun. Whatever charms the sport may have are completely lost on WC.

WC understands it is second only to professional football in popularity in the U.S., and that it is easily the most popular sport in the South. WC tries not to visualize NASCAR fans as hard of hearing, mouth-breathing Fundamentalists, but, seriously, the fans really make it hard to reject the stereotypes.

WC regards the Bush administration as the worst disaster to afflict our country since the Great Depression. But if Bush had appeared at a sports event in Fairbanks to honor the U.S. military veterans, WC would have gritted his teeth, applauded politely and moved on. Honor the office, honor the soldiers, swallow the bile and move on. However much WC might loath George W. Bush. And it would never cross WC’s mind to boo Laura Bush.

End of an Error Party, January 2009

It’s not respect for George Bush. WC attended an excellent “End of the Error” Party in mid-January, 2009, highlighted by a ceremonial shredding of official portraits of George Bush and Dick Cheney. And enjoyed himself very much, thank you.

But we did not shred a photo of Laura Bush. It’s a matter of civility, lingering respect for the country and patriotism.

Is the NASCAR booing racism? Much of the Right’s gross overreaction to President Obama’s election and actions, if not motivated by racism, certainly seems to spring from the same well of irrational hatred and fear that infects the Right. Whether it’s Teabagger Congressmen or NASCAR ninnies, their near-hysterical behavior towards President Obama is far beyond disagreement with his politics. The fact much of this irrationality comes from the Old South is equally troubling.

In WC’s college days, some of his acquaintances behaved similarly towards President Nixon following the invasion of Cambodia. Not just Nixon; also the American flag and returning Vietnam vets. It was an irrational hatred, a froth-at-the-mouth reaction. It was frighteningly wrong. When you surrender your rationality, you surrender what makes us human, You abandon what makes us citizens.

As well as making yourself open to believing whatever charismatic crackpot comes along.

So consider this a call for civility and tolerance. Irrational hatred has not and will never serve a democracy well. Here’s a proposal: WC will try not to judge all NASCAR and auto racing fans by the conduct of their inexcusably rude colleagues at Homestead, if NASCAR fans will try to show a little more maturity, a little more civility and, above all, a little more rationality. At least try not to live down to WC’s expectations.

WC has already mentioned his admiration and enthusiasm for Elizabeth Warren, candidate for the U.S. Senate for Massachusetts. WC should have added that he has heard her speak; she gave a thoughtful, energetic presentation on a study she had co-authored on the reasons why citizens file bankruptcy at a seminar WC attended a few years ago.

The New York Times has an extended piece on her candidacy and the challenges she will face if elected. A sample quote:

While fighting for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Warren told The Huffington Post that if she didn’t wind up with a strong consumer agency, her second choice would be “no agency at all and plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor,” a phrase that has already been overlaid on images of Wall Street protesters in a Republican attack ad. Questioned at the time on CNBC about words that sounded “unnecessarily aggressive,” Warren replied: “Gee, I don’t know. That doesn’t seem aggressive at all to me.”

Recommended.

A few years ago, WC completed a first draft of a novella. It’s not all that good, and publishers have not been leaping at the opportunity to buy it. But it’s likely good enough to blog… So WC will inflict his fiction – well, his overt fiction – on his long-suffering readers. Chapters will posted on Sunday mornings.

Here’s Chapter 1 if you missed it.
Here’s Chapter 2 if you missed it.
Here’s Chapter 3 if you missed it.
Here’s Chapter 4 if you missed it.
Here’s Chapter 5 if you missed it.

Warning: the story involves graphic violence.

From Antonin’s Oddities:

Gudsawr was killed by the sword, of course. Some thief did half of what he had jokingly asked, stealing the sword but then spitting him on it. If he afterwards watched idiots kill themselves with the sword, he watched it happen from Hell.

Chapter 6

For the next two weeks Mikhal rode slowly towards the western mountains, carrying the sword constantly, but always wearing gloves. After one week, his food had run out, and after ten days there were no more people. He was in the true wilderness now. But now the mountain he sought, the mountain Reverend Abbot had described to him, was in sight.

It would have been impossible to miss. By day a long, dark cloud of smoke and ash blew away to the west. By night, it glowed a dirty red, reflecting on the clouds and the smoky ash.

The next day he entered an area where there was an inch deep blanket of ash on the ground. There would no longer be anything for his horse to graze on. Mikhal took off saddle and reins, pointed the horse back to the east and spanked it sharply on the haunch. The horse walked off.

An hour later, Mikhal found a spring. As he bent to fill his water bottle, he saw tracks in the ash around the spring. Horses and people. And one set of tracks, he saw, had only a left foot; the right was a peg.

Mikhal gave a great sigh. Ah, well. He would use the sword’s powers, then, but only to allow him to destroy the sword. He took off his gloves, taking care not to release the sword. Holding the sword in his bare left hand, the sky darkened slightly, and there was that sense that time had changed. He filled his water bottle one-handed, and then walked on up the ashy slope of the volcano.

He followed Reverend Abbot’s instructions and not the tracks, aiming not for the summit but slightly downhill from a notch in the summit. In the early evening, he found the first lava, frozen black rock, all sharp edges and shiny surfaces. Reverend Abbot’s instructions had been explicit. He started across the broken surface. So long as he held the sword, a fall, while uncomfortable, could not hurt him. As the stars started to come out, he sighted along his route towards an island of burnt, blackened trees, marking the route. It was two hours to moonrise, but the moon was a waning quarter. Not much light.

He slowly made his way across the warm rock of the lava field. Just past the burnt trees he saw what Reverend Abbot had described. A red glow, where molten rock ran under the stuff he walked on. The last five hundred feet were very hard to walk, and as he struggled across, the waning moon rose behind him. The rock under his feet was hot now; his feet were sweating in his boots. He stopped for a swallow of water. As he started to drink, Felici’s voice called out from the shadows.

“If you throw the sword in the lava, you are a dead man.”

Mikhal drank his water, put the leather jug away and continued his careful way across the lava the last few hundred feet. There was a rumble in the rock under his feet now, and his shoes felt as if they were on fire. At least four men emerged from the shadows around him. “Felici,” Mikhal said, you have already told me I am a dead man. You told me I was a dead man when I didn’t pay my taxes.”

When he was fifteen feet from the opening, he stopped and looked at the red light. Molten rock was running through the opening, seemingly moving as fast as a horse could run. It was almost silent, only a soft hissing noise came from the fiery light and the faint rumbling through his feet. The heat was very bad. Not wanting to chance missing if he threw the sword from where he stood, he forced himself to move closer. Even the sword in his hand was warm now.

Felici called again. “The moment you throw the sword, arrows will hit you.”

Mikhal looked back into the faint moonlight. Yes, there were at least two bow men. “Felici,” Mikhal called, “Isn’t the Empire enough? Must you have my life as well?”

Felici snorted. “Without the sword, holding the Empire will be too hard. Give me the sword and go away, and I will let you live; destroy the sword and I will destroy you.”

“You know I can kill all of you and that you cannot stop me. I can run on this rock, you cannot. I am invulnerable, you are not. And nothing can stop the sword.” Mikhal saw the silhouettes of the two bowmen look at each other.

“Mikhal, there are men hidden where you will never find them. You cannot kill us all, and if you destroy the sword one of us will get you.”

“But Felici,” teased Mikhal, “Without you Donal will never hold the throne. If I simply kill you I kill your dreams of empire.”

“Without the sword, I, too, am a dead man. As I have told you before.”

“No, Felici, you will merely be less powerful. You are clever enough that, with Donal, you can hold the Empire for yourselves and your heirs without the sword. If you kill me, it will be because of spite.”

“If you destroy the sword, I promise you will never know.”

Mikhal smiled in the direction of Felici’s voice. “As you say.” He dropped to the ground, and in the same motion threw the sword in the molten lava. If the lava showed any sign when the sword struck it, Mikhal did not see. His hands and legs burning on the hot rock, he started to crawl away, keeping his face turned down. If arrows flew at him, he didn’t see them and could not hear them over the noise of the lava. He heard shouting and curses, but made his way on his belly diagonally across the hot lava rock, away from where he had last heard Felici.

He had not crawled ten feet when time seemed to stop completely, and he was nearly overcome by a powerful feeling this had all happened before. The world felt stretched, like a rope pulled too tight, to its breaking point. Then there was a soundless white flash. It seemed to go on for a very long time, but after what may have been only a moment, the feeling passed, the moonlit dark returned and time seemed to move normally again.

Immediately, there was a sudden, brighter light for a few seconds and the shriek of a man being burnt alive. Someone had broken through the crust of rock below the vent into which Mikhal had thrown the sword, and fallen into the lava. By that light, Mikhal saw Felici standing not twenty feet away from him. All of Felici’s attention was on the burning man. Resisting temptation, Mikhal simply froze, waited for the light from the human torch to dim, and then continued to move away. The rock was already a little cooler under his hands.

. . . . .

A wild man, emaciated and scarred, with dirty hair and beard, appeared at the monastery gate one afternoon. His clothes were rags, charred in places, and the hand with which he knocked on the monastery gate was marked with the red lines of recently healed cuts and burns.

A head appeared above the gate. “Who knocks?”

“I beg refuge and the wisdom of the Reverend Abbot.”

“What can you pay?”

“I have nothing. I am sorry.”

“What name shall I give?”

“Please tell the Abbot I have come to apologize.”

“We will not admit those who will not give us their names.”

The wild man stared at the youth. “Take my message to the Abbot.”

“Bide.”

A long while later, the gate opened. “Do you pledge peace while inside these walls?” the young man asked.

“Yes.”

“Then enter.”

They walked in single file to the small building with the trestle table. The young monk knocked, and opened the door. “He is here.”

There was bread and wine on the trestle table in front of the Abbot. Sunlight from a window gleamed brightly on the Abbott, the table and the food.

“Leave us, my son,” said the Abbot.

The young monk looked at the wild man, and looked at the Abbot. “Go on,” said the Abbot, “Leave us.”

The young monk reluctantly left, pulling the door closed behind him.

The wild man dropped to one knee. “I thank you and the mission for refuge, Reverend Abbot, and I thank you for your advice. I apologize for losing your horse.”

“Sit down here, Mikhal of Blackberry Hill, and tell me your story. I am already well paid for the horse.”

“Just my presence endangers the monastery, Reverend Abbot. Felici may suspect I live, and he knows I know you.”

“First tell me your story. Then I will judge if you endanger the monastery. And please, eat while you talk.”

Mikhal ate slowly and told Reverend Abbot his story. “When I came away from the mountains, Donal’s – the Emperor’s – soldiers were everywhere. It took a very long time to get here.”

“And what do you want to do now?”

“Reverend Abbot, I have not the least idea in the world. I had expected to be dead.”

“For a time, at least, Mikhal shall become a brother monk from the northern monastery, under a vow of silence and seclusion. We will see if Baron Felici gets over his fury.”

Mikhal smiled at ‘Baron Felici.’ “I have no vocation, Reverend Abbot.”

“I can always use a gardener. Just live for a time, Mikhal. You have done enough for a while. You have removed an evil from the world. Rest a bit.”

“Thank you, Reverend Abbot. I think I will.”

The End

The crimes alleged to have been committed by past and present Penn State University officials will take years to sort out. But WC proposes one early, easy lesson that can be learned:

The criminal laws of Pennsylvania, Alaska and the U.S. set the basement, not the ceiling, for acceptable conduct in a civilized society.

Certainly this should be obvious. Apparently it is not.

The criminal laws of Alaska say that if you observe an adult anally raping a child you have a duty to report it to the authorities, and that it is a Class A misdemeanor to fail to do so. AS 11.56.765. That’s the basement. A civilized society also imposes a moral duty to attempt to stop the crime, to protect the child. The criminal laws don’t require it; societal norms do. Just because letting a child rape continue isn’t a crime doesn’t mean it is moral conduct.

The criminal laws of Pennsylvania are different than Alaska’s; it may not be a crime to fail to immediately report the child rape to the police. But that doesn’t excuse you from not calling. It just means it he didn’t commit a crime under Pennsylvania law. Criminal law defines what you must do, not what you should do. The basement; the minimum.

Jane Leavey has a nice apologia for McQueary at Grantland. And WC acknowledges her point that McQueary’s life is going to be hell for a long time. But it doesn’t change the bottom line.

Jonathan Bernstein slices, dices and demolishes Drew Westen’s opinion piece in the New York Times attacking President Obama’s record. Sample quote:

But Westen, who I guess is now a regular of sorts in the new NYT “Campaign Stops” thingy, is considerably worse. He brings you all the disregard for factual accuracy and lack of knowledge about how the government and politics work, but with none of the value added at all, as far as I can see.

WC thinks Obama is an amazingly successful president. Props to Bernstein for calling out those who would grossly distort the facts in an attempt to say otherwise.

The title is a Latin phrase from WC’s long-ago Latin classes. It means, roughly, “Who watches the watchmen?” Who keeps and eye on the criminal justice system, the cops and the prosecutors, and makes certain they adhere to the law?[1]

A woman attempts to report sexual harassment to the county police department, complaining she had been groped and propositioned by a police officer responding to a domestic disturbance call. Instead of getting help, she was arrested for recording the interaction with the cops. The District Attorney refuses to dismiss the charges.

Students at a university investigate a possible wrongful conviction, and find compelling evidence that the convicted man is innocent. They present their evidence to the county district attorney. Instead of acting on the students’ evidence, the district attorney attempts to seize the students’ notebook, class records and transcripts.

DNA evidence strongly support overturning the criminal convictions of four men accused and convicted of murder of a prostitute. And the DNA evidence arises in a county with an appalling record of wrongful convictions. Instead of applying the law and agreeing to reverse the conviction, the district attorney spins fantasies about how the wrongfully convicted man might be guilty anyway.

Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez

What do these three cases have in common? The same District Attorney, specifically Cook County Prosecutor Anita Alvarez. Remember, this is Illinois, the poster child for corruption and wrongful convictions. Where it’s hard to remember a state governor who hasn’t ended up in jail. Where the last governor not to go to jail wound up commuting all pending death sentences to life in prison, because he had completely lost confidence in the criminal justice system. Where the state legislature wound up abolishing the death penalty because of the incessant string of wrongful conviction for capital crimes.

You’d think that history would make a state’s attorney err on the side of, you know, justice?

At least in the case of Anita Alvarez, you’d be wrong.

WC would like to applaud Ms. Alvarez: she’s the first woman and first Hispanic to be Cook County’s elected prosecutor. She’s done some good work in the past. She runs with reasonable effectiveness the 800-plus lawyer office, the second largest in the nation (after Los Angeles).

But she also appears to have a fatal flaw for a public official: she cannot admit when she is wrong. She cannot accept the possibility or error. So she subpoenas the records of college students, instead of examining their charges. She ignores the law of wrongful convictions. And, worst of all from WC’s point of view, she refuses to exercise her duties to supervise the Chicago Police Department. If it comes to choosing between the complaints of a civilian injured by Chicago’s corrupt cops and the corrupt cops themselves, she’s on the cops’ side every time.

WC hasn’t lived in Chicago for decades now, but the memories remain fresh. As long as the voters tolerate this kind of failure to act, Chicago will be as corrupt as it was four decades ago. Chicago deserves better. Prosecutor Alvarez needs to remember she work for the public, not the cops, and that she and the Cook County justice system are demonstrably fallible.

[1] The quote is attributed to the Roman poet and satirist, Juvenal. It may be a later addition. If it was Juvenal, he was using it in the context of marital infidelity: you can surround your spouse with guards to keep his or her fidelity, but who watches the guards? It certainly sounds like Juvenal. The phrase’s connotative meaning has grown far beyond Juvenal.