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It is Holy Saturday as I type this. And all hell has broken loose in Arkansas.
Let me state at the outset that I am somewhat conflicted about capital punishment. As a matter of law, I believe that capital punishment is one of the penalties that a society may legitimately impose upon conviction of the most heinous of offenses. I also would tend to agree that capital punishment, in and of itself, is probably not "cruel and unusual punishment" that is barred by the 8th Amendment to the Constitution. After all, capital punishment existed during the time of the framing of the Constitution and the Founding Fathers could have banned it if they had wanted to.
The 8 individuals pictured above were scheduled to be executed by the State of Arkansas. 7 of them were scheduled to be put to death over the next 11 days. "What's the rush?" one might ask. Because the state's supply of midazolam, the sedative used as part of the 3 injection regimen, expires on April 30th. In other words, it is not safe to use beyond that date.
If this were not sufficiently perverse, yesterday McKesson Medical- Surgical Inc. filed suit in state court seeking injunctive relief against the use of the 100 vials of vecromium bromide it sold to the State. It said that the State failed to disclose that the chemicals were to be used in executions. McKesson is the distributor of the drug. It said the manufacturer of the drug opposes its use in executions. The state court judge granted an injunction. I forgot to mention that this judge was also part of a protest rally against the scheduled executions thereby putting his impartiality to extreme question.
I also forgot to mention that while all of this was going on, US District Judge Kristine Baker held 4 days of hearings last week concerning whether the drug regimen proposed by Arkansas constituted "cruel and unusual punishment." Last night she issued a 100 page decision enjoining the executions which got filed this morning.
Oh and McKesson filed a "friend of the court" brief in Judge Baker's court reciting its objection to the use of vecromium bromide for this purpose. An employee of the Department of Corrections said it pretty much knew the McKesson employee that sold the State the vials in question was not authorized to sell it for use in executions. And when asked by reporters where the State got the chemicals it proposed to use, a spokesperson said they were "donated."
Donated? The hell she said. The State of Arkansas is accepting donated goods to execute people?
Look, I have no sympathy for these defendants. They were all convicted of the most heinous of crimes involving murder and sex offenses. They are not entitled to mercy as most of us define it.
But even the worst among us-and these guys amply qualify-have constitutional rights. And this fiasco proves that Arkansas is not capable of carrying out the maximum punishment in a dignified and orderly fashion consistent with the rule of law. If we must execute prisoners it cannot be done in a circus atmosphere with chemicals ostensibly obtained by ruse. We shouldn't execute people in an assembly line fashion because the expiration date of one of the drugs is coming up. And why is this latter consideration an issue? Because states that use lethal injection to administer capital punishment are finding it hard to obtain these drugs as many companies-like McKesson who may have gotten snookered here-refuse to allow their products to be used for this purpose. This is ridiculous and macabre.
And, as has been proven time and again, it would be infinitely cheaper to confine them for life than to pay the cost of the seemingly infinite rounds of appeals available to death row litigants in both the State and Federal system. But what about closure for the victims? Good point. I can't imagine what it must be like to have a loved one taken from you under such violent and horrible circumstances. But again, like it or not, these inmates have rights. What about the victims you may ask? What about their rights? I am sympathetic. Really I am. What happened to the victims in these cases was beyond evil. But in the criminal justice system you have to dot every "i" and cross every "t." That's the way it is.
I say lock 'em up and throw away the key. Case closed. The very definition of closure. You say you don't want to use your tax dollars for their care and feeding for life? Fine. If you think it is a better use of your tax dollars to pay attorneys fees and courts costs for the average 20 years these appeals ten to take for an uncertain end, then we can continue on our current path.
Executions are no longer practical from a strictly utilitarian and economic perspective.
This is not about mercy for these guys. This is about the rule of law.
And swift and sure punishment. Which the families of the victims, and the taxpayers who are footing the bill for the criminal justice system, deserve.
I did something the other day I haven't done in years. I went to the horse track. When I say "years" I mean I'm talking at least 15. I tend to measure my life in terms of when I was able to leave government service. Which was over 5 years ago if you can believe that. And I scarcely can. So it had to be 10 years before that.
I hadn't really thought much about the horse game before about this time last year. I'm not much of a gambler. I haven't set foot in a casino since Ole Miss quit putting on the Mid-South Bankruptcy Conference-get this- at Horseshoe in Tunica. I barely play the NCAA basketball tournament anymore.
But over the years I became friends with a guy who is a professional gambler. Seriously. He makes his living betting on horses. Whether he augments his income with other sports investing opportunities (shall we say) I do not know. I do not want to know. Anyway, my friend knows that I am something of a photographer and he encouraged me to come out and try my hand with race photography. My teaching duties kept me from going down last year. But my schedule this year is much more flexible. So off I went last Friday.
Oaklawn is located in Hot Springs, Arkansas. I like Hot Springs despite the fact that it is an old cathouse of a town that to this day is the epicenter of vice in this state. Well, at least it is when the legislature isn't in session. At least Hot Springs, unlike the Solons on Woodlane Avenue, is not hypocritical about it. It is a gambling and drinking town. Pretty much any itch you got you can get it scratched in Hot Springs. Twas ever thus.
I accept these things.
Indeed, the only time in my life I have ever been propositioned by a lady who provides companionship in exchange for rent (again shall we say) was in Hot Springs. And I used to live in New Orleans. Anyway, I was standing outside the Arlington Hotel (speaking of cathouses) at dusk waiting on some friends of mine to pick me up for dinner.
"Hey baby," I heard a voice behind me say. "I sure hate to see a handsome man all by himself."
I turned around. Brunette. Heels. Huge purse containing God knows what in addition to a a probable Glock. She was not bad if you could separate the aesthetics from the business plan.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm waiting on some friends."
She shrugged the shoulder that wasn't burdened by the anvil sized purse she was packing.
"That's too bad," she said. "I mean, I don't know your friends but I bet I'm more fun."
"Tell you what," I said as I pointed back to the Arlington. "there's a convention going on in there. There's a bunch of guys at the bar and you look like you could use a drink."
It was my turn to shrug. She laughed as she clicked off toward the hotel lobby.
"You have fun tonight, Baby," she said over her shoulder. "Tell your friends 'hello'."
These are indeed the memories that will sustain me in my golden years. But enough of this.
Once inside the track I ran into my old buddy K. K is a pretty serious horse player when he isn't practicing law. He asked me if I wanted to get a bet down on the upcoming race.
"No," I said. "I'm here to take pictures." I held my camera up as if that proved anything.
"That's it?" he said.
"Well I will drink a beer before I leave. But M has no use for gambling and so I won't."
I could see the cogs turning.
"Technically, pari-mutual wagering is not gambling because you are competing against everybody else. Which makes it a game of skill. At least that's how they sell it to the hypocrites in the legislature."
"A technical defense will not work with her. Or any other woman in my experience. Besides, she's a Deacon in the one true, apostolic and universal United Methodist Church. Both it and her are opposed to gambling. So I won't bet. I promised her."
At that point in time Martians must have been landing behind me judging from the incredulous expression on K's face.
"What?" I said.
"When did you acquire principles?"
Which was not necessary and hurtful even. But that's what old friends are for I guess.
With that I excused myself. But not before he pointed out an older man that was walking past us.
"That man there is the only bookie the old guys will use," he said. "He keeps it all in his head. Doesn't use a computer. Just like the old days. So nothing to trace. The old players, they don't trust technology."
Which I have to admit was pretty much the most fascinating thing I had heard all week. Hey, this method of communication worked pretty well for Bin-Laden.
I spent the rest of the afternoon shooting pictures of the horses and the railbirds. The horses, kinda like that hooker back at the Arlington years ago, are beautiful in a twitchy and dangerous sort of sense. Speaking of which, along the rail you really get a sense of how dangerous riding one of these hay-consuming heat seeking missiles must be. Especially when they are all bunched up together coming down the stretch. The sound is amazing.
I drank a beer during which time I let a 12 year old girl try to take a picture with my box. Her mom said she wanted a camera and was fascinated by mine. Sure. Why not? So I managed to perform at least one good deed there in that den of vice, where a sweet kid can exist in a kind of symbiosis with an elderly bookie who carries the bets in his head.
I left pretty early because I wanted to get home in time to watch basketball (speaking of vice). I got to take my pictures and I didn't place a bet. It was a win-win for everybody.
Hot Springs is an old cathouse of a town. But it can be managed.
I like it over there. I had fun and I got some good image. I will get back to Oaklawn sooner than later.
Maybe M will come with me sometime.
Maybe. But I wouldn't bet on it.
It must have been at least 15 years ago.
One of the Agency heads-a Presidential appointee-was retiring. And so they had a big retirement party at one of the hotels. There had to have been 100 people there. Good food and a wet bar. It was a nice affair.
I was seated at a table that was purchased by a man whose company did a lot of business with this particular agency. He was there along with his CEO who is a woman I went to college with. We were then, and still are, very good friends.
Her boss offered to buy me a drink after I sat down. I told him I couldn't let him do that. He evidently had been drinking pretty good before I got there which helped fuel the indignation on his part when I refused his offer.
"You too good to let me buy you one?" he asked.
"Nothing of the sort," I said. "the Ethics in Government Act does not allow me to accept gifts from people that we do business with."
"That's ridiculous!" he exclaimed a little louder than I would have liked. This was getting uncomfortable.
His CEO got between us.
"Look," she said. "I'll settle this. You and I have been friends for a hundred years. I can buy you a drink."
"Yes,"I said. "You can buy me a drink. But your boss cannot." Actually, under the circumstances, she probably couldn't either. But things were getting tense.
I then turned to one of the Agency's Contracting Officers that was sitting close by nursing a bourbon.
"And he can't buy you one either."
The poor man looked at me as if I had outlawed Christmas. Which I sorta had done.
I remembered this episode when I read about the recent flap about Trump aide Kellyanne Conway and her urging people to "go buy Ivanka's stuff" after Nordstrom's Department store announced that it was changing it's relationship with Ivanka due to poor sales.
Now, not only was this petty and vindictive, it was arguably illegal. Federal law bars public employees from endorsing products. And she's on Uncle Sam's payroll now.
Naturally folks are calling for investigations, if not for her head.
Which I think is an overreaction. On a scale of 1 to 10 this gaff rates about a 3 in the universe of crazy formerly known as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Granted, the Ethics in Government Act may not apply to the President and his appointees. But Godalmighty doesn't anybody in the new administration have an eye for appearance's sakes? From the President's refusal to put his businesses in a trust to this, nobody up there seems to be bothered by textbook conflicts of interest. That seems obvious to me.
When I was in government service I wouldn't let anybody I didn't have a personal relationship with buy me nothing. Ever. Not counsel opposite who wanted to buy me lunch one day in Woodville, Louisiana. And yes, I did get all of the big gigs.
Anyway, when I politely turned him down he said, "But this is Louisiana. Nobody cares about that shit down here." Which was funny. But unpersuasive.
Not the lawyer in whose office we were doing depositions in Baton Rouge. He offered to cater lunch. All us government types said we would pay our share. I knew a lawyer who always produced his credentials when he stayed in hotels on vacation so he could get the government rate. Really.
I did accept a Christmas drink that had been sent over to me by a lawyer on the other side of the restaurant. We had been going at each other for about 5 years. By that time we had become friends. And we still are.
Now I don't mean to suggest that I deserved the Congressional Medal of Honor. Or that I was more ethically attuned than most other civil servants. But I always felt that in public service you had to have a bell in your head that warns you when you are about to cross the line. If only for appearance's sake. Because appearances matter.
Would I have been indicted if I took a drink from the man at the party? No. But I always felt that if you started fudging on the little stuff, it might get easier to fudge on the bigger stuff. I know myself very well. I yield to temptation. Best not to get started on the easy stuff. Best to draw a bright line and try never to cross it. Even if it hurts somebody's feelings.
They say that Conway has been "counseled" about popping off in this manner. I say that is about all they need to do with her this one time. She said she was kidding. What the hell. She probably was.
But good God. She would have been better off if she had heard a bell in her head before she opened her mouth.
Mr. Hamilton's firewall sprung a leak.
What was widely conceived to be the unthinkable as little as a year ago has become reality. Donald Trump, the ruthless businessman, tax deadbeat, Russian sympathizer and relentless self-promoting con artist is the 45th President of the United States.
I almost don't know what else to say.
Except this. Every man that has stood in his shoes discovered something pretty quickly. Governance is a lot harder than campaigning. Every President struggles to turn promises made on the stump into policy. Every one. Trump will be no different. Whether he can work with the Congress remains to be seen. Here's but one example of the kind of disconnects we may safely expect going forward.
The Republicans have had a bug up their patoots from jump street over the Affordable Care Act. Even though the basic framework was THEIR IDEA! And so, now that they have majorities in both chambers they are proceeding to, well, do something about it. And while this is going on Trump declares that everybody will have insurance. Which wasn't exactly on the script. Expect his underpaid press secretary to have to issue numerous "what the President meant by that" type of statements in the next 4 years.
While I didn't watch the show, I did read his inaugural address. As far as I can tell, Donald Trump's America is a virtual dystopia that he promises to rescue and restore to its former greatness. I don't live in that place.
There's a thing going around on Facebook that is actually instructive for once. This particular post reminds of a few facts about January 20th, the day on which Donald Trump was expressing his dark vision of reality.
Gas was $2.09 a gallon. The Dow closed at 19,819. Unemployment stood at 4.7%. Mark this and mark this well.
Sure, there are problems. And to give the devil his due, Trump was able to tap into a large and disaffected segment of the electorate that the Democrats foolishly took for granted. This is largely why he is the Oval One and Hillary is not.
But contrary to the portrait painted in his inaugural address, referred to by the known communist George Will as the most dreadful one in history (I'm guessing history of inaugural addresses and not the history of oratory), the United States of America ain't exactly the Weimar
Republic. At least not yet. And it doesn't need to rescued by a cartoon character straight out of a Nietzschean
fever dream.
I don't live in the place that Trump described yesterday. And as I type this women all over this country have taken to the streets in peaceful protest against the misogynist that the electoral vote has put in charge.
Victory remains in love. Hope and faith may safely abide in righteous anger.
That's the country I live in. God Bless the United States of America. We will get through this.
I don't know what else to say.
I can't say that I feel old as such. Or not all that old. I still work out on a regular basis. I'm a little heavier than I have been. But I'm working on it. I killed the treadmill during my last visit to the cardiologist. I haven't been sick since,well, I don't recall. Sometime last Spring. I don't count my mild recurrent sinus infections as qualifying for "being sick."
So far so good.
But last October or so I noticed something. Catholic High is not the most well-lit place. But I noticed when one of the boys was waving at me from around 30 yards away I couldn't make out his face. And this is one of the boys I know well.
That was new. I started paying attention. In choir rehearsal, I noticed I couldn't make out the director's face from the stage in the auditorium. I noticed that it took me longer to walk down stairs or recognize folks behind a windshield.
I didn't think much about it. My yearly visit to the ophthalmologist was coming up. I figured I needed a new prescription. Wrong as usual. In November my 17 year old eye doctor told me I had cataracts. She told me this after hearing me tell her that I couldn't make out faces in the hall anymore.
She looked in my left eye. "Yep."
She looked in my right eye. "And yep. Bilateral cataracts."
"Are you sure?" I asked her in disbelief.
She shrugged.
"You're a little young. But you have cataracts."
I'm not yet a candidate for surgery. She told me to get prescription sunglasses for golf and driving.
"See ya in a year," she said while dispensing a hug as we walked down the hall. "Really. This is going to be OK."
And for the first time in my life I feel old. Now if this is the worst I get told, and it will not be, I will be lucky. Especially given the amusing fact that we Bowens tend to have bad tickers.
But I have never considered-nor have I ever had reason to do so-how limiting even a slight visual impairment can be. While I can see to drive and read and perform the average tasks of daily life, my depth perception, already rendered tricky by bifocals, is now for shit. It's a pain to switch from regular glasses to sunglasses. And vice-versa.
Walking on uneven ground and/or going down stairs is kinda scary. Especially at low light. Indeed, the other night I walked off a neighbor's porch. Stone cold sober at 7:30 PM. In retrospect, I probably would have been more nimble if I had a snootful at the time.
So I downloaded a flashlight app for my phone. I now keep a penlight in the car. All for walking down stairs at night.
Which is depressing quite frankly. Why didn't she just issue me a white cane with her farewell hug?
But then I think how much more depressing it would be to have this condition with no medical insurance to pay for the surgery that will be necessary in about a year. Or sooner if I keep taking dives.
And yet, the new Republican Congress is hell bent on messing with the 20 million folks out there who get their insurance through the Affordable Care Act. They are opposed to expanding Medicaid. They are talking about changes to Medicare which is one of the most popular government programs ever devised.
Now, rabid partisans though they may be, Trump and the Congress he inherits are not complete fools. They aren't about to create an instant bloc of pissed off voters. They know that immediate repeal would be disaster for the economy. And so this is why some have predicted that the changes to the ACA will be mostly cosmetic in nature.
But if I got my insurance through Obamacare, I would be nervous. Because insurance companies are all about managing risk. And the longer the Congress screws around with this issue the less quantifiable will be the risk. And insurance companies, except for the more unstable ones, will leave the insurance exchanges in each state. And Obamacare will collapse under its own weight. Which is maybe what the Republicans want to happen.
So yeah. I'm depressed by the cataracts. But I would be a lot more depressed if I didn't have insurance. I would be even more depressed, and angry, if my government was going to take it away from me.
Because it isn't fair.
It just ain't fair.
I was taking my 15 year old nephew home from school the other day. He, out of the blue, asked me what I thought about the upcoming Presidential election. I get this occasionally in the classroom as well. In that latter arena, I try to best to be as non-partisan as possible. I think I do a pretty good job of it, In fact a kid told me about a month or so ago that every time he thinks he has me figured out, I say something that that gives him a second thought. That's my job.
But this was different. Clarke wanted to know what I thought as his uncle. Not as the teacher.
But even though I was unconstrained by the grove of academe I felt that I had to tread lightly. It was a serious question from a smart kid. He deserved a thoughtful response.
I began by telling him that I had been voting for many years. And that I never miss a chance to exercise the franchise. The voting booth is nigh unto a sacred place for me. And I hope he feels the same way when he runs 18.
I told him that I thought I had seen it all during my time in Louisiana and with the antics of Tommy Robinson here. I told him that I thought that W was the worst president in my lifetime and that I didn't think we would make such a mistake again.
But I told him that I had never seen a Presidential candidate like Donald J. Trump. And I pretty much let it go at that. Like I said, Clarke is a smart kid. He can read between the lines.
What I didn't tell him was that, while I certainly didn't vote for either George W. Bush, John McCain or Mitt Romney, neither did I question their basic fitness for office, Sarah Palin notwithstanding. I would not have liked it if McCain or Romney had won. But I wouldn't have viewed their election as a potential disaster for our country. All of these people had won elections. All of these people had public records. I may have disagreed with their politics but I would not have questioned their fitness to serve. Except for Sarah Palin. And John McCain's decision to put her on the ticket pretty much cost him the election. The electorate got it right.
Trump is a different deal altogether.
This is a man who is particularly unsuited for public office much less the highest one in the land. He is thin-skinned and xenophobic. He is either an overt racist or does not mind it his candidacy appeals to those that are. He has encouraged the fanciful idea that his opponent should be incarcerated and that the electoral process is rigged against him as he engages in that very process.
All politicians lie as a matter of tactics. Trump does it as a matter of pathology. He has tapped into all that is ugly and divisive in our culture and made it his base. There is mad talk here and there of the possibility of violence in the streets should he mercifully lose the election. He does not particularly discourage this mad talk. He is not transparent about his taxes unlike all other candidates for President other than Richard Nixon. As with Nixon, I suspect there is a reason for this.
In Trump's world there are either "winners" or "losers" which is hardly a nuanced view of reality. Indeed, "Losers" are typically anybody who disagrees with him. He has questioned the impartiality of the judge who is presiding over one of the matter of his phony-baloney Trump University due to the judge's Mexican ancestry. He has mocked the disabled and said ungallant things about women.
And the scary thing is Trump's unhinged approach to campaigning strikes many of his acolytes as "honesty" and represents proof to them that he will bring sweeping change to Washington. As if sweeping change is possible given the checks and balances in the system. Change to what? Not as diverse? Do our own Brexit from engagement with the world? Drop the big one on ISIS? Prosecute Hillary? The con man believes in the con now, my fellow Americans. And why shouldn't he? Even evangelicals support him, despite his historically libertine approach to sexual ethics and no known record of particular interest in religious matters.
The wisdom of Hamilton and Madison has never been more plain. The Electoral College is the firewall against national self-destruction. And it is my fervent hope that it will prove so next Tuesday.
I'm not crazy about Hillary, who is graciously referred to as a "flawed candidate." Trump is flawed. She is despised. And only she could keep giving herself regular roundhouses to herself at the worst possible times. She is overly cautious and defaults into corporate lawyer mode at the drop of a hat. But at the end of the day, I could give two hoots in Hell about her emails. Say what you will about her, she is qualified by experience and temperament for office. Trump is not.
And that is the low bar with which we are confronted in the Presidential election of 2016. This is what we have come to at this juncture in history. And the whole world is watching. Really it is.
I finished my talk with Clarke in this fashion. I told him that it was up to his generation to somehow fix our country's politics.
Because my generation has failed. Here's your proof.
God bless the United States of America. May the firewall hold.
As I tell the kids, when it comes to writing, "beginnings and endings" ("ledes and walkaways" in the parlance of journalism) are important. And I confess that I don't quite know where to begin when it comes to the latest revelation about Donald Trump, the Party Formerly of Lincoln's nominee for President. But we have to start somewhere. So here goes.
As the whole world knows by now, last week a tape was leaked of a conversation between he and the amazingly named Billy Bush as they were en route to Trump making a cameo appearance on the soap opera "Days of Our Lives" in 2005. These tapes were made for the reality show "Access Hollywood" of which Mr. B was a host. Or something.
Suffice it to say, his remarks about women and his prowess with them (for lack of a better word) were shockingly lewd and juvenile for an (alleged) gentleman of his age and station. They will not be repeated here as you can easily find them elsewhere.
I am no prude. I am not one to be offended by coarse language or the off-color joke. Lord knows I am perfectly capable of making the air turn blue, particularly on the golf course. And while I try to be thoughtful in my choice of words I occasionally make a mistake, as I did a couple of weeks ago.
And I have been in the company of all manner of men in my youth and adulthood. In the locker room. On the golf course. In the stands. In the tavern. In the hallway outside the courtroom.
I've been with them when they were drunk, when they were angry, when they were under stress, and when they have tried to hit on women.
I have been with men when they are unhappy with women in general or with their woman in particular. I've heard the "b" word. I've used the "b" word.
My point, and I do have one, in the words of Ellen DeGeneres, is that I cannot recall anybody ever talking about women in general as Trump is heard talking about them on the tape. You might expect that sort of attitude from a poorly socialized 15 year old boy. You don't expect to hear that from a reputed business icon, one whose wife was pregnant at the time.
But I will let others explain the gravity of those words from the female perspective. I cannot possibly do them the justice this moment requires.
But my biggest issue is not the words he used, vile as they are, or the attitude of superiority over women they convey. It is Donald Trump's blind eye to place, circumstance or surroundings. And/or possible consequences for his acts.
He was en route to tape a show. He was in the presence of a TV personality whom he was favoring with his insights into the relationship between the sexes.
Did it not occur to him that there might be a "live" mic somewhere capturing these pensees for all eternity? Or did he just not care? Was it a momentary lapse of judgment? Or was it hubris?
I have my grave doubts that there was ever a proper time or place for such reprehensible words. But we may all agree wherever such a place might be it was not en route to a taping of a soap opera where audio recording technology abounds. You would think that a person with his mostly self-hyped intellect and media experience would comport himself with a modicum of restraint and dignity in mixed company as the old expression goes.
But he did not.
Trump has apologized. Sorta. And he says that those comments made 11 years ago do not reflect the man he is today. Perhaps. The task of judging men's hearts has not been delegated unto me in any event. So I will not do so.
But do the American people really want to give the keys to the military and the apparatus of diplomacy to a man who exercised such monumentally poor judgment in 2005?
Are we really willing to bet something that stupid won't happen again? Over something that matters?
Are we?
Yesterday was the 5th anniversary of my exodus from public service. It seems like 5 days. The older I get, and I don't feel all that old, the faster time seems to speed up.
Truth be told, it didn't really hit me until a week or so ago. Then again, I'm pretty busy with a lot of stuff nowadays. At least too busy to engage in a great deal of navel gazing. And too busy to play cards at the AARP meeting room down the street.
What a difference 5 years makes. When I first "retired" I felt like a fish out of water. Indeed, I left the government because I was tired of the job. Not because I was tired of working. It never occurred to me that I would not be doing something full time pretty quickly. And, truth be told the first 6 months or so were pretty awful.
After all, I had always had some kind of job since I was 14. Not working was unthinkable for me. Hence, the "fish out of water" feelings of cognitive dissonance. Insert "alone on an island", "out on a limb", or your own favorite metaphor for self-pity here.
But guess what? I am so over that shit. And have been for some time.
The following is an example of what I get to do instead of practicing law all of the time. Friday's exchange with a 5th grader went like this:
"So you still do lawyer work?" she asked.
" Yep."
"Do you have an office?"
"Yeah. In my house."
"Are you a millionaire?"
"Yes I am."
So I'm not really a millionaire. That was a "fib." It's only a lie if you put it on a financial statement.
I saw no point in explaining the concept of "solvency" to a 9 year old. But is this funner than hell or what?
I am light years removed from 5 years ago. I'm in a great relationship with someone who a friend described upon meeting her as "very tall and way cool." I am pretty much in-house counsel for a small business here in town and I have enough people wanting me to do stuff for them that I have broken down and bought malpractice insurance.
I spend a lot of time at Catholic High down the street and a little at St. Edward's Middle School where the above-exchange took place. I used to do more writing than I do nowadays. I think it's because I got hit with a lazy stick after teaching full-time last semester. That's OK. Never really had the opportunity to be worthless before. I'll get over it one of these days. Maybe.
I wouldn't say that I worry about money but I think about it more than I used to. Then again I've got a pretty good amount of money socked away that I have never touched. Every month the eagle screams and I get a check sufficient to finance my slothful ways every month. I will continue to receive it until my expiration date or World War III, whichever comes first.
As an aside, I need to do something about my car. I need to do some repairs or buy another one. For some reason a new tightwad version of me is in full flower. M says I need to quit thinking about this stuff and go buy a damn car. She's probably right. But I need to think about it. Now I understand why the elderly ruminate overmuch on these things. They have time to do it. This self-revelation is frightening.
Of course, if Donald Trump pulls off the con of his career and places his hand on the Bible in January, I will quit joking about such mundane subjects. And I will start checking out real estate in Quebec or New Zealand.
The state of my personal union 5 years out-knock on wood- is far better than I deserve. I have my health, friends and family. I do fun things with interesting people, some of whom are a little mouthier than is necessary. But that's OK. Folks repose trust in me and I never forget what a sacred thing that is.
All is well. I am at peace.
And I do not take it for granted.
But really. It's been 5 years since I walked out of the Federal Building?
"This is not Rome. This is the Republic of Ireland 2011. A republic of laws...of rights and responsibilities...of proper civic order..."
Irish Secretary of State Enda Kenney
"Which is more important to you, (sic) the Bible or the US Constitution?"
Facebook post earlier this month
In 2011, the Irish government excoriated the Vatican for allegedly attempting to block the investigation by the civil authorities of child abuse by clerics. The church was told in no uncertain terms by a righteously indignant, I mean no pun, Enda Kenney that the civil law prevailed when it came to the safety and protection of children. Of course, the negative pregnant in Kenney's remarkable (by Irish standards) pushback to Rome was that civil law was primary in all matters involving "rights and responsibilities" and "proper civic order."
I thought of the words of the Taoiseach (look it up) when I saw the above-referenced post on Facebook.
For some people, everything is a zero-sum game. Right and wrong. Black and white.
Which is more important to you? The Bible or the US Constitution?
One wonders what is going on out there that would prompt someone to ask such a question. One can sense a certain paranoid construct in which such a question can live and do well. A law may be constitutional but it might also be contrary to the Bible. Or to a particular reading of the Bible. In that case what? Your personal morality trumps the civil law? Indeed, there have been laws passed in a couple of states that say just that.
And the most famous example of this theory was the decision by county clerk Kim Davis not to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples because to do so would offend would allegedly offend her deeply held religious beliefs.
I prefer a more nuanced approach to the post to the extent a) the Facebook poster is serious and b) it is even a question.
To borrow the wonderful phrase from Stephen Jay Gould, the Bible and the US Constitution serve different magisteria. The Bible concerns matters of spirituality and morality. The Constitution and the laws passed pursuant to it concern "rights and responsibilities" and "proper civic order." They are accorded primacy in that realm as the United States, like Ireland, is a republic of laws.
And by the same token, the law protects the typical exercise of the believer's faith. I can attend the church of my choice. I can send my kid to a parochial school. Conversely the law protects my freedom to play golf on Sunday instead of going to church if I so please. Further, while I am free to believe or to not believe, I do not have the unfettered discretion to act on those beliefs. My deeply held belief that the use of marijuana is integral to the practice of my religion is no defense if I am being prosecuted on a dope charge.
Just for the record, I am a Methodist. We do not smoke grass in church. I raised a hypothetical. I'm a lawyer. We do that.
So why am I making a big honking deal out of gibberish on Facebook? Because it seems a lot of our national discourse about serious things takes the form of posts on Facebook or through tweets on Twitter. But everything can't be a zero sum game. Serious questions cannot be resolved in a sound bite.
I talked about the post in question with one of the history teachers at school the other day. Here's our response.
Which is more important to you? The Bible or the Constitution?
Our answer is "yes."
That didn't take long did it?
Yesterday former KKK leader David Duke crawled out from under a rock somewhere in St. Tammany Parish to announce that he was running for the Senate seat vacated by the equally loathsome David Vitter down there in the Pelican State. In his remarks to the press after filing he stated that he was running "because the climate in this country has moved in [his] direction." The nomination of Donald Trump as the standard bearer of what was formerly referred to with a straight face as the "Party of Lincoln"was all the proof he said he needed of this.
I've written about Duke before. Back when I was at Tulane, Duke owned and operated a bookstore in Metarie which specialized in white supremacist literature in Metro. I seem to recall that he and some other "boys in the hood" came on campus for a demonstration which didn't amount to anything. Tulane, being a private school, did not have-shall we say?-the constitutional duty to let Duke exercise his First Amendment rights on its campus. Also, rumor had it back in those days that he was an informer for the FBI.
So actually, there's nothing you could tell me about Mr. Duke that I wouldn't believe. I think he's a stone con artist who may or may not believe the stuff he puts out. But don't take my word for it.
Because David Duke is a felon. He did time as a guest of the Feds after pleading guilty to mail fraud and filing a false income tax return in 2002. During 1993 to 1999, he convinced his weak-minded followers who weren't otherwise tapped out from giving to televangelists that he was broke and about to lose his home.
This, of course, was not true.
Indeed he had sold his home for a profit. So what did he use the money for? Gambling at casinos for the most part. Really. And now he has the gall to run for the United States Senate.
Then again, this is Louisiana and he is running to replace a scumbag like Vitter.
Anyway, you would think that disavowing the candidacy of a racist criminal like David Duke would be the easiest thing in the world. Indeed, it is for this reason that the Louisiana GOP and the Republican National Convention swiftly did just that. I'm writing this at 5:30 CDT Saturday evening. I checked before sitting down at the laptop and as of this writing we haven't heard "boo" out of the Trump campaign on this issue.
I mean, what is so hard here? Is it easier to refer to Hillary Clinton as "crooked?" How so? David Duke DID TIME FOR SWINDLING HIS CONSTITUENTS OUT OF MONEY. "Hillary as crook" may be a meme that resonates to those in the GOP that require red meat in their diets. Duke's criminality, along with his racism, real or showbiz, are a matter of public record.
So what's so hard Donald? Maybe sometime tonight I will read that you indeed joined the GOP establishment (for once) and that you have denounced David Duke's candidacy. Good for you. What took you so long?
To me, that's the issue. Duke does not have a snowball's chance in Hell of pulling this off. He's been running for statewide elections and losing down there for as long as I can remember.
Nope. To me the issue is what's taking Trump so long to denounce David Duke and his assertion that the advent of Donald Trump as presidential timber proves that the country has moved in Mr. Duke's direction?
How is this hard?
I mean really?
It now can be revealed. And many of you know it already.
From the date of the last post on the blog up until the end of March I taught at Catholic High School for Boys here in Little Rock. A member of the faculty had to take an emergency leave of absence for reasons of his health. So one day I was looking into forming a PA and getting malpractice insurance. The next day I was teaching American history to Juniors and Marketing to Seniors. Although the boss told me to teach business law since I did not know the first damn thing about Marketing.
And I'm not kidding. The teacher went away on a Thursday and the next day I was there for real. And that's pretty much all I did for 3 months. I spent my evenings preparing or grading. It was all encompassing. I didn't write. I didn't play music. I hardly played golf.
I don't want to write about the experience too much right now. For one thing, I never had a proper exit interview. That's for a couple of reasons. The principal still has way too much on his plate right now. I need to talk to him before I write about it. For another thing, I never really exited. I still go in for an hour or so each day to help with the small boys choir over there which is known as the Schola Cantorum or "Schola" for short. They are doing their first concert ever next Thursday. I am basically the tenor section. And I help run rehearsal when the director can't make it. So I'm kinda busy myself.
Also, I'm still sorting the entire experience out in my head and in my heart. And I don't really know where to begin. I can say to you out there in the audience what I say to folks that have asked me about it.
"Teaching ain't easy. Overall it was an amazing and humbling experience. When it was good it was really really good. But when it was bad it was really really bad." And when it was bad I'm sure it was, at least in part, because I wasn't much good. That's the way I always felt about it. On the other hand, the real teachers there could not possibly have been kinder or more tolerant even. It was a tough situation for everybody. For the kids especially.
And I think I will leave it at that for now.
So, what have I been up to since April? Not much. Seriously. It took me a good month to completely decompress, for lack of a better word, even after I started going back in to help with Schola or sub for somebody. Ot both.
I think that I learned that teaching high school is not a switch you can turn on or off. And it took awhile to adjust back to my former life after being amped up all the time. It was weird. I was done at spring break. I thought about my boys a lot the first week that school started back up. And I did consider them as "my boys." I still do.
I got to where I could hear their voices as I read their papers. As Melissa said, "You got attached to those kids." Yeah I did.
So shoot me. I'm not a terribly emotional person. But you can't turn it on and off. At least I can't. Which I guess means I'm not a total sociopath. So I have that going for me.
So what now? I still practice law a little bit. I still plan on incorporating myself in some fashion and I intend to get malpractice insurance. People are all the time wanting me to do stuff for them. So why not? I don't particularly need money. But I see a car note in my future along with continuing with the home improvement stuff I started back in January which got put on hold due to one thing or the other back then.
My young friend Lucas Murray and I have resumed playing guitar. I'm going to start doing the Wednesday night Open Mic Night which is now at the Next Bar and Bistro due the closing of the late and greatly lamented Afterthought.
Melissa, last time I checked, hasn't come to her senses yet and we are still together. We spend a lot of time going to Joe's AAU basketball games. Which is fine. Joe is a nice player and I enjoy watching the kids play.
Resumed working out in the day which I prefer. Resumed getting some golf in during the weekday which is nice. More and more of my friends are starting to retire. I look forward to meeting them for lunch or going for walks. I like being able to do whatever the hell I want to pretty much whenever I want to again.
And I'm going to write more including returning to this blog. Not sure if I will post every Sunday as I have in the past. But I will return to blogging. And I plan to write about sports for the newspaper's blog "Blood, Dirt and Angels." That was the original plan before I became Mister Chips from Hell last January.
Many of the kids, and some of the teachers ask me, if I am going to "come back" as it is invariably put. That's nice to hear. The principal told me the other night that I need to be at graduation next Friday. "The boys will want you to be there," he said. This comes as a surprise to me as there were 2 or 3 that I would have liked to have strangled. And I'm sure the feeling was mutual. But that, too, is nice to hear.
So in addition to getting a business license, along with all the other stuff I will need to get street legal to do the lawyer thing, I'm going to look into the requirements for getting a teacher's license on a non-traditional basis.
Because like I said. You can't turn it on and off.
We will visit again soon.
I was never much good at math. So I don't know whether last October I had officially spent 60 years on this vale of tears or whether it was 59. Not that it much matters. But I am fortunate to have been lent sufficient breath to have seen another year come and go. I say "fortunate." I do not say "blessed."
You may have heard that the Arkansas River is way past flood stage. It hasn't affected Little Rock all that much. But homes and farms to the west of here have been impacted as has property downstream in Pine Bluff.
Facebook may be safely relied upon at times like these to be a repository of bad theology. People who have been spared are "blessed." Which implies that folks who were not are cursed. One poster went so far as to see the hand of God in her not being able to reach her home, which I guess would have been destroyed with her in it had she not been forced to turn back. By God I suppose.
Of course, this is purblind nonsense of the purest grade. I do not for one minute think that God sits up in her Heaven and picks winners and losers in Jefferson County. But I also think that the "winners" should be more gracious about it when they choose to open their mouth to the press. But I ramble.
I'm comfortable with describing myself as "fortunate." The word strongly implies that I am aware that I didn't get to this spot solely by stint of my own merit. It is for that reason that I threw a little party back in October. I invited my friends and family out of gratitude for their presence in my life. These are the folks that encouraged me, dog-cussed me, listened to me, came to me for help, hugged me, kicked me and preached to me. The latter whether I wanted to listen to it or not. I only got a couple lightning bolts from eyes looking over the top of Vic Nixon's glasses. They were all sufficient. But enough about that. Maybe 2016 will find me less likely to belabor my points. You never know. Anything's possible.
So what to do about 2016?
So far so good. But its early yet.
I am with a woman who says she loves me. It must be true. Otherwise, why would she put up with the likes of me? Indeed, she tells me that she loves me on a frequent basis. She does this with her kids too. It's like she has thrown up a force field around them that she has let me enter. One of my friends described M upon meeting her as "very tall and way cool." Another said that she "radiates peace." All of these things are true. Quiet and reserved, she loves books, old movies that she has watched before (which I don't get but that's OK), naps, crossword puzzles, long walks, and pinot noir. And naps. Lots of naps.
Of course, it is a package deal. Her daughter S, a freshman away in college, is an 18 year old cauldron of emotion, words and eyelash-fluttering. She's also 9 kinds of smart. As is her brother J. He's 16. He's the spitting image of his mom and has her laid-back temperament. Like both his parents who were DI athletes, he is a good ballplayer and I enjoy watching him play football and basketball. Good thing I enjoy watching kids play sports. Because I do a lot of it nowadays. Which is AOK by me. S and I are likewise OK. She is far more complex than her brother but I think has resolved it in her mind that my continued presence in her life is inevitable. That's about all I can say with any degree of certitude. That's OK too. We take what we can get. But she thinks I'm funny and she lets me touch her now. This latter observation sent a friend of mine who raised a daughter into a spasm of tear-inducing helpless laughter. Baby steps.
We're coming up on a year now. It's a good situation.
So back to 2016. I don't make resolutions as such. But there are things I want to accomplish.
I want to play more golf this year than I did last year. Especially since I am playing better now than I ever have. Granted it's a near thing but it's a thing.
I'm going to play and sing more. I've got about 9 songs ready to go. Either my young friend Lucas is too busy to fool with me anymore or his absence is his way of saying "fly away little bird." Either way, like my golf, I am playing better. And I owe the boy a debt of gratitude. Really I do. He was a kind and patient teacher. Which is the way you like them.
I'm going to write more. I think it's just going to have to be part of the schedule of the day, along with guitar practice and exercise. A friend of mine who retired from teaching at Hendrix told me something last Fall. "You worked for a long time. You have earned the right to do nothin' if that's what you want to do. But I'm telling you that you need to write more." Chuck is not one to stick his nose into other people's business. And so I will take his advice. Which leads me to the next topic.
I continue to practice law here and there. I do it enough to keep my hand in and what passes for my skills up. I used to feel guilty that somebody with my formidable talent-and yes I am kidding- wasn't working more. But things are better now. Although just like "once a Baptist always a Baptist" once a lawyer you're "always a lawyer." I don't define myself so much as a lawyer anymore. Or I don't define myself by work anymore and I think there's a reason for that. And things are much the better for it.
But I think I'm going to become a "PA" and bite the bullet and get malpractice insurance. People keep trying to hire me to do stuff for them. Wills. Business stuff. Stuff I can do. No divorces. No criminal. There's no need to leave money on the table.
Both M and my Mississippi lawyer friend think I should stick with my work with the schools I sub for. Marge in Oxford says that this is my chance to "do what I enjoy." And I do very much enjoy being with the kids. Even when they piss me off. Which happens with some frequency. This is despite the fact that I ask the boys at the start of each class to recite my "Rule #1." Which is of course, "Don't piss me off."
For her part, M reminds me that she makes a good living at her day job and that all she wants is for me to do "what makes me happy." Women, as a rule, tend to be more intuitive than men about such issues. Perhaps I should listen for once. Like the man said, I did work for a long time. I'm not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination but I make a pretty decent income just for waking up in the morning. I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. It's a good situation.
And so I look forward to the coming year. Or at least the part that comes after Valentine's Day. Some things never change.
It's all good. I'm content.
And I'm fortunate. Very fortunate.
