A few things from last week I didn't get to blog on before leaving town for the Iowa Defense Counsel Association's annual meeting:



Battle of the Survivors via How Appealing. Did they really think the public would confuse the two? I can see the plotline now: six aging rock stars of the 80's are deliberately stranded in a deserted locale . . .



Another thought on how to get rid of those pesky student loans, again via How Appealing. Maybe not the best of ideas.



This article in the Des Moines Register regarding Judge Neary, the "lesbian divorce" judge. He got extremely high competency marks from the bar. The quote from the people behind his removal effort shows their ignorance on the whole subject: "Historically, lawyers publicly show support for all judges," Alons said. "It's not a good employment move to challenge the person who is going to make that ruling you live and breathe for." Okay, these are confidential, anonymous put-a-number-by-the-name surveys that have no way to be traced back to any given attorney. Supposing for a moment that the judge got radically failing marks from the bar. That means most attorneys failed him, but he won't know specifically who. Now he's got to give a ruling in a case. One side's going to win and one will lose. He's in a vindictive mood given the survey, but it's likely both lawyers voted him down. How's he supposed to "get back" at both the lawyers simultaneously? Not issue a ruling at all? Issue one so unintelligible that no one knows who wins? By the way, I'm against the removal, for what it's worth. From what I've seen of the case, Judge Neary was not trying to be an "activist." Because he's a trial court judge, his rulings aren't even published, for crying out loud. That means he can't set a precedent to bind another court. He can't 'make law' in that sense. So to try to remove him on that basis is simply silly.



State 29 blogs about bias in the media, and suggests they simply state any bias and be done with it. My 2 cents: It's impossible not to be biased. It can't be done. The angle you take on a story, choosing one adjective or adverb over another to describe the scene, the amount of space you devote to one item or another, these will all eventually color the story in some fashion. If you attempt to remove all bias, you can easily end up with a colorless story that can't possibly describe the event being reported upon. Could you imagine a 9-11 story that carefully avoided any mention of the words "tragedy," "horrible," "chaos," "destruction," etc.? If such a story could be written in flat, sterile rhetoric, would it really be reporting? Why don't the media simply acknowledge that all media is biased, despite the best efforts to tell all sides of a story? They could add a caveat that we should all try to balance our news sources, in an attempt to move past our own biases for a three-dimensional view of any given event?



"The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice." Mark Twain





Other trivia:

The conference went well. I was a featured speaker for 8:00 am Friday morning and managed not to look like a total idiot despite the fact it was far too early to be thinking completely coherently. I saw Rich Webster's band on Friday night, and they put on a great show. Rich is an attorney in the Des Moines area, if you ever need a lawyer who can really carry a tune.



Space Monkey Leader gave me an honorable mention in his "mother of all fiskings" award for my earlier post on a silly article about the presence women in professions. If I don't convince you, I'll exhaust you into submission. . .



Went to rehearsal Sunday night for the New Play Festival at City Circle. I'm in four out of six. Yep, four. Got my lines down for three of them. We open Thursday. Yikes.



Royce Dunbar of an Iowa Libertarian has a part in the StageWest production of "The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?" Break a leg, Royce. Space Monkey Leader asks if he's the only Iowa blogger not involved in theater. Me, Greenman, Royce, Brent from CopTalk teetering on the edge, Mathman is thinking it sounds like fun . . . Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.



Finally, Professor Yin has an awesome idea for applying sports rules to appellate arguments.