No one expects most elected legislators and judges to care about the civil rights of child molesters, but here is something they ought to care about: the idea that government would have the power to banish any person from living anywhere in the state — except perhaps under a bridge or in a cornfield — on the presumption they might at some future point commit a crime.
Our system of criminal justice is supposed to operate from the principle that once convicted criminals have served their time and paid their debt to society, they are free to return to it. The sex-offender restrictions violate that principle. Even after prison sentences and paroles, the state marks these individuals as potential criminals for the remainder of their lives.
What began as a ban on living within 2,000 feet of child-care facilities and schools is spreading because of fears the law would create sex-offender "ghettos" and leave children vulnerable in other public places. So cities and counties are adding libraries, swimming pools and other facilities, effectively banning sex offenders from living anywhere in many counties. Now neighboring states are being forced to respond.
The ability to live somewhere is a right. The ability to travel is a right. Freedom from being punished twice for the same crime is a right. Freedom from being punished for a crime that is created after the fact is a right. Those rights are protected by the U.S. and Iowa constitutions — for everyone.
Defenders of state laws imposing lifetime punishments on convicted sex offenders have gotten away with indifference to the civil-liberties implications of such laws because of the detestable nature of the crime. But if the state has unlimited power to punish people for the remainder of their lives for one class of crimes, it has the power to apply that punishment to any person for any or all crimes. Government should not have that power.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Sex Offender Registry Legality
At least someone over at the Des Moines Register gets it:
Call the Bluff
Okay, everybody knows I've thought this was a stupid idea from the beginning, unlike Dweeze. I should caveat that: I thought using tax money to pay for it was a stupid idea, given all the other things the taxes could go for, like schools, the courts, health care, etc. If they were solely using private donations . . . hell, they could build a lunar landscape in the ped mall for all I care. I had these same issues nearly two years ago:
That said, you've got to admire the balls on these guys. Not only are they still dodging the same questions about where they're going to come up with the private funds years afterward (they've had six years and nary a dime raised), and managing to justify rather large expenses involved with attempts to raise these funds ($2.9 million spent so far, mostly on salaries. Hmm.), but now they're trying to force Coralville to give up any reasonable requests for accountability by threatening to take the project elsewhere.
Would someone please give these guys the boot in the ass they so richly deserve? Pretty please?
The editors then go on to ask a series of questions about the money - but NOT the $90 million in tax money, which is taken for granted. If these politicians and developers wanted to build their Fake Rainforest in Coralville with private funds, I wouldn’t have any problem with it (other than wondering if the building be reusable if it goes belly-up like the laser center). But to use $90 million of government money is more than irresponsible. It’s offensive and embarrassing."In all fairness, we concede that project leaders probably can't answer all of the questions. Organizations certainly must maintain a modicum of privacy when negotiating, and we respect that. In other instances, IEEP board members already have said they honestly don't have an answer because the project isn't at a point where the issue must be addressed. In a few cases, board members have attempted to provide answers, but because of the project's current stage, even they admit responses are nebulous."
Pardon? You want to us put $180 million into a project for which this board can offer only “nebulous” responses to our questions? They sought this area out. They asked to build this assinine thing.
Why is the Press-Citizen, a member of the “fourth estate” meant to watchdog against government excess and abuse, now chastising its readers like naughty schoolchildren, reminding them not to ask impolite questions? I thought Oman “offered figures that could be substantiated?” How do you define substantiated? Is it synonymous with “based on ethereal, wildly optimistic attendance projections”? Or “predicting a ripple-effect job market by using a multiplier higher than any mega-project in the history of economics?” If so, I can agree. But if you define it like the rest of us “hick” Iowans, then it means “verifiable, able to withstand analytical scrutiny and skeptical questioning.” Don’t you dare tell us to sit down, shut up, and eat our $90 million plate of pork without asking any more of those darn inconvenient questions. . . .
What have I seen to date? 1.5 million projected visitors opening year (4100 per day), settling down after five years to 1.3 million (3550 per day). The Denver rainforest had only 1 million and went belly-up; New York’s gets about 550,000. “Ripple effect” jobs numbering 2900? Maybe if you take a multiplier of about 5 to 7 compared the direct jobs – several times the normal average. You can’t simply pick a number, you know. This isn’t a magician’s card trick.
I believe fervently in supporting business growth, and I’m proud of the way Coralville has cleaned up and expanded to something other than just the “strip.” But a majority of Iowans are against this project because we understand that the presumptions on which your cost projections are based are simply not sound.
That said, you've got to admire the balls on these guys. Not only are they still dodging the same questions about where they're going to come up with the private funds years afterward (they've had six years and nary a dime raised), and managing to justify rather large expenses involved with attempts to raise these funds ($2.9 million spent so far, mostly on salaries. Hmm.), but now they're trying to force Coralville to give up any reasonable requests for accountability by threatening to take the project elsewhere.
Would someone please give these guys the boot in the ass they so richly deserve? Pretty please?
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Women and Poli-Blogging
In case you missed it, Iowa Ennui posted a very nice analysis of the situation, which I've been mulling over for a week or so.
Montopoli looks a little deeper into the gender divide in poli-blogging and finds a diversity of opinions as to root causes: women tend to write blogs with variable content making it difficult to find an audience (Bob you’re right on this one); women may not be as obsessive about their blogging habit; and blogs are an outgrowth of the male dominated tech sector. All are reasonable assumptions, and probably explain some of the gender disparity in poli-blogging, but the interesting issue is whether this disparity will continue or if women poli-bloggers are just a little late to the show. I believe it’s a bit of both; we’ll continue to see an increase in women publishing poli-blogs, and yet the rate of growth will probably not create gender based poli-blog parity anytime soon.
If you missed it, read the whole thing.
A side thought I had: the mars/venus thing is interesting, but the implication is that women are more interested in the personal and men in the political. But there are other potential causes, one being a difference in focus.
In one perspective, politics can be looked at as a topic: the governance and accumulation of power. Politics is the "game," with the issues of the day the "plays" being made. Commentators discuss who is staking out what position, whether a given move is a strong or weak one, will the "team" prevail or be outmaneuvered. Please note this analogy does not marginalize the strength of a person's belief in any given issue. On the contrary, each player or commentator generally has strong moral or ethical positions that they feel one political "team" represents better than the other, so they have a real stake in desiring their chosen "team" to prevail on that particular subject. But the ultimate subject is politics itself; the issues are sub-headings.
Another perspective of politics is more issue-driven: the subject is the issue, the politics are only relevant if it affects the outcome. In other words, teams are irrelevant, the players interchangeable, the only thing that matters is the way a particular conflict is resolved, be it for one side or the other. People who come at politics from an issue-driven perspective are just as passionate about political confrontation, but only if it touches on the issue in which they have a real concern. They are less likely to care who the politicians are, and more likely to drop out of the conversation if the issue of concern has been resolved to their satisfaction, becomes a moot point, or is reduced to an endless repetition of previously stated positions or other pointless posturing. (That's not an argument, it's a contradition. No, it isn't . . . )
I don't know if this divide in perspective runs along sex-based lines. What I do know is that I come at the issues from the latter perspective, which is one thing that keeps this from being a political blog. If I find an issue that's interesting, meritorious, and (here's a real key) one on which I have an articulable opinion that hasn't already been done to death, I'll discuss it on my own blog. If instead I find it's just more political sound and fury, I'll refrain. I don't feel the need to add many "yeah, what s/he said" posts reiterating the party line, because I don't really have a party.
I think it would be interesting to do a study on how many "non-political" female blogs actually discuss political issues and the moral, psychological, financial or other implications thereof, without discussing candidates and the game of politics itself. I wonder if it might raise the 'female political blogger' percentages a bit. Just a thought.
From the March 2004 Columbia Journalism Review Daily(CJR daily link is down), Brian Montopoli summarizes recent data on gender and the blogosphere.
... Click around the blogosphere and you'll see a lot of ideological diversity. Bloggers are posting from left, right and center, from perspectives that range from Libertarian to Marxist. And on the surface, that diversity extends to other arenas: Men and women, recent studies show, blog in roughly equal numbers. A notable exception: Women are responsible for as little as four percent of political blogs -- "sites devoted to politics, current events, foreign policy, and various ongoing wars" -- according to the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE). ...
... Of course, you probably didn't need Campaign Desk to tell you that. From Instapundit to Daily Kos to Atrios to Andrew Sullivan to Calpundit, men run the poli-blogs with the most buzz -- and the most traffic. There is only one female-run blog, the venerable Wonkette!, listed among the top twenty at The Truth Laid Bear, which ranks a number of blogs by their daily traffic.
By contrast, according to the NITLE study, twice as many women as men write personal diary-style blogs. If the numbers are to be believed, then, outspoken male bloggers all live on Mars, while the more introspective women are blogging away from Venus. ...
Montopoli looks a little deeper into the gender divide in poli-blogging and finds a diversity of opinions as to root causes: women tend to write blogs with variable content making it difficult to find an audience (Bob you’re right on this one); women may not be as obsessive about their blogging habit; and blogs are an outgrowth of the male dominated tech sector. All are reasonable assumptions, and probably explain some of the gender disparity in poli-blogging, but the interesting issue is whether this disparity will continue or if women poli-bloggers are just a little late to the show. I believe it’s a bit of both; we’ll continue to see an increase in women publishing poli-blogs, and yet the rate of growth will probably not create gender based poli-blog parity anytime soon.
If you missed it, read the whole thing.
A side thought I had: the mars/venus thing is interesting, but the implication is that women are more interested in the personal and men in the political. But there are other potential causes, one being a difference in focus.
In one perspective, politics can be looked at as a topic: the governance and accumulation of power. Politics is the "game," with the issues of the day the "plays" being made. Commentators discuss who is staking out what position, whether a given move is a strong or weak one, will the "team" prevail or be outmaneuvered. Please note this analogy does not marginalize the strength of a person's belief in any given issue. On the contrary, each player or commentator generally has strong moral or ethical positions that they feel one political "team" represents better than the other, so they have a real stake in desiring their chosen "team" to prevail on that particular subject. But the ultimate subject is politics itself; the issues are sub-headings.
Another perspective of politics is more issue-driven: the subject is the issue, the politics are only relevant if it affects the outcome. In other words, teams are irrelevant, the players interchangeable, the only thing that matters is the way a particular conflict is resolved, be it for one side or the other. People who come at politics from an issue-driven perspective are just as passionate about political confrontation, but only if it touches on the issue in which they have a real concern. They are less likely to care who the politicians are, and more likely to drop out of the conversation if the issue of concern has been resolved to their satisfaction, becomes a moot point, or is reduced to an endless repetition of previously stated positions or other pointless posturing. (That's not an argument, it's a contradition. No, it isn't . . . )
I don't know if this divide in perspective runs along sex-based lines. What I do know is that I come at the issues from the latter perspective, which is one thing that keeps this from being a political blog. If I find an issue that's interesting, meritorious, and (here's a real key) one on which I have an articulable opinion that hasn't already been done to death, I'll discuss it on my own blog. If instead I find it's just more political sound and fury, I'll refrain. I don't feel the need to add many "yeah, what s/he said" posts reiterating the party line, because I don't really have a party.
I think it would be interesting to do a study on how many "non-political" female blogs actually discuss political issues and the moral, psychological, financial or other implications thereof, without discussing candidates and the game of politics itself. I wonder if it might raise the 'female political blogger' percentages a bit. Just a thought.
LOL
Saw this on Overlawyered:
Chris Newman reports: "Opposing counsel has served a request for judicial notice of facts contained in a Wikipedia article. If you understand the operative terms in that sentence, you probably understand why I've been chuckling all morning."
Pubilc Service Announcement
I'm going to do some extensive rearranging. If you access the blog via an RSS feed reader, you might want to keep that in mind so you don't click over to find you're reading something from 2004. I hope that doesn't cause too much of a problem.
Trackback Issues
Iowa Voice posts:
He then points out a Whizbang Standalone Trackback Pinger you can use to create pings.
Okay, it's time for me to come clean: I'm a bad blogger. I don't know what a ping really does and how it would affect the Ecosystem. I link others, isn't that enough? That Pinger site looks easy enough to use - I'm going to play around with it a bit, trying to trackback this post. I suppose given what he's saying, whatever this mysterious effect was, it'll soon be moot at this stage.
UPDATE: Okay, it now includes me on the list you get when you click on Trackback at the bottom of IV's post. So I take it that counts as a link by IV to me??? If so, what stops people from being trackback spammers to up the ratings? Just curious. I mean, if I had a link back from every link I put on this blog it could look rather impressive, but it would say nothing about who's actually listening to me.
I saw over at Stop the ACLU that the TTLB Ecosystem is preparing to (or perhaps already has) eliminate trackbacks from its ranking scheme. Don Surber has a bit more of the info, but basically NZ Bear has said he is working out a way to eliminate 'open trackbacks' from being counted.
I guess I can kind of see why he would do this. An open trackback party does inflate a blog's rankings somewhat artificially. I know I've looked at my standing in the ecosystem and then compared it to others ranked higher, and the thing that crossed my mind was "how in the hell is HE ranked higher than ME??" A little investigation usually turned up a regular open trackback post or several. Not that I'm knocking them for doing it, it's a good attention grabber, so much so that I recently started doing more of them than I used to.
But I will say that I think it's a bad idea to go ahead with this. It defeats a major reason for a blogger to even create a trackback. If this goes forward, than that means other than the link it generates on the receiving blog, you really have no other reason to bother with them.
I'll be honest. I don't do trackbacks as often as I should, and my rankings suffers for it. I jump around like crazy. When I make an effort to stay on top of it and make sure my trackbacks are created, then my rankings improve and stay up there. But I'm not blogging to get to the top of the blogosphere food chain, so it's not really a big issue with me. That doesn't mean it's not a big issue with other, newer blogs.
He then points out a Whizbang Standalone Trackback Pinger you can use to create pings.
Okay, it's time for me to come clean: I'm a bad blogger. I don't know what a ping really does and how it would affect the Ecosystem. I link others, isn't that enough? That Pinger site looks easy enough to use - I'm going to play around with it a bit, trying to trackback this post. I suppose given what he's saying, whatever this mysterious effect was, it'll soon be moot at this stage.
UPDATE: Okay, it now includes me on the list you get when you click on Trackback at the bottom of IV's post. So I take it that counts as a link by IV to me??? If so, what stops people from being trackback spammers to up the ratings? Just curious. I mean, if I had a link back from every link I put on this blog it could look rather impressive, but it would say nothing about who's actually listening to me.
Fresh Law
The Iowa Court of Appeals has a new set of decisions up. I'm trying to settle one of my own this afternoon, so I've no time to hit the highlights for you, but the case summaries are here.
Trackback Issues
Iowa Voice posts:
He then points out a Whizbang Standalone Trackback Pinger you can use to create pings.
Okay, it's time for me to come clean: I'm a bad blogger. I don't know what a ping really does and how it would affect the Ecosystem. I link others, isn't that enough? That Pinger site looks easy enough to use - I'm going to play around with it a bit, trying to trackback this post. I suppose given what he's saying, whatever this mysterious effect was, it'll soon be moot at this stage.
UPDATE: Okay, it now includes me on the list you get when you click on Trackback at the bottom of IV's post. So I take it that counts as a link by IV to me??? If so, what stops people from being trackback spammers to up the ratings? Just curious. I mean, if I had a link back from every link I put on this blog it could look rather impressive, but it would say nothing about who's actually listening to me.
I saw over at Stop the ACLU that the TTLB Ecosystem is preparing to (or perhaps already has) eliminate trackbacks from its ranking scheme. Don Surber has a bit more of the info, but basically NZ Bear has said he is working out a way to eliminate 'open trackbacks' from being counted.
I guess I can kind of see why he would do this. An open trackback party does inflate a blog's rankings somewhat artificially. I know I've looked at my standing in the ecosystem and then compared it to others ranked higher, and the thing that crossed my mind was "how in the hell is HE ranked higher than ME??" A little investigation usually turned up a regular open trackback post or several. Not that I'm knocking them for doing it, it's a good attention grabber, so much so that I recently started doing more of them than I used to.
But I will say that I think it's a bad idea to go ahead with this. It defeats a major reason for a blogger to even create a trackback. If this goes forward, than that means other than the link it generates on the receiving blog, you really have no other reason to bother with them.
I'll be honest. I don't do trackbacks as often as I should, and my rankings suffers for it. I jump around like crazy. When I make an effort to stay on top of it and make sure my trackbacks are created, then my rankings improve and stay up there. But I'm not blogging to get to the top of the blogosphere food chain, so it's not really a big issue with me. That doesn't mean it's not a big issue with other, newer blogs.
He then points out a Whizbang Standalone Trackback Pinger you can use to create pings.
Okay, it's time for me to come clean: I'm a bad blogger. I don't know what a ping really does and how it would affect the Ecosystem. I link others, isn't that enough? That Pinger site looks easy enough to use - I'm going to play around with it a bit, trying to trackback this post. I suppose given what he's saying, whatever this mysterious effect was, it'll soon be moot at this stage.
UPDATE: Okay, it now includes me on the list you get when you click on Trackback at the bottom of IV's post. So I take it that counts as a link by IV to me??? If so, what stops people from being trackback spammers to up the ratings? Just curious. I mean, if I had a link back from every link I put on this blog it could look rather impressive, but it would say nothing about who's actually listening to me.
Hee
Saw this on Overlawyered:
Chris Newman reports: "Opposing counsel has served a request for judicial notice of facts contained in a Wikipedia article. If you understand the operative terms in that sentence, you probably understand why I've been chuckling all morning."
Women and Poli-Blogging
In case you missed it, Iowa Ennui posted a very nice analysis of the situation, which I've been mulling over for a week or so.
Montopoli looks a little deeper into the gender divide in poli-blogging and finds a diversity of opinions as to root causes: women tend to write blogs with variable content making it difficult to find an audience (Bob you’re right on this one); women may not be as obsessive about their blogging habit; and blogs are an outgrowth of the male dominated tech sector. All are reasonable assumptions, and probably explain some of the gender disparity in poli-blogging, but the interesting issue is whether this disparity will continue or if women poli-bloggers are just a little late to the show. I believe it’s a bit of both; we’ll continue to see an increase in women publishing poli-blogs, and yet the rate of growth will probably not create gender based poli-blog parity anytime soon.
If you missed it, read the whole thing.
A side thought I had: the mars/venus thing is interesting, but the implication is that women are more interested in the personal and men in the political. But there are other potential causes, one being a difference in focus.
In one perspective, politics can be looked at as a topic: the governance and accumulation of power. Politics is the "game," with the issues of the day the "plays" being made. Commentators discuss who is staking out what position, whether a given move is a strong or weak one, will the "team" prevail or be outmaneuvered. Please note this analogy does not marginalize the strength of a person's belief in any given issue. On the contrary, each player or commentator generally has strong moral or ethical positions that they feel one political "team" represents better than the other, so they have a real stake in desiring their chosen "team" to prevail on that particular subject. But the ultimate subject is politics itself; the issues are sub-headings.
Another perspective of politics is more issue-driven: the subject is the issue, the politics are only relevant if it affects the outcome. In other words, teams are irrelevant, the players interchangeable, the only thing that matters is the way a particular conflict is resolved, be it for one side or the other. People who come at politics from an issue-driven perspective are just as passionate about political confrontation, but only if it touches on the issue in which they have a real concern. They are less likely to care who the politicians are, and more likely to drop out of the conversation if the issue of concern has been resolved to their satisfaction, becomes a moot point, or is reduced to an endless repetition of previously stated positions or other pointless posturing. (That's not an argument, it's a contradition. No, it isn't . . . )
I don't know if this divide in perspective runs along sex-based lines. What I do know is that I come at the issues from the latter perspective, which is one thing that keeps this from being a political blog. If I find an issue that's interesting, meritorious, and (here's a real key) one on which I have an articulable opinion that hasn't already been done to death, I'll discuss it on my own blog. If instead I find it's just more political sound and fury, I'll refrain. I don't feel the need to add many "yeah, what s/he said" posts reiterating the party line, because I don't really have a party.
I think it would be interesting to do a study on how many "non-political" female blogs actually discuss political issues and the moral, psychological, financial or other implications thereof, without discussing candidates and the game of politics itself. I wonder if it might raise the 'female political blogger' percentages a bit. Just a thought.
From the March 2004 Columbia Journalism Review Daily(CJR daily link is down), Brian Montopoli summarizes recent data on gender and the blogosphere.
... Click around the blogosphere and you'll see a lot of ideological diversity. Bloggers are posting from left, right and center, from perspectives that range from Libertarian to Marxist. And on the surface, that diversity extends to other arenas: Men and women, recent studies show, blog in roughly equal numbers. A notable exception: Women are responsible for as little as four percent of political blogs -- "sites devoted to politics, current events, foreign policy, and various ongoing wars" -- according to the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE). ...
... Of course, you probably didn't need Campaign Desk to tell you that. From Instapundit to Daily Kos to Atrios to Andrew Sullivan to Calpundit, men run the poli-blogs with the most buzz -- and the most traffic. There is only one female-run blog, the venerable Wonkette!, listed among the top twenty at The Truth Laid Bear, which ranks a number of blogs by their daily traffic.
By contrast, according to the NITLE study, twice as many women as men write personal diary-style blogs. If the numbers are to be believed, then, outspoken male bloggers all live on Mars, while the more introspective women are blogging away from Venus. ...
Montopoli looks a little deeper into the gender divide in poli-blogging and finds a diversity of opinions as to root causes: women tend to write blogs with variable content making it difficult to find an audience (Bob you’re right on this one); women may not be as obsessive about their blogging habit; and blogs are an outgrowth of the male dominated tech sector. All are reasonable assumptions, and probably explain some of the gender disparity in poli-blogging, but the interesting issue is whether this disparity will continue or if women poli-bloggers are just a little late to the show. I believe it’s a bit of both; we’ll continue to see an increase in women publishing poli-blogs, and yet the rate of growth will probably not create gender based poli-blog parity anytime soon.
If you missed it, read the whole thing.
A side thought I had: the mars/venus thing is interesting, but the implication is that women are more interested in the personal and men in the political. But there are other potential causes, one being a difference in focus.
In one perspective, politics can be looked at as a topic: the governance and accumulation of power. Politics is the "game," with the issues of the day the "plays" being made. Commentators discuss who is staking out what position, whether a given move is a strong or weak one, will the "team" prevail or be outmaneuvered. Please note this analogy does not marginalize the strength of a person's belief in any given issue. On the contrary, each player or commentator generally has strong moral or ethical positions that they feel one political "team" represents better than the other, so they have a real stake in desiring their chosen "team" to prevail on that particular subject. But the ultimate subject is politics itself; the issues are sub-headings.
Another perspective of politics is more issue-driven: the subject is the issue, the politics are only relevant if it affects the outcome. In other words, teams are irrelevant, the players interchangeable, the only thing that matters is the way a particular conflict is resolved, be it for one side or the other. People who come at politics from an issue-driven perspective are just as passionate about political confrontation, but only if it touches on the issue in which they have a real concern. They are less likely to care who the politicians are, and more likely to drop out of the conversation if the issue of concern has been resolved to their satisfaction, becomes a moot point, or is reduced to an endless repetition of previously stated positions or other pointless posturing. (That's not an argument, it's a contradition. No, it isn't . . . )
I don't know if this divide in perspective runs along sex-based lines. What I do know is that I come at the issues from the latter perspective, which is one thing that keeps this from being a political blog. If I find an issue that's interesting, meritorious, and (here's a real key) one on which I have an articulable opinion that hasn't already been done to death, I'll discuss it on my own blog. If instead I find it's just more political sound and fury, I'll refrain. I don't feel the need to add many "yeah, what s/he said" posts reiterating the party line, because I don't really have a party.
I think it would be interesting to do a study on how many "non-political" female blogs actually discuss political issues and the moral, psychological, financial or other implications thereof, without discussing candidates and the game of politics itself. I wonder if it might raise the 'female political blogger' percentages a bit. Just a thought.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Tuesday Quiz
Things I've Learned on the Internet Lately
1979 toys were odder than I remember.
Never, ever make an insane sports bet with this man. (Note: Guys, you may really, really not want to read this one. Just trust me.)
Hey, I betcha can't . . . . nevermind.
Match.com may not be an entirely altruistic organization. Go figure.
Really bad poetry is a universal language.
Of course, we're going to have to wait for February for the absolute coolest low-tech toy innovation in a long time.
Another low-tech innovation: four-way rubber bands to hold boxes closed. (Second item down). Just an observation, but does the whole "wrap one direction, twist twice, then wrap sideways" thing not work anymore?
The fashion police still aren't requiring licenses to marry.
Your local atheist's union is now apparently offering specially certified DVD players.
Birds and dominoes: a deadly combination.
MIT's working on a Marauder's Map.
Swedish people will buy anything.
As a kid, I remember letting my hamster run around the backyard in one of those clear plastic balls. . . . Question: if you put it out in a gated yard, would you still need a babysitter?
Stanford is going to be republishing several of the Sherlock Holmes stories in serial installments as they originally appeared printed and illustrated in The Strand magazine. You can subscribe to get them either as paper copies or electronically, and either way is completely free. Yes, I signed up. I am such a geek.
I'd have saved a lot of paper if Boing Boing had written my law school outlines . . . Judge to Lego: Your patent has expired, get over it.
In a program modeled on the SETI project, you can now use your computer's downtime to help find a cure for AIDS.
Never, ever make an insane sports bet with this man. (Note: Guys, you may really, really not want to read this one. Just trust me.)
Hey, I betcha can't . . . . nevermind.
Match.com may not be an entirely altruistic organization. Go figure.
Really bad poetry is a universal language.
Of course, we're going to have to wait for February for the absolute coolest low-tech toy innovation in a long time.
Another low-tech innovation: four-way rubber bands to hold boxes closed. (Second item down). Just an observation, but does the whole "wrap one direction, twist twice, then wrap sideways" thing not work anymore?
The fashion police still aren't requiring licenses to marry.
Your local atheist's union is now apparently offering specially certified DVD players.
Birds and dominoes: a deadly combination.
MIT's working on a Marauder's Map.
Swedish people will buy anything.
As a kid, I remember letting my hamster run around the backyard in one of those clear plastic balls. . . . Question: if you put it out in a gated yard, would you still need a babysitter?
Stanford is going to be republishing several of the Sherlock Holmes stories in serial installments as they originally appeared printed and illustrated in The Strand magazine. You can subscribe to get them either as paper copies or electronically, and either way is completely free. Yes, I signed up. I am such a geek.
I'd have saved a lot of paper if Boing Boing had written my law school outlines . . . Judge to Lego: Your patent has expired, get over it.
In a program modeled on the SETI project, you can now use your computer's downtime to help find a cure for AIDS.
PSA
For whoever came here researching community theatre fair use exceptions: I presume you're looking into the "Why can't we record our own performance for personal use only?" issue. My point has always been: even if you make the argument, and even if you win, they don't have to give you the rights to perform any more plays.
Ever.
Then what?
Ever.
Then what?
Things I've Learned on the Internet Lately
1979 toys were odder than I remember.
Never, ever make an insane sports bet with this man. (Note: Guys, you may really, really not want to read this one. Just trust me.)
Hey, I betcha can't . . . . nevermind.
Match.com may not be an entirely altruistic organization. Go figure.
Really bad poetry is a universal language.
Of course, we're going to have to wait for February for the absolute coolest low-tech toy innovation in a long time.
Another low-tech innovation: four-way rubber bands to hold boxes closed. (Second item down). Just an observation, but does the whole "wrap one direction, twist twice, then wrap sideways" thing not work anymore?
The fashion police still aren't requiring licenses to marry.
Your local atheist's union is now apparently offering specially certified DVD players.
Birds and dominoes: a deadly combination.
MIT's working on a Marauder's Map.
Swedish people will buy anything.
As a kid, I remember letting my hamster run around the backyard in one of those clear plastic balls. . . . Question: if you put it out in a gated yard, would you still need a babysitter?
Stanford is going to be republishing several of the Sherlock Holmes stories in serial installments as they originally appeared printed and illustrated in The Strand magazine. You can subscribe to get them either as paper copies or electronically, and either way is completely free. Yes, I signed up. I am such a geek.
I'd have saved a lot of paper if Boing Boing had written my law school outlines . . . Judge to Lego: Your patent has expired, get over it.
In a program modeled on the SETI project, you can now use your computer's downtime to help find a cure for AIDS.
I also learned lots of things I really didn't need to know about from the off-color roundup of links on Side Notes.
Never, ever make an insane sports bet with this man. (Note: Guys, you may really, really not want to read this one. Just trust me.)
Hey, I betcha can't . . . . nevermind.
Match.com may not be an entirely altruistic organization. Go figure.
Really bad poetry is a universal language.
Of course, we're going to have to wait for February for the absolute coolest low-tech toy innovation in a long time.
Another low-tech innovation: four-way rubber bands to hold boxes closed. (Second item down). Just an observation, but does the whole "wrap one direction, twist twice, then wrap sideways" thing not work anymore?
The fashion police still aren't requiring licenses to marry.
Your local atheist's union is now apparently offering specially certified DVD players.
Birds and dominoes: a deadly combination.
MIT's working on a Marauder's Map.
Swedish people will buy anything.
As a kid, I remember letting my hamster run around the backyard in one of those clear plastic balls. . . . Question: if you put it out in a gated yard, would you still need a babysitter?
Stanford is going to be republishing several of the Sherlock Holmes stories in serial installments as they originally appeared printed and illustrated in The Strand magazine. You can subscribe to get them either as paper copies or electronically, and either way is completely free. Yes, I signed up. I am such a geek.
I'd have saved a lot of paper if Boing Boing had written my law school outlines . . . Judge to Lego: Your patent has expired, get over it.
In a program modeled on the SETI project, you can now use your computer's downtime to help find a cure for AIDS.
I also learned lots of things I really didn't need to know about from the off-color roundup of links on Side Notes.
Roundup
Cookie cutters for anatomically correct gingerbread people.
The computer repair business is still quite . . . . lucrative. Somewhere, off in the distance, I can actually hear millions of geeky teenage boys all across America logging on to Craigslist to place an ad. . . . and seriously laughing at the guys trying to market this.
Did you know there's such a thing as an asymmetrical gentlemen's-genital-cozy? Banana yellow, no less. (Note: my link to boing-boing is safe, but their link to the catalog really isn't.)
Heated Bra - Nuke Your Nugs.
Father time also seems to have become rather perverted in his old age.
Usually, when a couple gets married, they learn to compromise about certain decorating choices. . . .
It appears sex machine builder types are getting their fifteen minutes of fame. Just in time for this.
Crocheted Flying Spaghetti Monster dildo cozy. 'Nuff said.
The computer repair business is still quite . . . . lucrative. Somewhere, off in the distance, I can actually hear millions of geeky teenage boys all across America logging on to Craigslist to place an ad. . . . and seriously laughing at the guys trying to market this.
Did you know there's such a thing as an asymmetrical gentlemen's-genital-cozy? Banana yellow, no less. (Note: my link to boing-boing is safe, but their link to the catalog really isn't.)
Heated Bra - Nuke Your Nugs.
Father time also seems to have become rather perverted in his old age.
Usually, when a couple gets married, they learn to compromise about certain decorating choices. . . .
It appears sex machine builder types are getting their fifteen minutes of fame. Just in time for this.
Crocheted Flying Spaghetti Monster dildo cozy. 'Nuff said.
Tuesday Quiz
Monday, November 21, 2005
Monday Quiz
| The Movie Of Your Life Is A Black Comedy |
 In your life, things are so twisted that you just have to laugh. You may end up insane, but you'll have fun on the way to the asylum. Your best movie matches: Being John Malkovich, The Royal Tenenbaums, American Psycho |
Miscellaneous News Items
A French woman has admitted attempting to open an aeroplane door mid-flight so that she could smoke a cigarette.
A Cambridge woman busted out of Somerville's jail Monday when a prison matron brought her toilet paper.
Israeli border officials on the lookout for arms smuggling from Gaza uncovered more unexpected contraband Sunday -- a truckload of fake kosher marshmallow snacks.
A Cambridge woman busted out of Somerville's jail Monday when a prison matron brought her toilet paper.
Israeli border officials on the lookout for arms smuggling from Gaza uncovered more unexpected contraband Sunday -- a truckload of fake kosher marshmallow snacks.
Theater Update
Wild Christmas Binge
By Christopher Durang
Directed by Dave Helmuth
December 2 – 11, 2005
Continuing our tradition of alternative holiday fare started with two outstanding runs of “The Santaland Diaries,” we will offer this year Christopher Durang’s irreverent take on Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol”. Told from the bitter, biting point of view of Bob Cratchet’s long suffering wife, this hysterical play offers a somewhat less heartwarming take on the classic, but rife with wicked good humor. The perfect antidote to shopping, sentimental specials, and, well, sappiness.
Auditions for The Seven Year Itch, the 1950’s comedy by George Axelrod, will be held on Monday, December 12 and Tuesday, December 13, in Room A of the Iowa City Public Library. Time: 7:00 – 9:30 p.m. Callbacks may be scheduled for Room B in the Library at 7:00 on Thursday, December 15.
Roles are available for
5 women – ages 20 - 40
3 men – ages 30 -50
Performance dates are March 3-5 and 10-12.
Copies of the script will be available for examination at the Iowa City Public Library Reference Desk beginning November 1.
Actors who are unable to attend scheduled auditions may call Rachael Lindhart at 337-
2206 or Gerry Roe at 335-5349 (days) or 351-4952 (evenings).
By Neil Simon
Directed By Madonna Smith
January 20, 21, 27, 28 at 8 pm
January 22, 29 at 2:30 pm
Finally, Dreamwell's going to start up it's 2006 season with another heavy hitter:
by Samuel Beckett
directed by Matthew Brewbaker
February 3, 4, 10, 11, 17, 18 2006
Dreamwell opens its season with Samuel Beckett's classic absurdist tragi-comedy. Two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon meet near a bare tree on a country road. They wait for the promised arrival of Godot, who is never clearly identified. Many have suggested that Godot is "God", but Beckett himself said, "If I knew who Godot was, I would have said so in the play." The result is a highly unusual play that poses many questions, but doesn't answer them. Who is Godot? See the show and decide for yourself.
See the sidebar theater links for more info.
Linkage
Blawg Review #33 is up on Overlawyered. Some highlights:
There's lots more where that came from. . .
_______________________________
Meanwhile, there's fresh caselaw from the Iowa Supreme Court.
STATE V. BUTLER addresses the Court's ability to deviate from the scheduled fine in simple misdemeanor cases and impose the statutory maximum punishment available for a simple: 30 days in jail and a $500 fine. Simple misdemeanors in Iowa fall into two categories, scheduled and nonscheduled violations. Scheduled violations have the penalty prescribed by statute is a dollar fine in a fixed amount, unscheduled can be anything in the range allowed by statute: a fine of $50-$500, and/or jail time up to 30 days. The process by which the two are charged is slightly different as well: scheduled violation charges can be brought either by citation (ticket) or by filing a complaint with the court. Unscheduled violations must be brought by complaint. The legislature does provide a mechanism for allowing scheduled violations to be punished more heavily: Sections 805.11 and 805.10 provide that if it appears from the evidence that the violation results in death or serious injury, the scheduled fine does not apply and the penalty shall be increased within the limits provided by law for the offense. The issue here is whether the State can just show up at the citation hearing and argue that the case involved serious injury or dath and therefore merits more strenuous punishment, or whether the State has to bring the charge via complaint rather than citation and get the case set for trial to prove the extenuating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt.
In the instant case, Butler had caused a head-on collision when the van he was driving crossed the centerline, allegedly because he'd fallen asleep. A jury had already acquitted Butler on three counts of homicide by vehicle and two counts of serious injury by vehicle. The State was now trying to get consecutive 30-day sentences and maximum fines on the scheduled violations of failure to yield, failure to maintain control, and careless driving - normally $35 fines.
The Court found that the State had not provided sufficient notice of the intent to seek the enhanced penalty, likening the facts that supported the increase to an additional element of a crime:
IOWA SUPREME COURT ATTORNEY DISCIPLINARY BOARD v. HOWE involves discipline of a former city prosecutor regarding his plea bargaining system. Apparently, the city of Spencer had a longstanding standard plea agreement if you wanted a moving violation dropped to a non-moving:
The amendments were also only allowed if the citing officer agreed to the change. For the curious, here's the cowl-lamp statute: a motor vehicle “may be equipped with not more than two side cowl or fender lamps which shall emit an amber or white light without glare.” Iowa Code § 321.406. The opinion states that Howe admitted that vehicles have not been equipped with cowl or fender lamps “for a considerable number of years.” Because the only way of violating the statute by the way it is worded is to have more than two side cowl or fender lamps, it is apparently impossible for a modern vehicle to have been in violation of it. Regardless, Howe had thus amended over 150 charges, and Judge Whittenburg had signed off on the amendments. Basically, it was felt that if everyone knew what was going on, and the amendment benefitted the defendants, it wasn't unethical. The Supreme Court disagreed:
Howe's case doesn't end there, however. He was also charged with a violating the rules against conflicts of interest. In one case, Michael Mouw was charged with four offenses by the Spencer police department in late 2002 and early 2003. Apparently, one of the charges was a state charge, the remaining three were city charges. Howe represented Mouw on the State charge (that was prosecuted by the county attorney), but represented both Mouw and the city on the other three matters and represented Mouw on an administrative driver’s license problem arising out of one of the criminal charges Howe prosecuted. From the opinion, it appears Mouw hired Howe on the burglary charge, and in the process of negotiating a plea on that charge, he agreed to wrap in the minor city charges. Once that deal was done, he represented Mouw on the license issue. This pretty much conforms with what the Court indicates was his standard practice:
The Court noted two other cases that followed that same general pattern. They discussed the impact of Howe's actions on the public perception of the legal system:
The court then suspended Howe's legal license indefinitely, with no possibility of reinstatement for a period of four months.
OBLIGATORY BLOG COMMENTARY -
Regarding the plea reductions: as a new prosecutor, I always got "offers" from defense counsel to plead to nonmoving violations, often combined with an offer to pay a higher than usual fine, in order to preserve the defendant's licensing or insurance status. I see nothing wrong with that in general, as it saves the State the cost and effort of a jury trial, and saves the defendant the risk of conviction. As a rule, I always required it to be something the defendant actually did. I remember one time in Muscatine county when defense counsel, the defendant, the officer, and myself were all reading through citation books, trying to find something, anything that the defendant could honestly plead guilty to. We did eventually find something, though I believe it took us about a quarter of an hour (almost as long as the trial would've taken, so I was actually being quite nice). So the scenario is not that unusual, but I think the infraction is real. You can't just make up a charge out of thin air.
Regarding the conflicts of interest: This opinion basically lays down the blanket rule that city attorneys cannot represent criminal clients on any state charges originating by the police department of the city which the attorney represents. I think that's a bit of a departure from what was understood before. In this case, Howe took it too far in trying to wear two hats at the same time. Not such a good idea, to put it mildly. But I recall other city attorneys who would take defense cases in which there were no city charges pending, but the tickets were written by the city police. In other words, one guy, two hats, but worn at different times. How this system would come about involves the economics of rural Iowa: in most very rural counties, there is a sheriff's office, and the city police force of the town constituting the county seat. If the other towns even have a police officer, it's usually some guy from the county seat town working a second job on his down time. The state patrol is there, but under the current budget constraints they're usually spread pretty thin. So many of the state charges will be brought by city police officers, wearing one hat or another. Meanwhile, the city attorney position in those areas will probably not carry a sustainable salary - rural cities can't afford that much. So the city attorney keeps a private practice to make up the difference. Defense work is a decent chunk of that practice, and the theory was that so long as there was no actual conflict between the parties, it's okay (the two hats non-simultaneous scenario). I think this case changes the picture slightly by basically limiting the criminal cases the city attorney can take to those originating with the sheriff's office or the state patrol. One guy, one hat. Period. I don't think it's an incorrect analysis, the Court is quite right in pointing out that the public could well think the city attorney was somehow "in cahoots" with the officers to fix cases if he takes defense work involving those same officers, even if he doesn't push the line like Howe did. But I understand why the system got that way . . . and I hope tax work and wills pay well these days.
Every so often, through luck or pluck, the “fair use” side manages to
win one in copyright litigation (Ron Coleman, Likelihood of Confusion).
What sorts of squirm-inducing compliments do criminal defense lawyers hear from their clients after scoring legal points on their behalf? (Ken Lammers, CrimLaw)
The blawgosphere likes nothing more than navel-gazing, and the New Yorker's outing of anony-blawger "Article III Groupie" as Newark AUSA David Lat and resulting implosion of "her"/his popular "Underneath Their Robes" blawg has generated lots of curiosity and posts with Austin Powers references; the story even made Drudge and the New York Times. Blawg Review has a retrospective look at the blawg.
There's lots more where that came from. . .
Meanwhile, there's fresh caselaw from the Iowa Supreme Court.
STATE V. BUTLER addresses the Court's ability to deviate from the scheduled fine in simple misdemeanor cases and impose the statutory maximum punishment available for a simple: 30 days in jail and a $500 fine. Simple misdemeanors in Iowa fall into two categories, scheduled and nonscheduled violations. Scheduled violations have the penalty prescribed by statute is a dollar fine in a fixed amount, unscheduled can be anything in the range allowed by statute: a fine of $50-$500, and/or jail time up to 30 days. The process by which the two are charged is slightly different as well: scheduled violation charges can be brought either by citation (ticket) or by filing a complaint with the court. Unscheduled violations must be brought by complaint. The legislature does provide a mechanism for allowing scheduled violations to be punished more heavily: Sections 805.11 and 805.10 provide that if it appears from the evidence that the violation results in death or serious injury, the scheduled fine does not apply and the penalty shall be increased within the limits provided by law for the offense. The issue here is whether the State can just show up at the citation hearing and argue that the case involved serious injury or dath and therefore merits more strenuous punishment, or whether the State has to bring the charge via complaint rather than citation and get the case set for trial to prove the extenuating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt.
In the instant case, Butler had caused a head-on collision when the van he was driving crossed the centerline, allegedly because he'd fallen asleep. A jury had already acquitted Butler on three counts of homicide by vehicle and two counts of serious injury by vehicle. The State was now trying to get consecutive 30-day sentences and maximum fines on the scheduled violations of failure to yield, failure to maintain control, and careless driving - normally $35 fines.
The Court found that the State had not provided sufficient notice of the intent to seek the enhanced penalty, likening the facts that supported the increase to an additional element of a crime:
The present case can be decided based on the traditional due process requirement that the defendant be given notice of the charge sufficient to enable him to prepare a defense. Sufficient notice was not given here because there were no allegations in the complaint to alert the defendant to the State’s intent to convict and sentence him for a simple misdemeanor based on traffic violations resulting in death or serious injury. . . . the State filed separate complaints charging the defendant with violating Iowa Code sections 321.288 and 321.297. The complaints did not include any reference to the fact the defendant’s conduct resulted in death or serious injury to other motorists, nor did the complaints cite to sections 805.10(1)(a) and 805.11, which authorize jail time and an increased fine under such circumstances. Therefore, the statutory maximum punishment to which the defendant could be sentenced for the charged crimes was the scheduled fine because that was the maximum sentence the judge could impose “without any additional findings.” . . . Only if the court found the additional fact of death or serious injury would the defendant be subject to sentencing under the simple misdemeanor sentencing statute. Because the additional fact—death or serious injury—increased the penalty for the crime beyond the authorized statutory maximum for a scheduled violation, this fact was “the functional equivalent of an element of a greater offense” than the one charged.
IOWA SUPREME COURT ATTORNEY DISCIPLINARY BOARD v. HOWE involves discipline of a former city prosecutor regarding his plea bargaining system. Apparently, the city of Spencer had a longstanding standard plea agreement if you wanted a moving violation dropped to a non-moving:
Typically, the city would agree to reduce a simple misdemeanor moving traffic violation to a simple misdemeanor cowl-lamp violation; in return, the defendant would plead guilty to the amended citation.[2] See generally Iowa Code § 321.482 (2005) (stating violations of chapter 321 are simple misdemeanors unless otherwise declared). A plea agreement was generally sought by the defendant to avoid an adverse impact on the defendant’s license or auto insurance. In each instance, the amendment was allowed and the guilty plea was accepted by Magistrate Nancy Whittenburg, now a district court judge.
The amendments were also only allowed if the citing officer agreed to the change. For the curious, here's the cowl-lamp statute: a motor vehicle “may be equipped with not more than two side cowl or fender lamps which shall emit an amber or white light without glare.” Iowa Code § 321.406. The opinion states that Howe admitted that vehicles have not been equipped with cowl or fender lamps “for a considerable number of years.” Because the only way of violating the statute by the way it is worded is to have more than two side cowl or fender lamps, it is apparently impossible for a modern vehicle to have been in violation of it. Regardless, Howe had thus amended over 150 charges, and Judge Whittenburg had signed off on the amendments. Basically, it was felt that if everyone knew what was going on, and the amendment benefitted the defendants, it wasn't unethical. The Supreme Court disagreed:
We think the respondent’s conduct clearly violated the Iowa Code of Professional Responsibility. DR 7-103(A) states that a prosecutor “shall not institute or cause to be instituted criminal charges when the lawyer knows or it is obvious that the charges are not supported by probable cause.”[3] There is no dispute in the present case that the cowl-lamp charges were not supported by probable cause and that the respondent knew it. . . . The fact that the original traffic citations may have been supported by probable cause is beside the point because Howe is not being disciplined for instituting the original charges. His ethical violation arises from the amended charges alleging cowl-lamp violations, which clearly lacked probable-cause support. . . . Likewise, the fact that plea bargains to lesser or related charges are authorized by our rules of criminal procedure is also irrelevant. . . . Howe is not being disciplined for allowing the defendant to plead guilty to a reduced charge. Again, his ethical violation is filing an amended charge that is not supported by probable cause.
Howe's case doesn't end there, however. He was also charged with a violating the rules against conflicts of interest. In one case, Michael Mouw was charged with four offenses by the Spencer police department in late 2002 and early 2003. Apparently, one of the charges was a state charge, the remaining three were city charges. Howe represented Mouw on the State charge (that was prosecuted by the county attorney), but represented both Mouw and the city on the other three matters and represented Mouw on an administrative driver’s license problem arising out of one of the criminal charges Howe prosecuted. From the opinion, it appears Mouw hired Howe on the burglary charge, and in the process of negotiating a plea on that charge, he agreed to wrap in the minor city charges. Once that deal was done, he represented Mouw on the license issue. This pretty much conforms with what the Court indicates was his standard practice:
[W]hen asked to represent defendants on charges filed by the Spencer police and prosecuted by the county attorney. . . Howe would tell such defendants that he could not represent them against the Spencer police and that he would have a conflict of interest if he were to go to trial against Spencer police officers. Notwithstanding this conflict, Howe would offer to obtain the police records informally from the county attorney in order to evaluate the case. He would then review the records and give the defendant his opinion as to whether the case could be successfully defended. If the client chose to defend against the charge, Howe would refer the case to another lawyer. If Howe believed there was no defense, he would recommend a second opinion. If the defendant did not want to defend the charge or obtain a second opinion, Howe would contact the prosecutor about the possibility of a plea agreement. Howe would also “take care” of the initial appearance and arraignment. If the defendant ultimately pled guilty, Howe would assist with the plea.
The Court noted two other cases that followed that same general pattern. They discussed the impact of Howe's actions on the public perception of the legal system:
When people learn that a city prosecutor represents the very defendants he is prosecuting, they will not view the justice system as fair or impartial. They will also rightly question the motivation of a prosecutor who agrees to a disposition favorable to a criminal defendant and then later uses the favorable result for the advantage of the defendant whom the prosecutor now represents. The respondent’s repeated disregard of his conflicting loyalties generates distrust and skepticism of the courts, and reflects adversely on the entire bar. . . . Unfortunately, Howe’s routine reduction of traffic citations to cowl- lamp violations has a similar impact. Admittedly, plea bargains are a common and useful tool for resolving criminal cases. But when charges are filed that are known to all to be bogus and guilty pleas to those charges are accepted in order to allow defendants to escape the adverse consequences of the offenses they actually committed, there can be only one result: respect for the court system is diminished and the public’s confidence in the integrity of the criminal justice system is seriously undermined. While the disposition of a traffic offense in the manner employed here may be the expedient way to dispose of a citation to the satisfaction of the parties involved, it sends the wrong message to the public. It makes a mockery of the justice system when a defendant is punished for violating a statute that he unquestionably did not violate.
The court then suspended Howe's legal license indefinitely, with no possibility of reinstatement for a period of four months.
OBLIGATORY BLOG COMMENTARY -
Regarding the plea reductions: as a new prosecutor, I always got "offers" from defense counsel to plead to nonmoving violations, often combined with an offer to pay a higher than usual fine, in order to preserve the defendant's licensing or insurance status. I see nothing wrong with that in general, as it saves the State the cost and effort of a jury trial, and saves the defendant the risk of conviction. As a rule, I always required it to be something the defendant actually did. I remember one time in Muscatine county when defense counsel, the defendant, the officer, and myself were all reading through citation books, trying to find something, anything that the defendant could honestly plead guilty to. We did eventually find something, though I believe it took us about a quarter of an hour (almost as long as the trial would've taken, so I was actually being quite nice). So the scenario is not that unusual, but I think the infraction is real. You can't just make up a charge out of thin air.
Regarding the conflicts of interest: This opinion basically lays down the blanket rule that city attorneys cannot represent criminal clients on any state charges originating by the police department of the city which the attorney represents. I think that's a bit of a departure from what was understood before. In this case, Howe took it too far in trying to wear two hats at the same time. Not such a good idea, to put it mildly. But I recall other city attorneys who would take defense cases in which there were no city charges pending, but the tickets were written by the city police. In other words, one guy, two hats, but worn at different times. How this system would come about involves the economics of rural Iowa: in most very rural counties, there is a sheriff's office, and the city police force of the town constituting the county seat. If the other towns even have a police officer, it's usually some guy from the county seat town working a second job on his down time. The state patrol is there, but under the current budget constraints they're usually spread pretty thin. So many of the state charges will be brought by city police officers, wearing one hat or another. Meanwhile, the city attorney position in those areas will probably not carry a sustainable salary - rural cities can't afford that much. So the city attorney keeps a private practice to make up the difference. Defense work is a decent chunk of that practice, and the theory was that so long as there was no actual conflict between the parties, it's okay (the two hats non-simultaneous scenario). I think this case changes the picture slightly by basically limiting the criminal cases the city attorney can take to those originating with the sheriff's office or the state patrol. One guy, one hat. Period. I don't think it's an incorrect analysis, the Court is quite right in pointing out that the public could well think the city attorney was somehow "in cahoots" with the officers to fix cases if he takes defense work involving those same officers, even if he doesn't push the line like Howe did. But I understand why the system got that way . . . and I hope tax work and wills pay well these days.
Miscellaneous News Items
A French woman has admitted attempting to open an aeroplane door mid-flight so that she could smoke a cigarette.
A Cambridge woman busted out of Somerville's jail Monday when a prison matron brought her toilet paper.
Israeli border officials on the lookout for arms smuggling from Gaza uncovered more unexpected contraband Sunday -- a truckload of fake kosher marshmallow snacks.
A Cambridge woman busted out of Somerville's jail Monday when a prison matron brought her toilet paper.
Israeli border officials on the lookout for arms smuggling from Gaza uncovered more unexpected contraband Sunday -- a truckload of fake kosher marshmallow snacks.
Legal Linkage
Blawg Review #33 is up on Overlawyered. Some highlights:
There's lots more where that came from. . .
_______________________________
Meanwhile, there's fresh caselaw from the Iowa Supreme Court.
STATE V. BUTLER addresses the Court's ability to deviate from the scheduled fine in simple misdemeanor cases and impose the statutory maximum punishment available for a simple: 30 days in jail and a $500 fine. Simple misdemeanors in Iowa fall into two categories, scheduled and nonscheduled violations. Scheduled violations have the penalty prescribed by statute is a dollar fine in a fixed amount, unscheduled can be anything in the range allowed by statute: a fine of $50-$500, and/or jail time up to 30 days. The process by which the two are charged is slightly different as well: scheduled violation charges can be brought either by citation (ticket) or by filing a complaint with the court. Unscheduled violations must be brought by complaint. The legislature does provide a mechanism for allowing scheduled violations to be punished more heavily: Sections 805.11 and 805.10 provide that if it appears from the evidence that the violation results in death or serious injury, the scheduled fine does not apply and the penalty shall be increased within the limits provided by law for the offense. The issue here is whether the State can just show up at the citation hearing and argue that the case involved serious injury or dath and therefore merits more strenuous punishment, or whether the State has to bring the charge via complaint rather than citation and get the case set for trial to prove the extenuating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt.
In the instant case, Butler had caused a head-on collision when the van he was driving crossed the centerline, allegedly because he'd fallen asleep. A jury had already acquitted Butler on three counts of homicide by vehicle and two counts of serious injury by vehicle. The State was now trying to get consecutive 30-day sentences and maximum fines on the scheduled violations of failure to yield, failure to maintain control, and careless driving - normally $35 fines.
The Court found that the State had not provided sufficient notice of the intent to seek the enhanced penalty, likening the facts that supported the increase to an additional element of a crime:
IOWA SUPREME COURT ATTORNEY DISCIPLINARY BOARD v. HOWE involves discipline of a former city prosecutor regarding his plea bargaining system. Apparently, the city of Spencer had a longstanding standard plea agreement if you wanted a moving violation dropped to a non-moving:
The amendments were also only allowed if the citing officer agreed to the change. For the curious, here's the cowl-lamp statute: a motor vehicle “may be equipped with not more than two side cowl or fender lamps which shall emit an amber or white light without glare.” Iowa Code § 321.406. The opinion states that Howe admitted that vehicles have not been equipped with cowl or fender lamps “for a considerable number of years.” Because the only way of violating the statute by the way it is worded is to have more than two side cowl or fender lamps, it is apparently impossible for a modern vehicle to have been in violation of it. Regardless, Howe had thus amended over 150 charges, and Judge Whittenburg had signed off on the amendments. Basically, it was felt that if everyone knew what was going on, and the amendment benefitted the defendants, it wasn't unethical. The Supreme Court disagreed:
Howe's case doesn't end there, however. He was also charged with a violating the rules against conflicts of interest. In one case, Michael Mouw was charged with four offenses by the Spencer police department in late 2002 and early 2003. Apparently, one of the charges was a state charge, the remaining three were city charges. Howe represented Mouw on the State charge (that was prosecuted by the county attorney), but represented both Mouw and the city on the other three matters and represented Mouw on an administrative driver’s license problem arising out of one of the criminal charges Howe prosecuted. From the opinion, it appears Mouw hired Howe on the burglary charge, and in the process of negotiating a plea on that charge, he agreed to wrap in the minor city charges. Once that deal was done, he represented Mouw on the license issue. This pretty much conforms with what the Court indicates was his standard practice:
The Court noted two other cases that followed that same general pattern. They discussed the impact of Howe's actions on the public perception of the legal system:
The court then suspended Howe's legal license indefinitely, with no possibility of reinstatement for a period of four months.
OBLIGATORY BLOG COMMENTARY -
Regarding the plea reductions: as a new prosecutor, I always got "offers" from defense counsel to plead to nonmoving violations, often combined with an offer to pay a higher than usual fine, in order to preserve the defendant's licensing or insurance status. I see nothing wrong with that in general, as it saves the State the cost and effort of a jury trial, and saves the defendant the risk of conviction. As a rule, I always required it to be something the defendant actually did. I remember one time in Muscatine county when defense counsel, the defendant, the officer, and myself were all reading through citation books, trying to find something, anything that the defendant could honestly plead guilty to. We did eventually find something, though I believe it took us about a quarter of an hour (almost as long as the trial would've taken, so I was actually being quite nice). So the scenario is not that unusual, but I think the infraction is real. You can't just make up a charge out of thin air.
Regarding the conflicts of interest: This opinion basically lays down the blanket rule that city attorneys cannot represent criminal clients on any state charges originating by the police department of the city which the attorney represents. I think that's a bit of a departure from what was understood before. In this case, Howe took it too far in trying to wear two hats at the same time. Not such a good idea, to put it mildly. But I recall other city attorneys who would take defense cases in which there were no city charges pending, but the tickets were written by the city police. In other words, one guy, two hats, but worn at different times. How this system would come about involves the economics of rural Iowa: in most very rural counties, there is a sheriff's office, and the city police force of the town constituting the county seat. If the other towns even have a police officer, it's usually some guy from the county seat town working a second job on his down time. The state patrol is there, but under the current budget constraints they're usually spread pretty thin. So many of the state charges will be brought by city police officers, wearing one hat or another. Meanwhile, the city attorney position in those areas will probably not carry a sustainable salary - rural cities can't afford that much. So the city attorney keeps a private practice to make up the difference. Defense work is a decent chunk of that practice, and the theory was that so long as there was no actual conflict between the parties, it's okay (the two hats non-simultaneous scenario). I think this case changes the picture slightly by basically limiting the criminal cases the city attorney can take to those originating with the sheriff's office or the state patrol. One guy, one hat. Period. I don't think it's an incorrect analysis, the Court is quite right in pointing out that the public could well think the city attorney was somehow "in cahoots" with the officers to fix cases if he takes defense work involving those same officers, even if he doesn't push the line like Howe did. But I understand why the system got that way . . . and I hope tax work and wills pay well these days.
Every so often, through luck or pluck, the “fair use” side manages to
win one in copyright litigation (Ron Coleman, Likelihood of Confusion).
What sorts of squirm-inducing compliments do criminal defense lawyers hear from their clients after scoring legal points on their behalf? (Ken Lammers, CrimLaw)
The blawgosphere likes nothing more than navel-gazing, and the New Yorker's outing of anony-blawger "Article III Groupie" as Newark AUSA David Lat and resulting implosion of "her"/his popular "Underneath Their Robes" blawg has generated lots of curiosity and posts with Austin Powers references; the story even made Drudge and the New York Times. Blawg Review has a retrospective look at the blawg.
There's lots more where that came from. . .
Meanwhile, there's fresh caselaw from the Iowa Supreme Court.
STATE V. BUTLER addresses the Court's ability to deviate from the scheduled fine in simple misdemeanor cases and impose the statutory maximum punishment available for a simple: 30 days in jail and a $500 fine. Simple misdemeanors in Iowa fall into two categories, scheduled and nonscheduled violations. Scheduled violations have the penalty prescribed by statute is a dollar fine in a fixed amount, unscheduled can be anything in the range allowed by statute: a fine of $50-$500, and/or jail time up to 30 days. The process by which the two are charged is slightly different as well: scheduled violation charges can be brought either by citation (ticket) or by filing a complaint with the court. Unscheduled violations must be brought by complaint. The legislature does provide a mechanism for allowing scheduled violations to be punished more heavily: Sections 805.11 and 805.10 provide that if it appears from the evidence that the violation results in death or serious injury, the scheduled fine does not apply and the penalty shall be increased within the limits provided by law for the offense. The issue here is whether the State can just show up at the citation hearing and argue that the case involved serious injury or dath and therefore merits more strenuous punishment, or whether the State has to bring the charge via complaint rather than citation and get the case set for trial to prove the extenuating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt.
In the instant case, Butler had caused a head-on collision when the van he was driving crossed the centerline, allegedly because he'd fallen asleep. A jury had already acquitted Butler on three counts of homicide by vehicle and two counts of serious injury by vehicle. The State was now trying to get consecutive 30-day sentences and maximum fines on the scheduled violations of failure to yield, failure to maintain control, and careless driving - normally $35 fines.
The Court found that the State had not provided sufficient notice of the intent to seek the enhanced penalty, likening the facts that supported the increase to an additional element of a crime:
The present case can be decided based on the traditional due process requirement that the defendant be given notice of the charge sufficient to enable him to prepare a defense. Sufficient notice was not given here because there were no allegations in the complaint to alert the defendant to the State’s intent to convict and sentence him for a simple misdemeanor based on traffic violations resulting in death or serious injury. . . . the State filed separate complaints charging the defendant with violating Iowa Code sections 321.288 and 321.297. The complaints did not include any reference to the fact the defendant’s conduct resulted in death or serious injury to other motorists, nor did the complaints cite to sections 805.10(1)(a) and 805.11, which authorize jail time and an increased fine under such circumstances. Therefore, the statutory maximum punishment to which the defendant could be sentenced for the charged crimes was the scheduled fine because that was the maximum sentence the judge could impose “without any additional findings.” . . . Only if the court found the additional fact of death or serious injury would the defendant be subject to sentencing under the simple misdemeanor sentencing statute. Because the additional fact—death or serious injury—increased the penalty for the crime beyond the authorized statutory maximum for a scheduled violation, this fact was “the functional equivalent of an element of a greater offense” than the one charged.
IOWA SUPREME COURT ATTORNEY DISCIPLINARY BOARD v. HOWE involves discipline of a former city prosecutor regarding his plea bargaining system. Apparently, the city of Spencer had a longstanding standard plea agreement if you wanted a moving violation dropped to a non-moving:
Typically, the city would agree to reduce a simple misdemeanor moving traffic violation to a simple misdemeanor cowl-lamp violation; in return, the defendant would plead guilty to the amended citation.[2] See generally Iowa Code § 321.482 (2005) (stating violations of chapter 321 are simple misdemeanors unless otherwise declared). A plea agreement was generally sought by the defendant to avoid an adverse impact on the defendant’s license or auto insurance. In each instance, the amendment was allowed and the guilty plea was accepted by Magistrate Nancy Whittenburg, now a district court judge.
The amendments were also only allowed if the citing officer agreed to the change. For the curious, here's the cowl-lamp statute: a motor vehicle “may be equipped with not more than two side cowl or fender lamps which shall emit an amber or white light without glare.” Iowa Code § 321.406. The opinion states that Howe admitted that vehicles have not been equipped with cowl or fender lamps “for a considerable number of years.” Because the only way of violating the statute by the way it is worded is to have more than two side cowl or fender lamps, it is apparently impossible for a modern vehicle to have been in violation of it. Regardless, Howe had thus amended over 150 charges, and Judge Whittenburg had signed off on the amendments. Basically, it was felt that if everyone knew what was going on, and the amendment benefitted the defendants, it wasn't unethical. The Supreme Court disagreed:
We think the respondent’s conduct clearly violated the Iowa Code of Professional Responsibility. DR 7-103(A) states that a prosecutor “shall not institute or cause to be instituted criminal charges when the lawyer knows or it is obvious that the charges are not supported by probable cause.”[3] There is no dispute in the present case that the cowl-lamp charges were not supported by probable cause and that the respondent knew it. . . . The fact that the original traffic citations may have been supported by probable cause is beside the point because Howe is not being disciplined for instituting the original charges. His ethical violation arises from the amended charges alleging cowl-lamp violations, which clearly lacked probable-cause support. . . . Likewise, the fact that plea bargains to lesser or related charges are authorized by our rules of criminal procedure is also irrelevant. . . . Howe is not being disciplined for allowing the defendant to plead guilty to a reduced charge. Again, his ethical violation is filing an amended charge that is not supported by probable cause.
Howe's case doesn't end there, however. He was also charged with a violating the rules against conflicts of interest. In one case, Michael Mouw was charged with four offenses by the Spencer police department in late 2002 and early 2003. Apparently, one of the charges was a state charge, the remaining three were city charges. Howe represented Mouw on the State charge (that was prosecuted by the county attorney), but represented both Mouw and the city on the other three matters and represented Mouw on an administrative driver’s license problem arising out of one of the criminal charges Howe prosecuted. From the opinion, it appears Mouw hired Howe on the burglary charge, and in the process of negotiating a plea on that charge, he agreed to wrap in the minor city charges. Once that deal was done, he represented Mouw on the license issue. This pretty much conforms with what the Court indicates was his standard practice:
[W]hen asked to represent defendants on charges filed by the Spencer police and prosecuted by the county attorney. . . Howe would tell such defendants that he could not represent them against the Spencer police and that he would have a conflict of interest if he were to go to trial against Spencer police officers. Notwithstanding this conflict, Howe would offer to obtain the police records informally from the county attorney in order to evaluate the case. He would then review the records and give the defendant his opinion as to whether the case could be successfully defended. If the client chose to defend against the charge, Howe would refer the case to another lawyer. If Howe believed there was no defense, he would recommend a second opinion. If the defendant did not want to defend the charge or obtain a second opinion, Howe would contact the prosecutor about the possibility of a plea agreement. Howe would also “take care” of the initial appearance and arraignment. If the defendant ultimately pled guilty, Howe would assist with the plea.
The Court noted two other cases that followed that same general pattern. They discussed the impact of Howe's actions on the public perception of the legal system:
When people learn that a city prosecutor represents the very defendants he is prosecuting, they will not view the justice system as fair or impartial. They will also rightly question the motivation of a prosecutor who agrees to a disposition favorable to a criminal defendant and then later uses the favorable result for the advantage of the defendant whom the prosecutor now represents. The respondent’s repeated disregard of his conflicting loyalties generates distrust and skepticism of the courts, and reflects adversely on the entire bar. . . . Unfortunately, Howe’s routine reduction of traffic citations to cowl- lamp violations has a similar impact. Admittedly, plea bargains are a common and useful tool for resolving criminal cases. But when charges are filed that are known to all to be bogus and guilty pleas to those charges are accepted in order to allow defendants to escape the adverse consequences of the offenses they actually committed, there can be only one result: respect for the court system is diminished and the public’s confidence in the integrity of the criminal justice system is seriously undermined. While the disposition of a traffic offense in the manner employed here may be the expedient way to dispose of a citation to the satisfaction of the parties involved, it sends the wrong message to the public. It makes a mockery of the justice system when a defendant is punished for violating a statute that he unquestionably did not violate.
The court then suspended Howe's legal license indefinitely, with no possibility of reinstatement for a period of four months.
OBLIGATORY BLOG COMMENTARY -
Regarding the plea reductions: as a new prosecutor, I always got "offers" from defense counsel to plead to nonmoving violations, often combined with an offer to pay a higher than usual fine, in order to preserve the defendant's licensing or insurance status. I see nothing wrong with that in general, as it saves the State the cost and effort of a jury trial, and saves the defendant the risk of conviction. As a rule, I always required it to be something the defendant actually did. I remember one time in Muscatine county when defense counsel, the defendant, the officer, and myself were all reading through citation books, trying to find something, anything that the defendant could honestly plead guilty to. We did eventually find something, though I believe it took us about a quarter of an hour (almost as long as the trial would've taken, so I was actually being quite nice). So the scenario is not that unusual, but I think the infraction is real. You can't just make up a charge out of thin air.
Regarding the conflicts of interest: This opinion basically lays down the blanket rule that city attorneys cannot represent criminal clients on any state charges originating by the police department of the city which the attorney represents. I think that's a bit of a departure from what was understood before. In this case, Howe took it too far in trying to wear two hats at the same time. Not such a good idea, to put it mildly. But I recall other city attorneys who would take defense cases in which there were no city charges pending, but the tickets were written by the city police. In other words, one guy, two hats, but worn at different times. How this system would come about involves the economics of rural Iowa: in most very rural counties, there is a sheriff's office, and the city police force of the town constituting the county seat. If the other towns even have a police officer, it's usually some guy from the county seat town working a second job on his down time. The state patrol is there, but under the current budget constraints they're usually spread pretty thin. So many of the state charges will be brought by city police officers, wearing one hat or another. Meanwhile, the city attorney position in those areas will probably not carry a sustainable salary - rural cities can't afford that much. So the city attorney keeps a private practice to make up the difference. Defense work is a decent chunk of that practice, and the theory was that so long as there was no actual conflict between the parties, it's okay (the two hats non-simultaneous scenario). I think this case changes the picture slightly by basically limiting the criminal cases the city attorney can take to those originating with the sheriff's office or the state patrol. One guy, one hat. Period. I don't think it's an incorrect analysis, the Court is quite right in pointing out that the public could well think the city attorney was somehow "in cahoots" with the officers to fix cases if he takes defense work involving those same officers, even if he doesn't push the line like Howe did. But I understand why the system got that way . . . and I hope tax work and wills pay well these days.
Monday Quiz
| The Movie Of Your Life Is A Black Comedy |
In your life, things are so twisted that you just have to laugh. You may end up insane, but you'll have fun on the way to the asylum. Your best movie matches: Being John Malkovich, The Royal Tenenbaums, American Psycho |
Sunday, November 20, 2005
A Long Aside into Domestic Violence and Relationship Behaviors
Ampersand links to a study on relationship cues to domestic violence:
Reading the post and the article reminded me of my prosecutor internship training session with Linda McGuire during my second year at the University of Iowa College of Law. We had a section on domestic violence. In it, we reviewed the dynamics of abuse and the power and control wheel. I sat in the back, as I am generally inclined to do, and watched in amazement as the discussion brought up stereotype after stereotype: abused people seek abusers because they were abused as kids and that's how they think love is shown; abused people have low self-esteem, so they fall into these relationships because they don't think they deserve any better; etc. etc. etc.
I realized then that people who have never experienced an abusive relationship, no matter how educated, are generally uninformed as to how these relationships start. They see the aftermath, and try to extrapolate from there how things got so messed up. I spoke up then, and given this reminder, I'd like to take a minute to do it again. Because it's not stereotypical, it's counterintuitive, which is why so many abusers are successful in drawing partners into these relationships, even intelligent, emotionally intuitive people. But if enough people understand the signals, they may have a chance of avoiding getting into a relationship that would otherwise end up in tragedy. If you're not interested in this kind of thing, please feel free to scroll past the rest of the post, it will be a rather long one.
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First off, the credentials: I can speak to this subject not just as an erstwhile domestic violence prosecutor with three years of experience watching this stuff. I was in an abusive relationship in high school. It didn't escalate, I've no broken bones or burn marks, but the pattern was there, and if I hadn't ended it when I did, there is no telling how far it could have gone. At the time, I had no idea it was a classic pattern, actually a fairly common thing. If I'd had the information I learned later on, it could have saved me significant trauma and self-doubt.
Abusive relationships start out as fantasies, on both sides. For the potential abuser, they fixate on the subject as the one person who will finally understand and complete them as a person, fill the void inside and be everything they ever wanted. As such, they are anxious to shower the potential partner with affection, interest, and spend every possible minute with them. They push commitment, sometimes talking marriage within a few days or weeks. For the partner, the attention is flattering, if a little overwhelming. You have someone who sends flowers, cards or gifts at the drop of a hat. Someone who remembers everything you were wearing, little things you said or did. Someone who wants to be with you all the time, and will talk with you for hours about your day: where you went, what you felt, who you were with. It may feel rushed, but you write that off. I mean, come on, aren't women always complaining that guys don't give them enough attention? Here's one that does, and you're immediately suspicious?
As the relationship develops, the time commitment becomes an issue. This is generally, but not always, the first signal as to an upcoming power and control issue. The abuser wants to spend more and more time together, becomes jealous of time spent with other people. At first, the jealousy is played off as a joke. Sometimes, it functions to pick off some of the weak spots: getting you to agree to spend less time with a friend who really wasn't good for you anyway, getting you to give up wearing a skirt that really was a little too short. A common tactic on the friendship thing: "I trust you, but I don't trust them." And they may well be right, the person may be trying to get in between the two of you. Perhaps because they are wanting you to stay single, but maybe because they're picking up on the signals you aren't. See, the abuser is still phenomenally attentive and affectionate at this point, giving gifts too often, or ones that are too expensive or intimate for the stage of the relationship. People who have been in abusive relationships or know about power and control issues might have their antenna at full alert, but anyone who is ignorant would still play it off as a minor issue, particularly if the abuser is otherwise "perfect" - which is exactly what the abuser is striving to be.
Meanwhile, within the relationship itself, other subtle clues are surfacing. The abuser will often talk about how hurt they were in past relationships, by other lovers and their families. Remember that most abusers come from abusive backgrounds, so they generally have been badly damaged and are very sympathetic as victims. They use this history to bind you to them, tell you how you really understand them (unlike all those other people) and they know they can trust you not to hurt them like they've been hurt in the past. You feel sympathy for them, want to protect them from their own past and present. This generates a feeling of closeness, a shared "us against the world" attitude that lays the foundation for even more emotional commitment. Breaking up with them becomes quite difficult, the feelings of guilt overwhelming. There is an urge to prove yourself worthy of this obviously sharing, loving person who just wants to be with you and commit to you. Incidentally, I think that the abuser really does feel exactly what they're saying: everyone else has disappointed me, you'll be different. They may not even comprehend that the reason they've been so hurt is that the demands they are making are unreasonable.
Somewhere in the middle of the relationship, the negotiable items (the friend you'd just as soon give up, the clothing you don't care about, a hobby that was really eating up too much of your time anyway) have fallen by the wayside, and the control issues really start to emerge. For the abuser, it is a test: if you really love me and are this perfect person for me, you'll give up (fill in the blank with your favorite hobby, your best friend, going to college). Generally, the partner doesn't simply cave in and give it up. An argument starts, not necessarily a violent one, but it will generally be intense. You are told that you've changed, you don't really love them, you're acting like all the rest. If anything physical surfaces at this first real conflict point, it might be oblique: reckless driving while arguing in the car, hitting a wall out of anguish and despair, threatening suicide, all with the implicit message that if you choose to leave they will be so hurt, they can't live without you, they love you too much. It's an ultimatum, and you know it. But you have so much invested in this relationship . . . .
If you cave, you will find the gratitude and attention overwhelming. The abuser will apologize, sometimes even offer to back off and let you take the decision back, but it will be a lip service apology only and in your bones you know it. There you have your first trip around the cycle of violence, if you have the information to understand what you've just experienced. If you don't, you start to wonder if there's something wrong with this relationship, or is it just you? Are you not willing to compromise - isn't that what relationships are all about? Aren't you willing to sacrifice to see this relationship work?
Note how close that can come to the arguments and negotiations that enter into a normal relationhip, as you start to work through your identity as a couple. But note also the level of control and obsession that differentiates it. An abuser generally has the conscious or unconscious goal of cutting out all "distractions" that keep their partner from focusing all their attention on the abuser and existing to fulfill the abuser's needs. It may not even be a conscious plan. I personally believe that while many abusers consciously choose to batter as a way of conducting their personal relationships, others do not. They just try to use their partner to fill a bottomless gap and lash out when it can't possibly be filled. It's this latter group that might be reachable, with lots of therapy.
As time goes by, other issues arise. These can range from how the house is kept, what the partner wears, where the partner goes, who the partner spends time with. The cycle is repeated, but again, not necessarily with direct physical violence, particularly with an intelligent abuser. Physical violence comes into play most often once the abuser becomes more secure in power: after marriage, once a child has been conceived, after the relationship has gone through enough cycles to show a pattern of re-commitment following a fight like this, and (quite often) after the indirect threats have failed to work because the issue is one important enough to the partner that it won't be given up without it. The only caveat to this: if the partner is emotionally vulnerable, particularly from having been in a prior abusive relationship, the cycle may escalate more rapidly, as the abuser secures power more quickly. Meanwhile, the more physical the argument, the more radical the apology may be. They might make a suicide gesture, to prove how they can't live without you. If they haven't already, they propose marriage or having a baby. Anything to solidify the commitment. The abuser could well get the partner an extremely extravagant gift: a trip somewhere the partner has always wanted to go, or some other gesture that matches the level of violence. The implicit message: yes, I screwed up badly. Yes, I know it. I want to prove to you it will never, ever happen again.
But it does. When and how often is largely a function of how rational the partner is at this point. I mean, you know something is wrong. This person, who was so wonderful to you in the beginning, did something well beyond the pale. But it wasn't as bad as (fill in some horrific abuse story here). I mean, it's not like it's a burning bed situation, right? You've never met anyone this charming, this attentive. They've been so hurt, it's no wonder they haven't learned how to fight without lashing out. If you could just be a little more patient. Teach them how to argue, get them to be less jealous. And yet.
You weigh it out, pros against the cons. While you struggle with the capitulation, the abuser bides their time. They know you very well now, they know how much you can take. They know, consciously or unconsciously, not to try the violence until you've become comfortable again. They may even be truly sorry for what they did, and searching for a way to make it up to you. Remember: their goal is to possess you, not drive you away.
Once the relationship has made enough trips around the wheel, the partner has become so emotionally or physically committed to the abuser that friends, family, co-workers all seem distant connections, people who just don't understand. There are often real ties that bind them to the abuser: the abuser may handle all the money, they may have a child together, they may have moved away to a place where the partner has no support system. And because there has been a systematic rewarding of compliant behavior and punishment of non-compliance, the partner may feel a false sense of control of the situation, as if they somehow caused the abuse to happen. They feel responsible in a very real sense, and may argue vehemently against the idea that they are actually the ones being controlled. These things are all contrived to bind the relationship as tightly as possible, so the partner feels that leaving is impossible.
Some of these relationships stay on a lesser level of violence than others, it may never progress to a broken arm. Others will escalate until the partner, and sometimes the abuser, ends up dead. But all of them have the common, pervasive theme of power and control. Note that many non-abusive relationships can have moments in which power is a big issue. Note that many non-abusive relationships can have an argument in which one partner throws something, speeds, or threatens suicide. But abusive relationships have these interrelated themes as an almost constant undercurrent, once the pattern has been established.
One thing to watch out for: if you have come from a dysfunctional childhood, you are at particular risk for falling into this trap. Yes, I know dysfunction is something used as a catch-phrase for anything from outright abuse to minor odd tendencies, but what I'm talking about is a rather co-dependent way of tiptoeing around one parent or the other, because if you don't they'll drink/do drugs/become verbally or physically violent. This is because you've already learned the "you control the bad behavior" model, and if you're not aware of this tendency, you can fall right back into the role with an abusive partner, without realizing what's being played out. Particuarly because the abusive partner acted (at first) so different from the uncaring person/people who raised you. You may think you're choosing the opposite, when actually it's the same.
In my case, the guy came from a neglected household, had girlfriends who had treated him rather poorly, and thought he'd found a perfect person who would give him the security and love he so desperately wanted. Over the course of the relationship, he isolated me from most of my friends and family, many of which really didn't have my best interests at heart, but others that did. It was always a choice: them or him. And he was so giving, so kind in so many ways. . . At the time, I thought that if he could actually see what he was doing, he'd change. I was too young and/or naive to understand that some people don't want to change, and others simply can't. I got out when he wanted me to marry right out of high school and move across the country with him. He had joined the military, a culmination of what I later realized was a lifelong obsession with authority. That is when the door would have been open for the "real" abuse to have started, alone, away from my remaining friends and family, with little money. And with plenty of guns nearby, too.
By then, how could I have admitted I was wrong? It's hard, admitting you're one of "those" women, slapping a stupid label on your forehead. I feel uncomfortable enough in hindsight that there's only a 50/50 shot this will ever get posted. Not to mention the practicalities. I mean, how could I have afforded to get a plane ticket home, me without a college education? How would I have handled the overwhelming amount of paperwork and expense involved in a divorce? What if we'd had kids?
Fortunately, I knew instinctively that I had to get away, that no matter what I could not put myself into that position. I actually left the country for several months as soon as I was able to after the breakup, a good thing as he'd gone AWOL to come after me. I don't think he would have done anything violently drastic, but then, neither do a lot of women who end up dead. That's another side note to the "why don't you just leave" end of the argument: somehow, you know it's dangerous. The abuser has threatened suicide, they are desperate, and they may try some very final gesture to keep you with them 'forever.' That's not just imagination: statistically, it's the most dangerous time of any abusive relationship. If you're going to get killed or seriously hurt, that's when it will happen.
Given my age, and the fact I knew nothing about the pattern, I feel I was lucky. If he had been a little more savvy about my buttons, my limits, it's possible he wouldn't have asked for so much at once. If he had eased me into it, first living together, then a marriage, then the move, would I have still come to my senses in time? I'd like to think so. I hadn't let him deprive me of all my friends. I had not ceded my all outside hobbies. There was a line beyond which I didn't let him cross. But with time - I can't say.
To this day, when I have a friend who says a guy is just a little too perfect: spending all their time together, giving tons of thoughtful gifts, talking marriage after a few weeks, I cringe a little. I try not to pass judgment too quickly, after all, some whirlwind romances do work out, though I won't engage in one myself, it's too reminiscent of the past. I don't insert myself into the relationship - it would be a dangerous tactical error even if I were right about the abuse. Instead, I gently advise caution and getting to really know the person, I try to keep the conversation grounded and the lines of communication open, and above all I make sure my friend knows that I'm always available, no matter what happens.
And, as Ampersand noted: basically, if your partner wants to monopolize your time, checks up on you to know where you are, and says they'll die without you - then maybe you should run. I personally would leave out the "maybe."
UPDATE:
In reading the comments to Ampersand's post, this made up my mind to publish this post:
That's not what's being said. Degree is essential, context is everything. It is the undercurrent of control, the act of tying another human being to you so very closely that the two almost literally become one person - the abuser.
Why does this quote make me cringe? Even if it's well-intentioned, and comes from someone who would never dream of engaging in this type of behavior, don't think that the abuser won't say these same things. "What do you mean, I'm trying to control you? I only want what's best for you, best for us. I wasn't spying on you, I just wanted to see you. It's not that I don't trust you, I don't trust them. I wasn't threatening you with suicide, I really don't think I could live withut you. I'm doing this all for us, honey. They don't really understand us. They are always trying to break us up." Meanwhile, you are being asked to deny the very core of who you are and give it all up to someone else. The kicker is, as I said before, the abuser may not even understand what it is they are asking. They really do believe that's what love is. Love means living you living your life for someone else in the most literal sense. They're puzzled why you don't feel the same way, why you can't just see that their vision of your life together would lead to perfect happiness.
I know that even if someone is in an abusive relationship, this might not get through to them. They'll read the text carefully, looking for an out, something that makes their relationship different. Some partners will think that if they know about the pattern, they can instigate a solution, force their abuser to change. If they only understood what they were doing, things would be different. . . .
But I hope that by putting this into cyberspace, maybe someone will come across it by some weird Google search at just the right time, and will make a connection that they didn't see before, and either avoid getting into one of these relationships, or find the strength to get the hell out. It can be done, no matter how overwhelming it seems. Go to the local domestic violence shelter, if you can safely do so, even if only to get information. Learn how to make a safety plan. Learn how to get out safely - I'm very aware that not everyone has a friend who is leaving the country at just the right time and can take you with. It can be done.
The more often men give flowers to their lovers, or engage in other "mate-retention behaviors" such as vigilance or emotional manipulation, the more often they hit them.
That is the chilling finding of a study by Todd K. Shackelford, an associate professor of psychology at Florida Atlantic University, and five colleagues. They found that the more men do things to dissuade their partners from leaving them, the more likely they are to be violent. "Although many mate-retention behaviors appear to be innocuous romantic gestures (e.g., displaying resources, giving flowers), some may be harbingers of violence," the authors write.
The researchers surveyed 461 men, 560 women, and 107 couples about their use or experience of mate-retention behaviors and violence toward women. In each group, the researchers found greater violence in men who engaged in more of the retention behaviors.
The authors also found that acts of vigilance — such as dropping by unexpectedly to see what partners were doing, and calling to make sure a partner was where she said she would be — were the clearest predictors of violence, followed by acts of emotional manipulation. Vigilant acts, they note, are examples of "autonomy-limiting behaviors" that are "motivated by male sexual proprietariness and designed to restrict women's sexual autonomy." Earlier research, they say, showed that 40 percent of women with highly vigilant partners also reported being seriously assaulted by their partners.
Reading the post and the article reminded me of my prosecutor internship training session with Linda McGuire during my second year at the University of Iowa College of Law. We had a section on domestic violence. In it, we reviewed the dynamics of abuse and the power and control wheel. I sat in the back, as I am generally inclined to do, and watched in amazement as the discussion brought up stereotype after stereotype: abused people seek abusers because they were abused as kids and that's how they think love is shown; abused people have low self-esteem, so they fall into these relationships because they don't think they deserve any better; etc. etc. etc.
I realized then that people who have never experienced an abusive relationship, no matter how educated, are generally uninformed as to how these relationships start. They see the aftermath, and try to extrapolate from there how things got so messed up. I spoke up then, and given this reminder, I'd like to take a minute to do it again. Because it's not stereotypical, it's counterintuitive, which is why so many abusers are successful in drawing partners into these relationships, even intelligent, emotionally intuitive people. But if enough people understand the signals, they may have a chance of avoiding getting into a relationship that would otherwise end up in tragedy. If you're not interested in this kind of thing, please feel free to scroll past the rest of the post, it will be a rather long one.
First off, the credentials: I can speak to this subject not just as an erstwhile domestic violence prosecutor with three years of experience watching this stuff. I was in an abusive relationship in high school. It didn't escalate, I've no broken bones or burn marks, but the pattern was there, and if I hadn't ended it when I did, there is no telling how far it could have gone. At the time, I had no idea it was a classic pattern, actually a fairly common thing. If I'd had the information I learned later on, it could have saved me significant trauma and self-doubt.
Abusive relationships start out as fantasies, on both sides. For the potential abuser, they fixate on the subject as the one person who will finally understand and complete them as a person, fill the void inside and be everything they ever wanted. As such, they are anxious to shower the potential partner with affection, interest, and spend every possible minute with them. They push commitment, sometimes talking marriage within a few days or weeks. For the partner, the attention is flattering, if a little overwhelming. You have someone who sends flowers, cards or gifts at the drop of a hat. Someone who remembers everything you were wearing, little things you said or did. Someone who wants to be with you all the time, and will talk with you for hours about your day: where you went, what you felt, who you were with. It may feel rushed, but you write that off. I mean, come on, aren't women always complaining that guys don't give them enough attention? Here's one that does, and you're immediately suspicious?
As the relationship develops, the time commitment becomes an issue. This is generally, but not always, the first signal as to an upcoming power and control issue. The abuser wants to spend more and more time together, becomes jealous of time spent with other people. At first, the jealousy is played off as a joke. Sometimes, it functions to pick off some of the weak spots: getting you to agree to spend less time with a friend who really wasn't good for you anyway, getting you to give up wearing a skirt that really was a little too short. A common tactic on the friendship thing: "I trust you, but I don't trust them." And they may well be right, the person may be trying to get in between the two of you. Perhaps because they are wanting you to stay single, but maybe because they're picking up on the signals you aren't. See, the abuser is still phenomenally attentive and affectionate at this point, giving gifts too often, or ones that are too expensive or intimate for the stage of the relationship. People who have been in abusive relationships or know about power and control issues might have their antenna at full alert, but anyone who is ignorant would still play it off as a minor issue, particularly if the abuser is otherwise "perfect" - which is exactly what the abuser is striving to be.
Meanwhile, within the relationship itself, other subtle clues are surfacing. The abuser will often talk about how hurt they were in past relationships, by other lovers and their families. Remember that most abusers come from abusive backgrounds, so they generally have been badly damaged and are very sympathetic as victims. They use this history to bind you to them, tell you how you really understand them (unlike all those other people) and they know they can trust you not to hurt them like they've been hurt in the past. You feel sympathy for them, want to protect them from their own past and present. This generates a feeling of closeness, a shared "us against the world" attitude that lays the foundation for even more emotional commitment. Breaking up with them becomes quite difficult, the feelings of guilt overwhelming. There is an urge to prove yourself worthy of this obviously sharing, loving person who just wants to be with you and commit to you. Incidentally, I think that the abuser really does feel exactly what they're saying: everyone else has disappointed me, you'll be different. They may not even comprehend that the reason they've been so hurt is that the demands they are making are unreasonable.
Somewhere in the middle of the relationship, the negotiable items (the friend you'd just as soon give up, the clothing you don't care about, a hobby that was really eating up too much of your time anyway) have fallen by the wayside, and the control issues really start to emerge. For the abuser, it is a test: if you really love me and are this perfect person for me, you'll give up (fill in the blank with your favorite hobby, your best friend, going to college). Generally, the partner doesn't simply cave in and give it up. An argument starts, not necessarily a violent one, but it will generally be intense. You are told that you've changed, you don't really love them, you're acting like all the rest. If anything physical surfaces at this first real conflict point, it might be oblique: reckless driving while arguing in the car, hitting a wall out of anguish and despair, threatening suicide, all with the implicit message that if you choose to leave they will be so hurt, they can't live without you, they love you too much. It's an ultimatum, and you know it. But you have so much invested in this relationship . . . .
If you cave, you will find the gratitude and attention overwhelming. The abuser will apologize, sometimes even offer to back off and let you take the decision back, but it will be a lip service apology only and in your bones you know it. There you have your first trip around the cycle of violence, if you have the information to understand what you've just experienced. If you don't, you start to wonder if there's something wrong with this relationship, or is it just you? Are you not willing to compromise - isn't that what relationships are all about? Aren't you willing to sacrifice to see this relationship work?
Note how close that can come to the arguments and negotiations that enter into a normal relationhip, as you start to work through your identity as a couple. But note also the level of control and obsession that differentiates it. An abuser generally has the conscious or unconscious goal of cutting out all "distractions" that keep their partner from focusing all their attention on the abuser and existing to fulfill the abuser's needs. It may not even be a conscious plan. I personally believe that while many abusers consciously choose to batter as a way of conducting their personal relationships, others do not. They just try to use their partner to fill a bottomless gap and lash out when it can't possibly be filled. It's this latter group that might be reachable, with lots of therapy.
As time goes by, other issues arise. These can range from how the house is kept, what the partner wears, where the partner goes, who the partner spends time with. The cycle is repeated, but again, not necessarily with direct physical violence, particularly with an intelligent abuser. Physical violence comes into play most often once the abuser becomes more secure in power: after marriage, once a child has been conceived, after the relationship has gone through enough cycles to show a pattern of re-commitment following a fight like this, and (quite often) after the indirect threats have failed to work because the issue is one important enough to the partner that it won't be given up without it. The only caveat to this: if the partner is emotionally vulnerable, particularly from having been in a prior abusive relationship, the cycle may escalate more rapidly, as the abuser secures power more quickly. Meanwhile, the more physical the argument, the more radical the apology may be. They might make a suicide gesture, to prove how they can't live without you. If they haven't already, they propose marriage or having a baby. Anything to solidify the commitment. The abuser could well get the partner an extremely extravagant gift: a trip somewhere the partner has always wanted to go, or some other gesture that matches the level of violence. The implicit message: yes, I screwed up badly. Yes, I know it. I want to prove to you it will never, ever happen again.
But it does. When and how often is largely a function of how rational the partner is at this point. I mean, you know something is wrong. This person, who was so wonderful to you in the beginning, did something well beyond the pale. But it wasn't as bad as (fill in some horrific abuse story here). I mean, it's not like it's a burning bed situation, right? You've never met anyone this charming, this attentive. They've been so hurt, it's no wonder they haven't learned how to fight without lashing out. If you could just be a little more patient. Teach them how to argue, get them to be less jealous. And yet.
You weigh it out, pros against the cons. While you struggle with the capitulation, the abuser bides their time. They know you very well now, they know how much you can take. They know, consciously or unconsciously, not to try the violence until you've become comfortable again. They may even be truly sorry for what they did, and searching for a way to make it up to you. Remember: their goal is to possess you, not drive you away.
Once the relationship has made enough trips around the wheel, the partner has become so emotionally or physically committed to the abuser that friends, family, co-workers all seem distant connections, people who just don't understand. There are often real ties that bind them to the abuser: the abuser may handle all the money, they may have a child together, they may have moved away to a place where the partner has no support system. And because there has been a systematic rewarding of compliant behavior and punishment of non-compliance, the partner may feel a false sense of control of the situation, as if they somehow caused the abuse to happen. They feel responsible in a very real sense, and may argue vehemently against the idea that they are actually the ones being controlled. These things are all contrived to bind the relationship as tightly as possible, so the partner feels that leaving is impossible.
Some of these relationships stay on a lesser level of violence than others, it may never progress to a broken arm. Others will escalate until the partner, and sometimes the abuser, ends up dead. But all of them have the common, pervasive theme of power and control. Note that many non-abusive relationships can have moments in which power is a big issue. Note that many non-abusive relationships can have an argument in which one partner throws something, speeds, or threatens suicide. But abusive relationships have these interrelated themes as an almost constant undercurrent, once the pattern has been established.
One thing to watch out for: if you have come from a dysfunctional childhood, you are at particular risk for falling into this trap. Yes, I know dysfunction is something used as a catch-phrase for anything from outright abuse to minor odd tendencies, but what I'm talking about is a rather co-dependent way of tiptoeing around one parent or the other, because if you don't they'll drink/do drugs/become verbally or physically violent. This is because you've already learned the "you control the bad behavior" model, and if you're not aware of this tendency, you can fall right back into the role with an abusive partner, without realizing what's being played out. Particuarly because the abusive partner acted (at first) so different from the uncaring person/people who raised you. You may think you're choosing the opposite, when actually it's the same.
In my case, the guy came from a neglected household, had girlfriends who had treated him rather poorly, and thought he'd found a perfect person who would give him the security and love he so desperately wanted. Over the course of the relationship, he isolated me from most of my friends and family, many of which really didn't have my best interests at heart, but others that did. It was always a choice: them or him. And he was so giving, so kind in so many ways. . . At the time, I thought that if he could actually see what he was doing, he'd change. I was too young and/or naive to understand that some people don't want to change, and others simply can't. I got out when he wanted me to marry right out of high school and move across the country with him. He had joined the military, a culmination of what I later realized was a lifelong obsession with authority. That is when the door would have been open for the "real" abuse to have started, alone, away from my remaining friends and family, with little money. And with plenty of guns nearby, too.
By then, how could I have admitted I was wrong? It's hard, admitting you're one of "those" women, slapping a stupid label on your forehead. I feel uncomfortable enough in hindsight that there's only a 50/50 shot this will ever get posted. Not to mention the practicalities. I mean, how could I have afforded to get a plane ticket home, me without a college education? How would I have handled the overwhelming amount of paperwork and expense involved in a divorce? What if we'd had kids?
Fortunately, I knew instinctively that I had to get away, that no matter what I could not put myself into that position. I actually left the country for several months as soon as I was able to after the breakup, a good thing as he'd gone AWOL to come after me. I don't think he would have done anything violently drastic, but then, neither do a lot of women who end up dead. That's another side note to the "why don't you just leave" end of the argument: somehow, you know it's dangerous. The abuser has threatened suicide, they are desperate, and they may try some very final gesture to keep you with them 'forever.' That's not just imagination: statistically, it's the most dangerous time of any abusive relationship. If you're going to get killed or seriously hurt, that's when it will happen.
Given my age, and the fact I knew nothing about the pattern, I feel I was lucky. If he had been a little more savvy about my buttons, my limits, it's possible he wouldn't have asked for so much at once. If he had eased me into it, first living together, then a marriage, then the move, would I have still come to my senses in time? I'd like to think so. I hadn't let him deprive me of all my friends. I had not ceded my all outside hobbies. There was a line beyond which I didn't let him cross. But with time - I can't say.
To this day, when I have a friend who says a guy is just a little too perfect: spending all their time together, giving tons of thoughtful gifts, talking marriage after a few weeks, I cringe a little. I try not to pass judgment too quickly, after all, some whirlwind romances do work out, though I won't engage in one myself, it's too reminiscent of the past. I don't insert myself into the relationship - it would be a dangerous tactical error even if I were right about the abuse. Instead, I gently advise caution and getting to really know the person, I try to keep the conversation grounded and the lines of communication open, and above all I make sure my friend knows that I'm always available, no matter what happens.
And, as Ampersand noted: basically, if your partner wants to monopolize your time, checks up on you to know where you are, and says they'll die without you - then maybe you should run. I personally would leave out the "maybe."
UPDATE:
In reading the comments to Ampersand's post, this made up my mind to publish this post:
It’s cute how they frame it as innocuous romantic gestures being a harbinger of violence, rather than violence being a harbinger of innocuous romantic gestures. I love the spin they put on everything. Dropping by unexpectedly to see your partner is an Act of Vigilance. Vocalising how important the relationship is to you is Emotional Manipulation. Wanting to be with someone is Monopolization of Time. And, yes, evolutionary psychologists are behind it all - trying once more to turning science on its head by attempting to confirm, rather than disprove, their theories.
That's not what's being said. Degree is essential, context is everything. It is the undercurrent of control, the act of tying another human being to you so very closely that the two almost literally become one person - the abuser.
Why does this quote make me cringe? Even if it's well-intentioned, and comes from someone who would never dream of engaging in this type of behavior, don't think that the abuser won't say these same things. "What do you mean, I'm trying to control you? I only want what's best for you, best for us. I wasn't spying on you, I just wanted to see you. It's not that I don't trust you, I don't trust them. I wasn't threatening you with suicide, I really don't think I could live withut you. I'm doing this all for us, honey. They don't really understand us. They are always trying to break us up." Meanwhile, you are being asked to deny the very core of who you are and give it all up to someone else. The kicker is, as I said before, the abuser may not even understand what it is they are asking. They really do believe that's what love is. Love means living you living your life for someone else in the most literal sense. They're puzzled why you don't feel the same way, why you can't just see that their vision of your life together would lead to perfect happiness.
I know that even if someone is in an abusive relationship, this might not get through to them. They'll read the text carefully, looking for an out, something that makes their relationship different. Some partners will think that if they know about the pattern, they can instigate a solution, force their abuser to change. If they only understood what they were doing, things would be different. . . .
But I hope that by putting this into cyberspace, maybe someone will come across it by some weird Google search at just the right time, and will make a connection that they didn't see before, and either avoid getting into one of these relationships, or find the strength to get the hell out. It can be done, no matter how overwhelming it seems. Go to the local domestic violence shelter, if you can safely do so, even if only to get information. Learn how to make a safety plan. Learn how to get out safely - I'm very aware that not everyone has a friend who is leaving the country at just the right time and can take you with. It can be done.
Saturday, November 19, 2005
In Case You Were Wondering
I was indisposed. You know that killer cold-with-a-sore-throat that's making the rounds? And that weird flu-with-a-high-fever thing some people have? Don't try getting them both at once. Been there, done that, you won't like it.
I'm just saying.
I'm just saying.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Fake Trial Day
I'm spending the morning doing a mock trial for a training. It was a real case, argued long before I came to the company, which we've adapted for training purposes. Of course, I get the side that everyone keeps saying "I can't figure out how they ever won this thing." And my opponent? The guy who won it. Already very familiar with the facts, now arguing for the stronger side.
Something tells me I've been set up. . . .
UPDATE:
Holy crap, I won.
Something tells me I've been set up. . . .
UPDATE:
Holy crap, I won.
Unmasked . . . and Unplugged
Article III Groupie is apparently no more. You had to wonder if that would happen, given the irreverance of the blog and the gender twist involved. Concurring Opinions analyzes the risks involved with his decision to "come clean":
One commenter in a post about A3G at the Volokh Conspiracy wrote: “This is terrible. I can't read that site knowing the author is a man.” Part of the excitement about the blog was the diva-esque personality of the blogger. Will the blog work now that it is known that the author isn’t really a woman? The excitement is gone. The female persona is a fiction. Anonymity provided a sense of mystery to the blog. Now that mystery has vanished. . . .
Anonymity allows people to escape accountability for their words, but this comes at a cost -- the loss of authorship credit under one's real name. Lat wanted to have the praise and attention his female alter ego A3G was getting. He wanted to have his labor and toil on the blog associated with his name. But the irony may be that in his quest to get credit for the blog, he’ll destroy the blog (and maybe himself) in the process.
Monday, November 14, 2005
Monday Quizzes
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| Kermit the Frog
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This test measured 3 variables. First, this test measured how organized you are. Some muppets like Cookie Monster make big messes, while others like Bert are quite anal about things being clean. Second, this test measured if you prefer a concrete or an abstract viewpoint. For the purposes of this test, concrete people are considered to gravitate more to mathematical and logical approaches, whereas abstract people are more the dreamers and artistic type. Third, this test measured if you are more of an introvert or an extrovert. By definition, an introvert concentrates more on herself and an extrovert focuses more on others. In this test an introvert was somebody that either tends to spend more time alone or thinks more about herself. You are mostly organized, both concrete and abstract, and more extroverted. Here is why are you Kermit the Frog. You are both somewhat organized. You have a good idea where you put things and you probably keep your place reasonably clean. You aren't totally obsessed with neatness though. Kermit is also reasonably tidy. He'll even dress up for interviews. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Kermit starred on Sesame Street years before The Muppet Show. |
My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
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| Link: The Your SESAME STREET Persona Test written by greencowsgomoo on OkCupid. |
You are Schroeder!
Which Peanuts Character are You?
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