California's use of electronic voting machines is very problematic. In the past, we knew ballots were faked or ballots were destroyed. It was not easy to spot the fraud but it was possible. Now the software is proprietary and unavailable for independent review. We have to rely on federal and state authorities to "certify" the machines that are used. Diebold, the company that provided the electronic vote machines for Alameda and San Diego County was sued by the State and paid mucho dollars for using uncertified (i.e., unknown) software. How did the state know what had happened. A clerical worker in the law firm advising Diebold leaked the incriminating memos. Guess what! The L.A. district attorney is prosecuting the clerical worker for stealing the memos that he leaked. No one at Diebold or their conspiring attorneys was charged with anything. Check out the details at Heller Defense Web site!

Someone who is usually pretty reliable said that they like Law and Order: Criminal Intent becasue of the actor in the series. I have occassionally watched the original Law and Order and found it, how shall I say nicely?, "not to my taste." The reverence for the prosecutors, the DA's ethical struggles, and the sneering tone taken by the prosecutors is quite repellant. Particularly when we all know that the DA's of this world never really convict anybody without a snitch - this is not what I call high level lawyering.( Read more... )

rootlesscosmo and I have gone beyond the nuclear family. We are the sub atomic particle family. He is "Strange Quark" and I am "Beauty".

I plan to keep listing and commenting on my reading this year. This is mostly for my own record of what I read. I have gotten some good suggestions from other ljer's and want to return the favor.

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The Sunday paper here is trumpeting on the front page that the housing market might be cooling. This means that you might be able to buy a 2 bedroom 1 bath stucco undetached 1100 square feet for under $800,000 next month. This neighborhood is just nuts. There's a 3 bedroom "split level" on a tiny corner lot on the busiest intersection that is listed at over 1 million. And there are youngish looking people looking at it. Where are they getting that kind of money for a monthly mortgage of $5000 a month. I think they are all drug dealers - Colombian or Merck. Everyone has interest only loans which means they are renting their homes from the bank, but unlike tenants who rent from other capitalist actors, they can deduct the rent from their income taxes.
Somebody bought the house next door to us in October. Since then, workmen have been there every day doing god knows what. There were no notices posted outside to say that a permit was pending for major alterations on the property. And you can't see any changes from the outside. Maybe they're tunnelling somewhere. Why would you pay $750k for a little house and spend thousands transforming the inside and not move in for months? Very mysterious.

When my sister was about 4 years old, she turned to my mother with some irritation and asked for a definitive answer. She asked, "What are we? Are we Irish, or Democrats, or Catholics". She was tired of the adults switching around from one to the other. In our house, we were definitely into identity politics of this sort. Our ethnicity, our party, and our religion defined us clearly to ourselves and to others.
By the time I was a teenager, I realized that neither religious dogma or ritual had any interst for me. It took me longer to opt out of the two party merry go round. As for Irish, well, the whole Irish thing has become a cultural gewgaw in US life and not meaningful to me. So what does this mean for me? It means I live in the world and do not expect another life later. I live in the world with history and science and art as guide and satisfaction. I live in the world of people and animals which I cannot call either fundamentally good or bad. My life is enriched not by the unreal, but by the real, especially by the love of my mother and my partner.
These thoughts came to mind while reading the conversation at maeve66 about spirituality. angel80 has some very sensible things to say.

Several times recently I have heard someone say or I have read that the people who support the wars now underway by the US can’t be expected to change their minds until it “affects them”. I think that this is a serious overgeneralization. A significant number of the parents of injured and killed GIs continue to support the war and military action. Indeed, most of everyone who is old enough to be in the military has parents, grandparents and extended family members who were injured or killed in previous wars. The misery of war does not seem to deter continued support for military adventures and occupations from generation to generation. One of the most impressive books I have ever read is War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges. Hedges argues that war and violent conflict provide meaningful contributions to the emotional and intellectual life of participants and observers. Certainly, the culture we now live in cannot be divorced from militarism. So what to do, what to do?( Read more... )

I have been worrying over the meme from rootlesscosmo and finally decided to go with the incomplete version below. In my twenties I realized that although I had developed a strong "no", I had not really developed any preferences. "Resist" became my motto, but that doesn't lead to a list of favorites. This is not simply a matter of gender - although I think it is very important. It's also just part of my character, maybe from birth, to see what the choices are and pick one or abstain. But, with all that preface, here are some choices for the list:

Some things to do before I die
1.live everyday with rootlesscosmo
2. build a garden
3. sing in a group
4. mend my sibling relationships
5. do a driving tour from the Northern to the Southern California missions

2. Some things I cannot do (to my regret):

1. sail a boat
2. read music
3. play the flute
4. understand the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic fraud


3. Seven things that attract me to [San Francisco]

1. it's physically beautiful
2. Jesse Jackson won the Democratic Primary
3. our house
4. the weather is human beings' natural habitat
5. I feel safe here

4. Seven things I say often (maybe too often)

1.Thank you, your honor
2. Boys win, girls lose
3. This is what patriarchy looks like, when it's happening to you
4. LIsten to this,

5. Seven books (or series) that I love

1. Bleak House, Dickens
2. Only Words, MacKinnon
3. USA, Dos Passos
4. Hundred Years of Solitude, Garcia Marquex

6. Seven movies that I watch over and over again

1. Stage Door
2. Godfather
3. All About Eve
4. Producers (original)
5. On the Waterfront
6. The Late Show

My office building is special in many ways. It was once a famous hotel in downtown Oakland. Even in the 1950's, there were dances held in the ballroom on the first floor. There is a beautiful apartment on the top floor with a working flagstone fireplace. The building fell on hard times. For a while it was a halfway house of some kind. Then it was transformed into this lovely office building. The building has been made a landmark building. The ambiance is in between funky and totally businesslike. The management keep the building in beautiful condition and they get along with all the tenants. I've been her nearly 15 years.
The tenants are small law firms and some real estate offices. There is a big dental office on the first floor and some restaurants (not very good). OUr newest tenant is the marijuana doctor. No drugs are issued - just approval cards that allow a purchaser to obtain weed at the legal outlets. Some very obviously ill people are on their way up and down to the doc's floor. But I have also noticed that there seem to be an unusual number of young men who head in that direction. I just rode up in the elevator with two very happy, I might say almost giggling, guys. Another lawyer in the building thinks that some clients might be intimidated by such elevator passengers. I doubt that - they seemed like the most benign creatures I have seen in a long time.

At midnight on New Years Eve I was already asleep when someone set off some fireworks and I woke up. I suddenly remembered that as a child, my mother would have us awake at midnight and we would go outdoors and bang pots together and make a racket.
This New Years Eve she was babysitting my 9 year old nephew, who has never stayed awake for the midnight event. My mother believes that children need experiences and that they should be encouraged in as many ways to really engage in life. So she kept him up til midnight telling him about the Times Square ball and the crowds and counting down from ten and shouting Happy New Year. The man on the tv said there were a million people at Times Square and Matthew wondered how all those people could be in the street. When he said this, my mom knew that he was seeing the event and was getting some of the experience of being there. Then as the ball began to drop, in huge excitement he danced on the sofa shouting along with the crowd: ten, nine, eight.... Happy New Year.
Flushed with excitement, his fist raised in the air, 9 year old Matthew declared, "I'm going to do this for the rest of my life!!!!"

The great 2006 scrabble tournament began this morning. News: "Minster" is a word = it means a monastery church.

For some reason I bookmarked this government website on trends in violent crime. I think I wanted to have it ready to offset the levels of fear generated by mass media - especially about violence at schools. According to the statistics, people in the US are actually less likely to experience violent crime than in the early 1990's. General trends remain the same: women more likely to be assaulted by intimates, men more likely to be assaulted by strangers. Women more likely to be assaulted at home, men more likely assaulted outside the home. But in general, violence is less that 10 or 12 years ago. And guess what: the Northeast is safer than the rest of the country. Oh, and alcohol is always a big factor - not marijuana!!!!

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict_c.htm#findings

Those of you who read rootlesscosmo journal know that we are starting our 36th year together. It seems like there was never a time that we weren't together. And it seems like we have only been together for a minute. I will take up your time to tell you what a terrific guy he is. Rootless has a remarkable ability to change himself to match his politics, and to change his politics to match his principles. He is extremely funny, knows lots of jokes, does comic turns. He wants me to be happy. There are two drawbacks to our relationship that we have noticed. I can't read music and he can't dance. Otherwise, we were made for each other.

Conversations about Narnia, The Movie, have included comments from friends who remember the book favorably. One of my closest, and most politically radical, friends who spent some time as a story teller for intentional communities, tells me that she read the book aloud to kids 30 years ago. She was perplexed as to how the Christian allegory and other aspects of the story didn't repel her then. We talked about it and came to a couple of thoughts. First, and maybe most important, the film medium dictates interpretation in a way that literature does not. rootlesscosmo tells me that this is MacLuhan's theory that the medium is the message. Or that some media have space for imagination that runs contrary to the author's perspective while movie media do not. The expressions on faces, the placement of objects, the cues from a depicted environment, all shape content rather than suggest alternative contents.

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of doing legal research, there are these things called "headnotes". A headnote is a short, maybe only one sentence, summary of the content of the opinion in a court case. I found the headnote for Barrett v. Rancho Cucamongo, California Supreme Court December 2005, a real brain twister.

Here goes:


"Grant of a demurrer for municipal defendant in an action regarding plaintiff's challenge, under the Mitigation Fee Act, to fees imposed relating to development projects is reversed to the extent that the court erred in determining that plaintiff could not challenge the validity of a resolution reenacting a fee previously set forth in an earlier resolution."

I continue to believe that the great battle for the souls of humankind is between Steven Speiburg and Walt Disney. Whatever the outcome, we are in trouble. The current examples are Munich and Narnia. I have not seen Munich, so no comment as yet. But, I have seen most of Narnia. The part I did not see is whatever came after I walked out of the theater in disgust.
The usual Disney re-creation of gender stereotypes was obvious. That alone was pretty painful. But there was a creepy quality to the story line. One of the children quite openly intends to ensnare his siblings into being his "servants" once the witch makes him king. He really isn't conflicted about it. The story wanders on and on with not much of interest. Oh, at one point, the good children meet Santa Claus who gives them weapons, swords and arrow and knives, and encourages them to use them while he disappears with shouts of nationalistic "Long live Narnia".
I had lost interest in the whole thing as nothing but a cultiural artifact when the tone changed to sadism. The "noble" lion has offered his own life in exchange for the bad child. Off goes the lion to the ritual killing place where hundreds of Brueglesque demons surround the witch. By the way, the witch is Tilde Swinton but she is made to appear taller and more broad shouldered than real life. But she is also made to appear beautiful. The two little girls - more creepiness - have sneaked up to watch the ritual. The demons "bind" the lion and drag him to the witches feet. But before she stabs him with this huge sword, she pauses, as if with an afterthought. Then Swinton says, "Wait, shave him first." The demons start shaving off the lions fur. That's when I said, this is sick, and walked out.

1. Fewer Christmas cards arrived this year. Even my mother, a respecter of middle class mores, didn't send me a card. I can't remember if I ever sent cards out, maybe years ago I got a momentary interest. So I am in no position to be disappointed at a poor showing this year. My cousin who is a fine artist sent a card with her original art work - very nice. Our friend who has two cats sent us the annual cat card - very funny. I get cards from business people that I deal with, accountants, lawyers, realtors. They all opt for the "don't offend anyone" motifs. Mostly the standard invocation of peace - which frankly began to get under my skin. Also, cards with snow and pictures of sleighs. Like the peace cards, these are so out of kilter with reality that I was wondering what they were thinking.


2. I leave tomorrow for Ohio/Northern Kentucky for the next 4 days. My sister does very major Christmas -- numerous presents, tree, victorian village, creche, nutcracker doll on mantel, lights on the outside of the house. Great quantities of food are available. It is usually too cold to leave the house except in the car. On Dec 25, there won't be a single thing open to leave the house to do anyway. On Monday, we are going to the Cincinnati ballet Nutcracker. I don't think I have ever been to a Nutcracker.

3. rootlesscosmo stays at home. We do not do Christmas. So he will be at home alone not doing Christmas. He may have dim sum on the 25th with other friends who do not do Christmas.

4. Usually I have not gone to my family on the C day. Rootless and I generally close the curtains, keep the lights down, and watch movies. We discovered this alternative to just moping several years ago. As a good first step, we watched The Sorrow and The Pity. We moved on to having themes. One year we did hours of Japanese movies. Then we did star themes - all Cary Grant and the like. We made a bad choice a couple years ago and decided to have a "Turkey Festival". We got all the bad movies we had not seen including Waterworld and The Scarlet Letter. Let me tell you, those are really bad movies. We are open to any themes you might suggest for next year.

5. The holiday I really like is New Years. More on that next week.

purejuice posted a terrific memoir of her Aunt Cherie. Check it out. She invites more memoirs. So at her urging, and with that as an excuse, here is a memoir of my grandfather, Joseph Lawrence Martin.

Much of the story I am about to tell you comes from my mother and my aunt who told the children about “Pop” my grandfather. Some of it is probably true, a little of it I know to be true. I’m third in line in the oral history of Joe Martin, so I think of his story as the myth that my mother, sisters and cousins all find appealing to our sense of ourselves.

Joe was born sometime around the turn of the century, maybe 1898. His parents were born in Ireland, but he was born just after they arrived. He had two older sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. Whatever his mother was thinking naming her girls after the two enemy English queens, I have no idea. The story is that the family came from Cork where Joe’s father owned or worked in a pub. But since all the boats left from Cork, who knows how long they had been city folk and not country immigrants. The family came to Philadelphia. By the time Joe was 2 his father was dead and his mother did washing or the like to support the children. She couldn’t manage with the toddler so she put him in a Catholic orphanage. Joe cried so much and was so unmanageable that the nuns made my great-grandmother take him back. Our first family lesson in life – don’t suffer in silence.

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FOUR JOBS I'VE HAD IN MY LIFE
waitress
welfare rights worker
congressional campaign staff
lawyer

FOUR MOVIES I COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN
Casablanca
Rebecca
Touch of Evil
The General


FOUR CITIES/TOWNS I HAVE LIVED IN
Levittown, PA
Manhattan
Cincinnati
San Francisco


FOUR TV SHOWS I LOVE TO WATCH
Simpsons
West Wing - sorta



FOUR PLACES I'VE BEEN
Canada
France
Portugal
Cuba

FOUR WEBSITES I VISIT DAILY
Alameda County Superior Court
live journal


FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS/BEVERAGES
DRINK:
wines of the Loire
champagne


FOOD:
hazelnut cake
spaghetti bolognese
roast pork
figs

FOUR PLACES I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW
SF is fine for me