Of Boobies and the Law

When I was young and trying to get laid for the first time, I followed a young lass into a college class I should never have been in as a first term freshman. Taking U.S. Constitutional History as a freshman was not the norm, in actuality it was a recipe for intellectual and GPA disaster.

U.S. Constitutional History was basically a Constitutional Law class as it would be taught at lesser law school. Does the term weeder course for the pre-law set ring a bell? The course to my surprise set the tone for my life; it sparked my passion for the Constitution that continues on today. Despite facing intellectual rigor beyond my station in life I got a B+. On the other hand I did not get laid but I did get to squeeze the young lass’s boobies. So bottom line U.S. Constitutional History was a win-win for me.

I remember two areas of study from that course in particular, the judicial slight of hand that is Marbury vs. Madison and Beard’s infamous (famous?) thesis. Marbury I have lived breathed and talked about in four different courses including my senior law school seminar in Constitutional Law. However the allegations of Beard that our governing document was simply the result of self interested men cutting deals to protect their individual interests always comes back to me. It is a disquieting concept. In the tome An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913), Beard argued that the Constitution was not really the work of political ideologists but rather a construct balancing the economic interests of the drafters’ particular partisans.

Early on after the publication of An Economic Interpretation Oliver Wendell Holmes assailed Beard’s thesis, Holmes was emphatic in stating some persons have emotions not dependent on their pocketbook and that patriotism was really the source of the Constitution. Robert Brown in the early 1960s argued that the status of the free persons of America at the time the document was created was basically equivalent, mostly a middle class analog. The primacy of this class’s overall interests was clear for the Constitution was created to do many things in terms of personal rights that extended far outside the economic milieu. Our Constitution was in essence “a democratic document framed by democratic methods for a democratic society”.

Most of the above is cribbed from a section of Loose Sallies Essays by Daniel J. Kornstein but it is in accord with what I remember of the class. In some ways I think the Supreme Court in its recent rulings on campaign finance has lost sight on the idea that the Constitution and our founding principles were focused on maintaining our democracy including equality of participation in the system as opposed to championing property rights. Remember while the Declaration of Independence first stated life, liberty and property, property was excised in favor of “the pursuit of happiness”. Jefferson made this change so as to enshrine the freedom of opportunity and its corollary the duty to help those in want into this seminal work.

Ah how fondly I remember when life was so much simpler and my thoughts were focused only on the pleasures of the flesh and not the protection of our citizens’ enfranchisement in governance.

Spring Peace

In this world there is no easy path. Rich or poor, there is no way that one can follow that with absolute certainty will bring joy. Joy is probably the wrong word, maybe equanimity. I disdain joy more and more as I age. Maybe disdain is also the wrong world, it perhaps is too strong a word. I think the Eastern thinkers have it right joy and pain must both be seen as the imposters that they are.

Last night as I watched my youngest son sing, I felt a peace knowing he was feeling joy. Last night as I watched the choir work through their song I appreciated their attempt at connection that that greater common human experience that lay beyond themselves. I smiled. It was not an easy path to this point. It won’t last. But there was peace for a moment.

Day 73 of 365 (Justice's Cost)

Truth and justice are elusive things when viewed through human eyes.

Sometimes we are required to act in the course of our duties in ways where the rule of law must be served. We take concrete actions that impact other human lives in ways quite large and possibly life changing. On balance these acts are for the greater good and are consistent with both precedent and the rule of law. We must take these actions for there is no choice under the law.

Still, after doing what must be done there is a lingering sense that the acts we have carried out have failed to meet a standard that is above the laws of humankind, that somehow the moral and humane thing has been missed. Somehow something tugs at the strings of your soul leaving a feeling that the true aim of justice has been thwarted. An unease with final acts, a deep sense of questioning as to what is right and what is wrong this is the burden a person who sits in judgment accepts.

It is a solitary thing. The emotions that roil and the disquiet that remains after a particularly tough call cannot be shared. The intellectual unrest and the emotional turmoil aren’t really amenable to meaningfully conversational distribution. You can’t talk it out and away. And so we who do these things accept that we must carry some of the darkness of the world within us.

Public service requires that we act for the public good. Citizenship requires we sacrifice. We all need to be engaged in the governance of our commonwealth but we must remember that engagement does not come for free.

Day 71 of 365 (Get the juices going)

Over the past couple of days I have had a bit of a mental block about writing. I went out searching for my favorite writing prompt site, onetwofiver but it doesn’t seem to accessible in any form to me currently. I went out looking for writing prompts. When I went to Warren Wilson college’s website I found some great tools. Here is the link. http://www.warren-wilson.edu/~creativewriting/Prompts.php

Here are some I am thinking of working with, so keep you eye on this space:

1) Describe a “first” (first apartment, first kiss, first time driving a car, first lie, first big success, first roller coaster ride, first time in this setting). Include as many details as possible, being sure to include an aspect relating to each of the five senses.

2) Describe a memorable event, positive or negative, and how it felt to you, but do not name the feeling. Instead, tell how it felt in your body (damp hands, metallic taste, tight throat, wobbly knees, etc.).

3) Create a story using words of one-syllable only, beginning with a phrase such as: “The last time I saw her, she...” “From the back of the truck...” “On the night of the full moon...” “The one thing I know for sure…”

5) Write the map to where you live. Start as close or as far from your home as you wish.

6) Describe a significant person (teacher, neighbor, mentor, coach, parent, sibling, sweetheart) with as many physical details as possible, but no clichés! (If you’ve heard the expression before, don’t use it.)

7) Write about your first name—why you were given it, what associations or stories are attached to it, what you think or know it means. Do the same for your last name. Given the chance, what name would you give yourself?

8) Describe a presence in your house (childhood home/current place of residence)—a person, a pet, a piece of furniture, an illness, a secret. Use all five senses. Be as detailed as possible.

9) Recall a photograph from your life and describe it in a way that suggests (but doesn’t specifically name) why it matters. (Remember the creative writer’s adage, “Show, don’t tell.”) Describe what happened either just before or just after the photo was taken.

12) Describe a routine or holiday ritual, using present tense verbs.

Feel free to join in the fun.

Day 70 of 365 ( I will be all right some bright day)

Life is joy. Well at least sometimes I think it is. On other occasions I wonder why I opt to fight on so unceasingly. I let the background music catch my attention.

All of my life my days have moved quickly from morning unto night. The hours flew by as I wandered about in my silent sideline kind of style. Standing still now for a mere moment, I catch a glimpse of the things of my life that are flying by. Glimmers of youth, of progress, of missed opportunities they are all part of the parade that goes by.

Day turning into night, night flying by and day turning into night again, the cycle is immutable. I am confounded by time’s passing. Moments of beauty have come and gone. Some linger and some don’t.

I hear an acoustic guitar strumming and then I am looking for you in a small café in the harsh winter of 75-76. I can almost smell the mulled wine in the overly warm bistro air but breathing it all in feels alright.

After a moment I become aware of the voices that bubble underneath the artist that is singing his oh so earnest folk song on stage. Cigarettes are burning low and the lights are muted. The singer stops and steps down. Grabbing a beer he sits down at a table and begins conversing animatedly with two women.

An old song comes on over the PA. Ian Matthews is singing “Woodstock” in that soft gentle way that propelled him to the top of the charts for a week or two in 1972. Yeah, utopian visions are so attractive to the young. Can I walk beside you as we head to the garden?

I keep moving through the café’ until I see you. I smile and you smile back. You flip your hair to the side.

These are days that will matter although I don’t know it yet. The failures of my life have not begun to mount up yet and the victories are changing me for the better. My harshest edges are wearing away.

The song is ended. I am back in the now. My times of running down along the shore are gone. My times of strolling along the river’s edge are gone. I am okay for today, this day.

In reality this is the early morning following a marathon session of my school board. Once again the same battles are being waged as to whether to close one particular school versus another. The battle is wearing. The battle is unceasing. It just goes on and on. I am tired.

I should have listened to that song that says, “You better bring your own redemption to the barricades of heaven when you come.” What I would give for one more night in that bistro. Life is a joy and with a few more bars of the song I will be grounded once again.

Day 60 of 365 (on writing)

On my iPhone I have downloaded the Blogger application. Of all the various applications I have on this electronic marvel Blogger works particularly well. The voice recognition component is pretty solid. The ease-of-use is also very good.

My problem with it is that I tend to think best when I'm sitting at a keyboard. There is something about seeing words appear one by one on the screen that makes the thought process work differently for me. It is clearly different from the process of dictation. I learned this early on in my legal career. As other attorneys in the office were using small tapes they would hand off to secretaries create their motions and briefs I would be crafting my work at a computer.

I guess you could see say I'm one of those visual people. Today I am forced to draft this entry by dictation. Secundus has headed off taking my laptop with him. Such is life. I want my keyboard back.

Day 67 of 365 (The Cost)

Years ago my father and I went to a dinner at the Elmer Grange. I do believe it was one of those fried oyster things wherein I gorged myself with about 30 or 40 of those bad boys and sucked down a gallon of ice tea. On the particular occasion I am remembering right now there was a speaker. He was one of the DuPont scions. When I looked at him that night he seemed genteel. He also seemed quite elderly. Standing at the side of the room before he spoke he seemed frail at least to my young eyes. But when he got to the podium he voice was lively and bright. His talk was part memoir and part motivation speech. His speech was part of the TED of the day. The key line I heard that night was “Everything has a cost whether you think about it or not. Thinking about the cost will make a difference in your life.”

As he talked this elder DuPont went to explain that his uncle loved little cigars and smoked them despite being advised not to. His uncle had been the CEO of DuPont near the start of the 20th century. His uncle of course was ravaged by and ultimately died of oral cancer. The speaker said that this was an example of cost. His uncle loved those cigars and they gave him joy. In the end the cost for those little bits of pleasure was his uncle’s life.

He went on to say that killing time had a cost too. Idleness meant that you weren’t working toward a goal, you weren’t learning something. He acknowledged that yes there was a benefit to rest, but that we needed to be aware of the tipping point between needed relaxation and a loss of motivation and direction.

He came back to his main point that everything has a cost in several different ways. But his digressions all had the same message, what you want, what you do cradle to grave, it all requires you expend something, time, money, energy, health or happiness. The cost may be worth it or it may not. His final point although I am putting in the jargon of our day was that to empower yourself, to better yourself you need to be aware of the cost. Ultimately you need to make sure the cost is appropriate and one you are willing to pay.