A Message from TSA

Following the December 25 failed terrorist attempt on Northwest Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, the TSA has conducted a comprehensive review of its procedures and finds them wholly inadequate to protect the traveling public. We will implement new measures effective January 1, 2010 on international flights to and from the United States. Here they are:

1. When you arrive at the airport you are to strip, place your clothing in baggage, and check it in at the curb or airline counter.

2. Carry-ons are no longer permitted.

3. You shall present yourself at the security check point with your passport and boarding pass. No other property is allowed.

4. At the security check point, you will be orally, anally and depending on gender, vaginally probed.

5. Canines trained to sniff out explosives and marijuana will conduct a secondary inspection. If you are allergic to dogs, be sure to ask that you be sniffed by a hypoallergenic dog.

6. Once on the aircraft, you will be bound to your seat in chains and injected with a coma-inducing sedative that should be effective for the duration of the flight. If you regain consciousness during flight, you must alert a flight attendant to be reinjected with sedative. To do this, push the red button nearest your middle finger. Failure to inform a flight attendant that you are conscious is a federal offense punishable by imprisonment for not more than two years. 18 U.S.C. Section 2255.

7. For your convenience, you will be equipped with a colostomy bag and catheter. Return them to the flight attendant before leaving the aircraft.

8. You are urged to get dressed at the baggage carousel to avoid conflicts with local police outside the terminal building.

At TSA, we recognize that you could fly the equivalent mileage of ten roundtrips to Pluto and never encounter a terrorist incident but tell that to the passengers on 9/11 who are 100% dead. Some will say the new measures are too extreme but in our zeal to protect the traveling public, we stop at nothing.

Wishing you and yours a safe flight.

Your TSA Administrator

Crossing the River

Before heading to the southern tip of South America, I decided to take a ferry across the river from Buenos Aires to Colonia, Uruguay. If you end up making this crossing yourself, I hope you find this guide helpful because this excursion may turn out more challenging than you ever imagined.

You don´t have to worry about navigating the river because the boat´s pilot takes care of that. The challenge here is navigating what in Spanish they call "los tramites" that is the formalities you have to go through before they let you on the boat. None of these is spelled out in writing. They have been handed down as oral tradition from one generation to the next. And this leaves you at a disadvantage. But don't sweat it. I've already blazed the way for you. Hopefully, this guide will minimize the trauma of the tramites for you.

1. Getting centered. Prepare yourself mentally before going to the estacion fluvial to get on the boat. The best way to accomplish this depends on what works for you. You may call on a therapist (there are thousands of them in Buenos Aires and a few must be hungry and willing to see you on short notice). You may seek religious guidance or achieve the requisite state of tranquillity through meditation or yoga. Finally, you may choose to numb out on the herb or drug of your choice.

Caution-- Use of alcohol is not advised. It will only magnify your feelings of helplessness and desperation. This may send you into a rage causing injury to yourself or others. You may even end up in jail.

2. Upon entering the station, you will be in a waiting area/cafeteria/coffee bar. Look to your right. You will see a sign that says "Venta de Boletos" Follow it. You will have to wait to see one of the three agents sitting at desks in front of computer terminals. When it´s your turn, you will choose the boat you want and the class of service. There are fast boats and slow boats both with first class and tourist sections. Best choice is tourist class in a fast boat since that saves you some money and shaves two hours off the trip. The agent will ask for your passport and enter you into the system. She will quote you a fare and remind you to set your watch to Uruguay time so as to avoid confusion about when you need to show up for the return passage. She will tell you to go to the other side of the waiting area/cafeteria/coffee bar to buy your ticket. You will feel a bit uneasy at this point because you don´t have a single piece of paper to show that you ever talked to her. But don´t worry.

3. When you arrive at the place you were directed, you're in a large hall with 10 windows each serving a distinct function. You naturally gravitate toward the line in front of the window labeled "caja" because that's where you expect to pay and get your ticket. After you wait in line there, you will learn that you made a bad choice. Now you must go to the window on the far right where you will stand in another line. At that window, you will be asked for your passport and the agent will tell you what the fare is. This window seems to serve no purpose other than to check the work of the first agent you met. The amount quoted at this window will be different from what you were told before. You leave this window paperless and follow the agent's finger pointed in the direction of the caja.

4. After standing in line at the caja, it's now your turn. You are excited that the ordeal is almost over. The caja guy asks for your passport and enters you into the computer. A third amount for the fare is quoted, this one higher than the others. When you protest, you get quoted a fare that beats all previous quotes. A printer cranks out your tickets together with a thick wad of extraneous material marked VOID in huge block letters-- all of which is handed to you. You still have more to do. Now you must go to check-in, whether or not you have baggage.

5. Wait in line at the check-in window. Then you hand the agent your pile of paper and your passport which you have now presented for the fourth time. Flipping through the pages, the agent can´t find an entry stamp for mine. Before he says a word, I explain this is a replacement passport and that the one I entered Argentina with was stolen. He wants to see a police report. I produce my Certificado de Denuncia given to me by the police when I reported the theft. He calls over another agent who wants to read it too. Everyone loves a crime story. Then I get a boarding pass and proceed to immigration control where the whole business about the passport and the Denuncia is gone over again with two immigration officials. Finally, they stamp my passport attesting to my departure from Argentina.

Return from Uruguay

Arriving at the station with ample time to board the boat back to Buenos Aires, I see a very long line out the door extending into the huge parking area. Dutifully, I get in it. As the seasons change and the lines in my face deepen, the queue creeps ever so slowly toward the door. I start searching for possible alternatives. Then I remember that I already have a boarding pass for the return and why not just go straight to immigration with that? I leave the line and go there but I'm told they need a stamp and I must go back in the trauma line to get it. Now I´ve lost my place and have to start over. When I make it to the front of the line, I find out that this line is only for the 9 PM crossing. Since I´m booked for 8:30, I should be at the other dock way down on the end about a football field away. I run down there to find out my boat has already sailed.

Back to the first terminal, I explain what happened to a boat company guy. He says I shouldn´t wait in line again but instead go directly to the window on the end to get instant boarding on the 9 PM boat. I get to that window where a smaller line has formed pressed against the wall trying to maintain its integrity against the flow of the larger line of people with bags, backpacks and baby strollers. As I wait in the little line for a family of six to have their papers processed, an American exchange student showed up saying that he stood in the wrong line too and had missed the 8:30 boat. The agent processes our papers at the same time and mixes them up. We think we sort them out until I get to immigration where I discover that the sorting was incomplete. Finally, this all gets straightened out and I get on the boat.

NOTE TO FAMILY TRAVELERS: It is best to appoint an archivist to maintain everyone´s papers together in one place.

In case you fear losing your centeredness before you return to Buenos Aires, take the main road to the end of the old town section of Colonia at the river´s edge where you will run into an artisan/musician/juggler/poet/native american of Incan roots who talks about the goddess Pachamama. He will give you a pamphlet of his poetry gratis, share his philosophy and offer you a joint if he likes you. Of course, this only came to me as rumor and I wouldn´t know anything about it from personal experience.

May the spirit of Pachamama be with you.

Passport Theft in Argentina

I was supposed to leave Buenos Aires but something happened that left me stuck to it like fly paper. The guides tell us that the thieves of Buenos Aires are among the best in the world. Travelers are exhorted to exercise caution. I, a sophisticated traveler, didn't worry too much about that advice since only people who fail to pay attention will get their things ripped off and it never had happened to me.

Between 14:45:30 and 14:45:45 ART, my backpack was stolen at the corner of Av. Corrientes and Rodriguez Peña. The dastardly deed happened because I turned my attention away for a tiny moment to watch a presidential candidate telling a gaggle of reporters about his plan to develop alternative energy sources and eliminate hunger. All of his handouts were green. He had an honest face.

Inside the backpack were round trip airline tickets to Ushuaia, a digital camera, glasses, two travel guides and, of course, my passport. I made an immediate report to the police explaining how that the backpack disappeared while I was sitting at a table outside a cafe. Told the cop that I didn´t think the candidate was guilty. He was way to progressive to be a thief. The cop said we shouldn't jump to conclusions. At the end of the interview, he wrote up a Certificado de Denuncia detailing what happened and what was taken. After I proofed it for accuracy and noticed that he didn't mention the loss of my passport, he revised it and delivered it to me, signed, sealed and suitable for framing. I had to take it to the US consulate for a replacement passport. That´s happening now.

For a while, I was upset about the loss but found a silver lining in the disaster. Now I´ll have less stuff to drag around.

At the consulate, they told me that Bush´s daughter had her purse snatched a while back from a restaurant table. And she had secret service protection. Seems it's true that the thieves in this town are the best.

To avoid snafus over the passport reissuance, I had gone online to do my due diligence before going to the consulate. The website said I might be asked questions about things citizens are expected to know. Reading this, I worried that I could get quizzed about baseball. That was sure to do me in. This is everything I know about baseball:

1. The 880 is a bitch to drive when the A´s are playing at the Coliseum.
2. Baseball is associated with beer, hotdogs and steroids.
3. Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Mickey Mantle were these baseball dudes who did some really cool shit.
4. Barry Bonds broke the record for the most career home runs. Why this is a big deal, I don't know. Seems you´d want to know more like how long was his career relative to the other guy whose record he beat. Did he face more challenging playing conditions? Was Bonds using steroids? How about the other guy? Should this matter?

I hoped I wouldn't be asked baseball questions.

With the new passport in hand, the schedule is to head down to Tierra del Fuego. Expect to be there for 8 days. The land of fire, penguins and glaciers.

The Miniature Earth

When we talk about the demographics of our world, we use numbers in the millions or billions. It's hard to get your head around them. Watch this video. It solves that problem.

Bad First Amendment Decision

Don't make a silent, one second Nazi salute to the chair of a public meeting in California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, Arizona, Montana, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam or the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands because, if you do, public officials who don't like you or your message may eject you from the meeting, put you in handcuffs and haul you off to jail, says a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today in a case I have been litigating for the past seven years.

It doesn't matter that almost nobody saw the salute and the meeting droned on without a pause before an offended city council member (and then I and co-counsel, Kate Wells) made a federal case out of it. We thought we were on solid ground since our client, Robert Norse, didn't disrupt the Santa Cruz City Council meeting he was removed from and we had video to prove it.

We also thought the law was on our side. First Amendment law can be murky at times but until now nothing has been clearer than the principle that government cannot suppress an idea because it doesn't like the speaker or the message. And previous Ninth Circuit decisions did not allow expulsions from public meetings without a disruption.

After reading the contorted reasoning of the majority, take a look at the sensible dissent. See Norse v. City of Santa Cruz, filed November 3, 2009 here: http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/opinions/

[update] On March 12, 2010, the Ninth Circuit ordered review of this case by an en banc panel. On December 15, 2010, the en banc panel voted 11-0 to reverse the decision of the district court and remand the case for trial. For a link to the court's decision, go here: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=23703

Here's the video of the incident submitted into evidence.

Obama Peace Prize

I was surprised to hear that Obama won the Nobel Peace prize after such a short time in power. On the cutoff date for nominations, he was barely in his second week of office. And I'm still scratching my head trying to identify what achievement justifies the honor. Then I remembered that the Nobel Peace prize doesn't always go to people who earn it. Teddy Roosevelt won it. So did Henry Kissinger. As much as I respect Teddy for his creation of the national park system, I have a different vision when I think of him charging up San Juan Hill. I was more amazed than amused when the prize was awarded to Henry Kissinger, a war criminal who deserves incarceration for life without possibility of parole.

Not that Obama is like Kissinger or Roosevelt. It's simply that Obama hasn't earned it. It looks like a windfall. The five-member committee in Oslo, bending the rules to name him the winner before he deserved it, may be optimists or perhaps psychics. Their show. Their rules.

Maybe Oslo gives him too much credit simply because he has a dash of charisma, espouses values that promote peace and world cooperation, and knows how to talk. After the mean-spirited, go-it-alone prick exited the stage, Obama's commitment to rejoin the community of nations is a long-sought after breath of fresh air, equal parts warm and fuzzy. But it's the fuzzy part that bothers me. Looking good and saying things people want to hear is not sufficient.

Obama's dilemma is that he rules an empire with more military firepower than any other sovereign state on earth. He presides over two wars that he doesn't seem able or willing to end. As long as he stays the Bush course in Afghanistan and Iraq, he cannot be a person deserving of a Nobel Peace prize.

Oslo should have a rule that says you don't get the prize if you prosecute a war knowing that you are killing innocent civilians every day in far away places even if you don't mean to. Obama may intend peace as the outcome of his efforts but waging war for peace is like drinking your way to sobriety. It doesn't work.

Actuarial Table

With the deaths of Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Karl Malden and my friend Claire Burch, author and videographer, all happening in the space of a couple of weeks and then having a birthday fall around the same time, I thought I’d better check the actuarial tables at the Social Security website to find out how much time I have left.
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4c6.html

I want to make sure to get all the stuff done on my list before the bell rings. I realize the vast majority of folks deviate from the statistical death forecast as reflected in the social security life chart but what can I do about that? It’s the best I’ve got to work with.

The tables show unsurprisingly that women live longer than men but the gap has narrowed over the past twenty to thirty years. Men’s life expectancy has increased faster than women’s.

An infant is as likely to die in the first year of life as a man in his midfifties is likely to die within one year. In year two, the mortality rate declines precipitously.

The safest year to be alive for males is age 10 and females, age 11. The probability that a ten year old boy will die within one year is a scant 0.000096. For an eleven year old girl, the probability is 0.000106. One percent of males, however, will be dead before the age of 13 and one percent of females will die before age 20. Clearly, the early years are more deadly for boys.

Ninety-eight percent of males make it to 24 and that same percentage of females reaches age 37. Wow.

When you reach age 54, 10% of males born when you were born will be dead. For females, that happens at age 62.

At age 59, you have a 1% chance of dying within one year. Women reach the 1% threshhold at 64.

Seventy-nine percent of males make it to age 65. For females, it’s 87%.

If you make it to age 70, you have 13.30 years left to live if you are a male. For a female at that age, you have 15.69 years left.

A man has a 10% chance of dying within one year at the age of 84, the same as for a woman at age 87.

Of a statistical group of 100,000 men born in the same year, 45,986 will make it to age 80. For women, 60,540 will make it. You can see from this why social security is going broke.

Of our statistical group of 100,000 of each sex, 543 men and 1,981 women will make it to 100. At 100, a man has a 38% chance of dying within one year and a woman has a 35% chance.
　
The table is based on statistics for the year 2005 so it’s slightly dated. Since then I suspect a small shift has occurred in the direction of longer life unless it’s true that the world will end on December 21, 2012, as some say the Mayans have predicted because that's the last date shown on their famously accurate calendar. But we really don’t know the world will end that soon. Maybe the Mayans did mean to signal the precise end date but it seems just as likely that they got lazy or bored with what must have seemed a monotonous abstract exercise and simply walked off the calendar construction job to grow more maize. We’ll just have to wait and see.

I don’t have a strong opinion about what happens after death. I’m open to the idea that in the bardo state, I could make an election to follow the bright light and blend into a cosmic superconsciousness or just return to this plane of existence for an encore. On the other hand, I may have no choice at all. It could be up to some anonymous grader who will examine my life and say I’m good to go or have to return to make up some incompletes.

Another possibility is that when life ends, that’s it. Annihilation. Eternal darkness. The only way to make this acceptable is to remember that I won’t be around to witness it so it will hardly matter to me.

So I go back to this question of getting things done before my final exit. I certainly want to make sure that I’ve left my dog adequate food and water to last until my body is discovered. Before people start snooping and figuring out I'm some kind of loser, I will have wanted to take out the garbage, mop the floor, clean the toilet, cancel my magazine subscriptions and pay Chase. I definitely want to make sure I’ve visited a number of foreign countries and all fifty states. I have three states to go. They are Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin. I’ve got lots of other things on my list but I won’t bore you with them.

After consulting the tables and making appropriate corrections to account for heredity, good or bad habits, and environmental influences, you can do your own calculations and map out a to-do list for the time you have left. So what are you waiting for?
　
　
　
　
　

The most litigious person in the world

The Guinness Book of World Records has identified Jonathan Lee Riches as the most litigious person in the world. http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/may/23/man-sues-book-over-most-litigious-crown/ It estimates that he has filed 4,000 lawsuits worldwide. Since he's locked up in a federal prison and no doubt has law library access, a right afforded him under the Constitution, he apparently has both the resources and the time to hone his pleading and practice skills. “I’ve filed so many lawsuits with my pen and right hand that I got arthritis in my fingers, numbness in my wrists, crooked fingers,” he wrote – by hand – in the latest filing. “I flush out more lawsuits than a sewer.”

Now Riches is suing the Guinness Book of World Records for naming him the most litigious person in the world. And they didn't see this one coming?

California's Flawed Initiative Process

The recent California Supreme Court decision upholding Proposition 8, which declares that only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in this State, disappointed many as evidenced by demonstrations all over the country denouncing the Court. But the problem lies elsewhere than with the Court. It lies with the scant 52.3 percent majority of the voters who approved the measure and with the flawed initiative process itself which allowed a bare bigoted majority to change the California Constitution.

I don't think the word "bigot" is too strong to describe these voters. I haven't heard or read anything on the "yes" side of the Proposition 8 debate that suggests I'm being too harsh. Ultimately, the "yes" crowd's argument relies on the idea that marriage traditionally has been recognized only between a man and a woman. But as the Cal. Supremes pointed out in their earlier decision in the Marriage Cases, tradition is not a good enough reason to deprive gays of the right to marry. Instead they should be afforded the same respect and dignity under the law that heterosexual couples enjoy.

I would add that if tradition is an adequate reason to deprive a minority of the right to marry, then there should have been nothing wrong with the old miscegenation statutes invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia because until that case was decided, there had been a long tradition barring interracial marriage. Jim Crow generally had a long tradition. If tradition trumps civil rights, why not have Blacks drink out of separate water fountains again?

Much of the opposition to gay marriage is based in religious strictures. In fact, the largest financial contribution to the pro-Prop. 8 forces came from the Mormon Church, probably the most homophobic church in the country, apart from Fred Phelps' little congregation of haters in Kansas. Churches are free to reject gay marriage for themselves under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. But insofar as marriage is a civil institution, these religious precepts are entirely irrelevant to the question of equal rights.

The California Supreme Court was forced to accept the will of the voters. It could not conscientiously do otherwise. In the Marriage Cases, the court held that state laws limiting marriage to a man and a woman were unconstitutional because they violated the equal protection clause of the State constitution. Once voters amended the Constitution to reimpose the traditional limitation on marriage, the court had to recognize an exception to the equal protection clause reflected in the language of Proposition 8.

The structural problem leading to this disappointing result is the initiative process itself which allows a bare majority of voters to change the Constitution. Because it is so easy to do, the California Constitution has been amended by voters more than 500 times since it was enacted in 1850. By contrast, the United States Constitution, which has a more rigorous amendment process, has only been amended 27 times since 1789.

So much for the California Constitution as an enduring framework for the guarantee of individual rights. And herein lies the rub. Protection of individual rights is fundamentally at odds with democratic governance. The rights of the majority are always protected, at least theoretically, under a democratic model of government. It is the minority whose rights must be jealously guarded from encroachment by the majority. Enactment of constitutional amendments by a simple majority through the initiative process fails to protect minorities from majority tyranny. At the same time, this is a state that requires a 2/3 vote of the Legislature to pass a budget or impose a tax increase.

This is not the first time the initiative process has been used to weaken rights. For example, the California Constitution was amended by the voters to declare that capital punishment is not cruel and unusual.

In a proposition known euphemistically as the "Victims' Bill of Rights", voters stripped away an entire body of state law which afforded greater protection to Californians than the federal government recognizes under the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments. As a result, California courts are powerless to depart from United States Supreme Court precedent which in recent years has systematically chipped away at these rights and moved the country in the direction of a police state.

Finally, voters have enacted provisions which weaken procedural protections for criminal defendants in court. These include depriving them of a post-indictment preliminary hearing, allowing hearsay testimony by police officers instead of requiring victim testimony at preliminary hearings, imposing limitations on plea bargaining (which in practice are ignored) and removing judicial discretion at sentencing. The effect of these choices has been to overcrowd the prison system to the point that conditions have been declared unconstitutional. This has led to federal court intervention which will force the state to release prisoners early.

So the strategy now should be to put an anti-Prop. 8 measure on the ballot. It will pass. Once that's done, we need to change the Constitution to require a 2/3 vote to pass a constitutional amendment.

My $0.02.

Consumer Tip of the Day

Don't buy a Moon Pie from a liquor store.

I stopped at the classic liquor store on the corner today. I was looking for a bottle of water and found parking right in front. In Berkeley, you take whatever space you can find. When you see a space, you become euphoric, even a little cocky about your good fortune.

On my way to the cold drinks, I spotted a chocolate Moon Pie. I hadn't eaten one since December 12 and thought now's the time.

Once back in the car, I removed the wrapper and bit into it hoping for the best; at the same time suppressing my disappointment at the discoloration of the surface chocolate layer. My taste buds registered no reaction to this Moon Pie. It was thoroughly dessicated. Fossilized. Probably it had been sitting on the shelf since Ronald Reagan's second term just waiting for a sucker like me to come along and pay full retail.

Thinking about it later, it occurred to me that I should have known better. Who goes into a liquor store to buy a Moon Pie? What alcoholic beverage does a Moon Pie go with? Maybe the strawberry and banana Moon Pies go with daiquiries but even that's a stretch.

Buying Moon Pies at a liquor store is like buying carrots at a tire shop.

Don't get burned. Caveat emptor.

Bangkok Market Tour

Stroll through a typical market in Bangkok

Grand Palace Tour

You don't have to go to Bangkok to enjoy the wonders of the Grand Palace. Watch this.

Goodbye

It started out as a trip to a deserted island to camp on a beach. We talked about the state of the world, what we would miss if we never went back, and whether we could make a go, or more accurately, a stay of it here. We've decided to stay. We thanked the tour operator for the sleeping bags, tents, cookware, and utensils and sent him packing with a warning not to bring others.

There are 19 of us, four men and 15 women. We have enough kindling to produce a new generation. The island is self-sufficient. We can grow anything. Plenty of fresh water. Ample wood for structures. We can fish and hunt wild boar.

The decision to drop out was an easy one, what with the random killings, mothers throwing newborns into dumpsters, the lack of political will to end at least extreme world poverty for less than the cost of a bailout to Citibank, the nonstop bickering, war, and corruption, the perversion of religion to justify horrific acts and the threat of nuclear annihilation and pestilence. You can keep it.

I've donned body paint and now sport a tattoo expressing my new tribal identity. We have drums, guitars and bandannas. I'm taking archery lessons. I've got some seeds to plant Chondrodendron tomentosum from which I can extract curare to poison the tips of my arrows for hunting and warding off trespassers.

If this island seems familiar, it may be that you've seen the movie The Beach which was filmed here. In the movie, the tribe fared miserably. But that's them. We have a better organizational plan.

We'll be just fine. Don't worry about us.

Dave

P.S. I need someone to go to my old place to get my dog, Parker. Bring him to Phuket. He needs a first class seat since he likes to spread out. In Phuket, take the boat over to Phi Phi Don Island and deliver him to Phil at the Lemongrass Restaurant (next to the post office). Phil will take it from there. Thanks.

Grand Palace - Bangkok

Stopped by the Grand Palace, the historical home of Thai kings, mostly to take pictures and video since I've been here before. At the GP, all that glitters is not gold but much of it is. Besides gold, you see emeralds, silver, rubies and other precious and semi-precious stones of all hues. It outglitters Las Vegas. No neon necessary. The architecture and craftsmanship is breathtaking in its originality and detail.

Went inside the bot (chapel) where pictures are not allowed. The bot is a celestial dream world. The 66 cm. tall emerald Buddha which is actually jade is no doubt the most precious object in Thailand. But due to its size, the Buddha gets swallowed up in the vastness of the interior space. You might even miss it if you didn't read about it in a guidebook before you got there.
Saw the place where the king holds court. Throne is appropriately regal. Red carpet ready for unrolling when needed.

Thailand Miscellany

I arrived in Thailand a couple of days ago. The last two times I came here as a dental tourist. This time it's tourism period.
The first clue that things are worse now than before was the midday taxi ride from the airport taking only 35 minutes instead of an hour. Despite the crappening economy combined with political upheaval that has devastated the tourism industry, Thais nevertheless manage to maintain their famous smiles. I think it's a Buddhist thing.

Before coming, I did my due diligence by reviewing emails I wrote during the last two trips. I apologize to those who've already seen them but there's some new material too.

Food

First of all, putting a fork in your mouth is considered gauche. The fork is used to pick up food to put on the spoon which goes in your mouth. OK? Do I sound like your mother? I meant to.

McDonald's has a service here called "McDelivery." A simple phone call and within minutes you'll be devouring a double whopper with cheese, jumbo fries and a 36 oz. coke without having to lift your supersized ass off the couch to go get it.

Royalty

Thailand is a constitutional monarchy. The current king, Rama IX, has been on the throne since 1946.

It's not only bad manners to diss him but it's a crime called lese-majeste. A government official was accused of that crime last year but published reports about it can't tell us what the guy said. That, too, would be lese-majeste. The king here is beloved. That's genuine.

Mostly, the king stays above the political fray using his moral capital only to influence events when truly needed.

Politics

Ok, you heard about the shutdown of the Asiatic summit, the wild street demonstrations, the closing of the airports and all that. So what's it all about?

Back in 2006, the Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, was deposed in a military coup. Viewed as the savior of the rural poor, Thaksin's political support came from peasants in the north. As much as he is loved up there, he's disliked in Bangkok. He's now on the lam having been convicted in absentia on corruption charges. Opponents of Thaksin didn't like his successor any better. This precipitated street actions by the yellow shirts who stormed the government house and shut down the airports thus killing the tourist industry. The yellow shirts won and drove Thaksin's successor from office. That was in 2008 or 2551 on the Thai calendar.

In the color-coded politics of Thailand, the red shirts are the rural poor who would like Thaksin back. They were responsible for the demonstrations in the past few weeks. They scuttled the summit of Asian leaders. They haven't achieved their goals yet but demonstrations are promised this week.

While the political conflict between Bangkok and the north gets much publicity, there's been a little-known war going on in southern Thailand for the past 100 years. Malay speaking Islamists in the three southernmost provinces want to secede from Thailand. It's a bloody conflict that has claimed countless lives. About the war: http://www.patininews.net

Bangkok's New Airport Tower

Bangkok's new international airport has the tallest control tower in the world as measured from the base. Measured from MSL, that distinction probably goes to Bangda Airport in Tibet at 14,219 feet plus the height of the tower.

How to Get Your Own Pet Crocodile

Not strictly a Thailand story but reported in the Bangkok Post.

In case you're wondering where your next pet crocodile will come from, don't give it another thought. Crocodile Cambodia will ship 18 eggs with incubator wrapped in a paper bag to any address in the world for a cost of $2,500 USD. The accompanying instructions note that crocodiles may not be appropriate for children and may be dangerous to pets and other human beings. According to the company, ninety percent of the shipments reach their intended recipients without customs inspection.

About the Place I stayed in Chiang Mai

To the editor of Rough Guide to Thailand:
Under the heading The North-Chiang Mai-Accommodations-Moderate-Lanna Orchid Inn, please insert the following language:

"Guests of the Inn are treated to repeated pounding on a gong by neighboring monks at 4:30 A.M. to mark the beginning of the new day. Every day. For this service, there is no charge."

The Phone Book

Thais are listed in the phone book alphabetically by their first names. And it is common to adopt nicknames to confuse evil spirits.

OK, is this traditional massage or buddy massage?

Like many tourists, I sometimes have trouble distinguishing traditional Thai massage parlors from whorehouses. But when you're passing a massage parlor and one of the girls springs off the patio into your path and thrusts her tits into your chest asking if you want a massage and punctuates her question with a second tit thrust, then you can tell.

Albany Bulb

When I was a kid, I lived across the street from a wooded area that had a stream with a dam built by beavers. With direction from my father who knew about such things, my brother and I erected a fort in those woods but the law came and put its foot down.

When we moved to a new town, our property abutted a huge open space where a local nursery grew plants but the bulk of the space remained fallow most of the time. We built another fort. This one being underground was less likely to be detected. It was a low budget project with a hole straight down and a subterranean chamber burrowed off to the side. When my parents learned about it months later, they found it structurally deficient and red-tagged it. It was in that hole in the ground that I got the lassie across the street to give me my first passionate kiss.

Once upon a time we set the land on fire but prompt action and a garbage can full of water effectively doused the flames. No fire department needed to appear. We took care of things ourselves.

Now that open space has been gobbled up by jumbo million dollar homes each vying to out-grotesque the rest. I suspect 2.3 people live in each one even those with the four car garages.

Nowadays, a favorite pastime of mine reminscent of these childhood fantasy landscapes is to take my dog swimming at Albany beach and then go to the adjacent Albany Bulb, a spit of land that juts out into San Francisco Bay. It's a mid twentieth century landfill. Overgrown with weeds, native plants, irregular concrete slabs and twisted rebar, it's not just untamed but has a post-apocalyptic feel made more convincing by the --artful or not-- paintings brushed and sprayed onto the concrete.

It's fun to trapse through the Bulb on its irregular trails and even blaze my own trail through the high grass and uneven terrain. Many places are impenetrable to me but my dog gets to them just fine. He loves the place.

On the southwest corner stands an un-permitted user-built castle overlooking the Bay with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. The castle used to have a circular staircase but sadly it's been destroyed. No use brooding. Impermanence is the nature of things here. On the north side of the Bulb, sculptors busily construct and deconstruct pieces of work that the art police could never envision or accept. Imagine, for example, the one pictured here garnering approval from the same people who stifle the spirit of more typical parks with all of their do's and don'ts.

Detractors of the status quo complain that the Bulb is dangerous. But it's perfectly safe for people who don't stray from the trails. People who cherish safety as the paramount value have plenty of other places to go. If you're looking for a ten on the safety scale and want to go off-trail, don't come to the Bulb.

The City of Albany, clearly lacking pride of ownership, tried to give away the eight-acre Bulb to the East Bay Regional Park District but the District wanted the City to mitigate the property first. Translated from bureaucratic lingo, this means the ingrates wanted the City to haul out the concrete and rebar as a condition of accepting the gift.

The gift having failed, the City then paid a hideous sum of money (hundreds of thousands) to a corporation to come up with a "vision" for the Bulb. When I hear city officials and corporate profit-makers talk about vision, I get scared. I start to think about where the tennis courts will go and whether I'll get busted for letting my dog run free.

Keep Albany Bulb just the way it is.

Judging Judicial Perks

The San Francisco Daily Journal, a legal newspaper, published an article on April 8, 2009 that caught my eye. It's titled, "San Bernardino Supervisors Decide Not to Ax Judges' Perks." The article discusses politicians debating whether the county should eliminate judicial perks in this time of severe budgetary constraints.

Background: Superior court judges in California are paid by the state. They make $179,000 per year plus they get a good health plan and fantastic retirement benefits. If you are lucky enough to be a judge in one of 31 counties (of the 58 counties in California), the county bestows perks on top of state salaries and benefits. For example, in Los Angeles County, judges receive an additional $46,000 per annum. And judges in Tulare County get free gym memberships paid for by taxpayers. I'm in favor of judges staying healthy, but is this really necessary and is it good public policy?

Last October, an appellate court ruled that these county supplements to judicial salaries are unconstitutional because the state legislature hadn't approved them. In response, the legistature quickly ratified them and declared that counties could stop them whenever they want.

Those who defend the practice say county perks are necessary to attract competent candidates for judgeships who otherwise would stay in private practice to make even more money. I say let them stay where they are. Who are these people that we need so much, and whose competence is so great, that we should worry that they will refuse the job because they just can't make it on $179,000 a year? I prefer my judges to be people who can relate to ordinary folks who make it on far less.

Detractors, according to the article, say that judges who take county money are "double-dipping." But that accusation is both unfair and misses the mark. Judges are not fudging numbers to get more than they deserve. There's no accounting fraud going on here.

What the article misses is the more interesting question whether these judges have a conflict of interest in every case they hear in which the county is a party. If I were a litigant before a judge who accepts a $46,000 annual gratuity from my opponent, I would worry about how fair that judge could be. A judge who accepts money from a party normally recuses himself under settled standards of judicial ethics. Why is it any different if that party is the county?

One way out of this is for the judges to refuse these county perks just like they should refuse an ordinary bribe. Any judges out there willing to do this?

A Survivor's Guide to Credit Cards

A few years ago, anyone with bad credit and a pulse could get a credit card albeit with crappy terms. People with good credit could get limits many times their annual income. But we've entered a new age. With the economic downturn, banks have tightened underwriting standards, slashed credit lines, and raised interest rates and fees. This has affected even people with good credit. Understandably, banks are skittish as default rates climb to 8% or more. Never mind that these adverse actions come from some of the same banks that are deep in your pockets as taxpayers. It feels like a double blow.

Several years ago, American Express ran ads about a businessman who took his customers out to dinner only to be embarrassed when his over-the-limit Visa card was declined. But after he got the American Express card with no preset limit, this never happened to him again. That is until now.

AMEX is a good example of a company that has been freezing credit without giving notice to its customers who find out about it only after they get to the cash register. Before turning the card back on, AMEX is known to put these customers through a financial review which may include a demand for release of tax return information not from the customer but from the IRS directly. And this can happen even to people with stellar credit.

The best thing to do in the current environment is to keep below the banks' radar screen. I have synthesized the wisdom of the sages, applied it to my own situation and remain unscathed at least for now.

1. Monitor your credit reports from the three primary credit reporting agencies, Experian, Equifax and Trans Union to make sure the information is accurate. Know what your credit score is. You can get it at www.myfico.com. This will keep you from getting fleeced in any kind of credit transaction because you'll know what rate you deserve.

2. You have to position yourself in this market so that if one company jacks your rates or slashes your credit lines, you can take your business somewhere else on short notice. This means carrying several cards with different banks. If banks think you have nowhere to run, they will screw you.

3. Keep your utilization as low as possible. Below 10% is ideal. Over 50% is bad and 80% makes you an enticing target. To calculate utilization, add up your credit card debt and divide it by the total limits available on your cards. For example, if your total credit lines are $50,000 and you owe $10,000, your utilization is 20%. Higher utilization translates into higher risk and exposes you to adverse action. It also causes your credit score to dive. Banks monitor your reports on a regular basis and will take action if they see you're getting deeper into debt.

4. Pay substantially more than the minimum payment due. Banks think people who pay minimums are in distress. It's a red flag to them.

5. The conventional wisdom says you should apply for new credit only when you need it. I disagree. Only apply for new credit when you don't need it and only for the purpose of enhancing your credit profile in accordance with paragraphs 2 and 3. You'll take a minor credit score hit from the inquiry to your report but that effect will be washed out in many cases because with the larger pool of available credit, your utilization will go down. Don't ask for credit line increases on your current cards unless you are trying to restore a line that has been slashed. But you can backdoor your way into a credit line increase with an existing creditor by applying for a second card and then combining limits with the old card and canceling the new card. Don't try this right after you get the new card. Wait at least three months and then combine.

One reason why combining lines is a good idea is that it raises the average of your credit card limits. Other things being equal, a credit file with an average credit line of $15K, for example, looks more solid than a file with an average credit line of $2K. As you apply for future credit, you will get a higher line because the new bank often matches your current lines. Higher limits beget higher limits. The object here is not to use the credit extended to you. It is to enhance your profile to insulate yourself from a random financial attack.

Another advantage is that you have more borrowing flexibility with higher lines while appearing less risky. Say you want to borrow $10K. It is better to do it on a card with a $50K limit than one with a $12K limit. Borrowing on the $50K card doesn't raise eyebrows but borrowing on the $12K card might because you're close to the limit even though in each illustration you're borrowing the same amount of money.

6. Periodically, ask for APR reductions. If your FICO score is in the mid 700s or higher, there's no reason why you should pay even 10% for purchases as long as you've followed the suggestions in items two and three, above. Even if the companies advertise your card at a higher rate, the odds are good that you can get a deep discount just by calling and asking. It's possible to get standard purchase rates in the range of 4.9 % to 7% from Bank of America, Chase, Discover, and Citibank. Just use your cards regularly, keep your balances low and always pay on time.

People who always pay in full may not see the importance of this because they don't pay finance charges no matter what the rate is. But that's not the right way to think about it. Asking for concessions now when you don't need them is better than waiting until you do because when you do, you can't get them.

7. Most banks report your statement balance to the credit reporting agencies each month. Carrying even small reported balances on multiple cards can hurt your credit score. At the same time, you want to use all of your cards to keep them from getting closed for inactivity. To accomplish this, pay the bulk of your balances down to zero just before the statement cuts. The other way to accomplish this is to rotate periodically the cards you use.

8. With the zero tolerance policy for payments that are even five minutes late and the punitive consequences of paying the standard $35 late fee and having your APRs jacked into the stratosphere, it is crucial that your payments reach the bank on time. Never mail payments. Don't use a bill payer service. Either of these methods can go awry and you'll be the one paying for the bungling of others. The best way to pay is to go directly to the creditor's web site. Print out the transaction confirmation and you'll be safe.

9. Never use your cards for cash advances.

Happy charging.

Drug War Over, Drugs Win

In a live address to the nation today, President Obama announced that the United States is pulling out of the drug war. The President said the nation no longer can afford to fight a war on terror and drugs at the same time.

Seated at a huge conference table in the Cabinet Room surrounded by representative samples of common formerly illicit drugs including plants, fungi, piles of powders in various hues, bricks of hashish, and tabs of ecstasy, the President said it's time for the country to forge a new relationship with drugs. An eight foot high mother plant from Humboldt County was flown in on Air Force One for the occasion. A group of psilocybin mushrooms sat in a cool moist spot near the President hanging on to his every word.

The President said he consulted with his advisors and his base of internet users whose emails overwhelming encouraged him to take today's action. He stated he regretted the billions spent on the useless war over the past eight administrations along with the unacceptable death toll caused by aggressive enforcement and drive by shootings.

President Obama also decried the rise in official corruption fueled by the high prices of drugs. He condemned CIA covert actions bringing cocaine into the inner cities during the 1980s and police officers who made millions taking a cut from every shipment they permitted to cross the border. "Police officers stealing drugs and cash from pot clubs, dealers, and kids hanging out to blaze undermines respect for law enforcement," Obama said. By executive order, drugs incarcerated in evidence lockups throughout the nation will be released by the end of the day.

Said the President, "While some may say that the social costs of legalizing drugs will be high, I have no doubt that the cost of the drug war has been much higher. In my view, the cure has been far worse than the disease. We need to adopt a pragmatic approach that includes education and treatment. At the same time we must respect individual autonomy to make choices even if we as a society do not agree with them." The President pointed out that drug distribution to minors will remain a felony.

As a result of today's announcement, a million people locked up for nonviolent association with drugs, conspiracy, and aiding and abetting drugs during the war will be released and their convictions set aside.

"The ushering in of this new era of peace will have economic ripple effects," noted one economist. "Expect a 2 to 3% spike in the unemployment rate caused by the release of prisoners and layoffs of correctional officers. In addition, drug dealers will now have to look for legitimate work. The arms industry can expect to see a dip in sales, too."

The cost of drugs is expected to plummet within days putting armed and dangerous drug dealers instantly out of business. New products which will be subject to FDA standards for purity and potency are expected to hit the shelves of major drug chains within days. An ounce of high grade pot which used to cost $400 or more will be available for $60 and taxed under the President's plan.

With the legalization of hemp, a sturdy product which could compete with cotton but does not require use of harmful pesticides and herbicides, companies such as Monsanto and Dow which supply these chemicals to cotton growers can expect revenue shortfalls by next quarter. Shares of each were off by 10% at market close today.

Edna Haggerty, a 72-year old grandmother, housed at a federal prison in Texas for making and distributing pot brownies, was elated by the news. Until today's order releasing her, Haggerty would not have been eligible for parole until her 119th birthday. "I thought by the time I got out of here, I wouldn't be able to see good enough to find my oven much less start my work again. I'm ready to get my product moving," Haggerty said.

Star Chamber in America - Part 6

Mom and Dad scraped the money together to hire a lawyer who managed to get the boys reunited with them at the six month review hearing. Mom and Dad are working with the boys to overcome the trauma stemming from the long separation. The boys blame Mom and Dad for failing to protect them from the state. They fear every knock at the door. They are even afraid to leave the house. They avoid encounters with the police. They have nightmares.

Amber continues to make progress in therapy with Mom and Dad. Likely she will be returned home within a few months.

Proposals for Reform

1. Federal funding should be changed to encourage local agencies to provide services in the home of the family whenever possible. Currently only 11% of the funding goes to family preservation. A social worker once told me she would love to send children in one of my cases home under court supervision but there was no money for that.

2. Jury trials should be afforded in juvenile dependency cases. I think one of the problems with court trials is that unless all parties agree, judges chronically fear returning children where the evidence warrants it. The judge does not want to bear the responsibility for making a bad choice so he makes the safe choice. This violates the law which requires return to the home unless there is clear and convincing evidence that the children would be at risk if returned.

3. The dependency courts need to be open to the public. The rationale for closed proceedings is to protect the privacy of children. While this is a legitimate concern, often these children will end up testifying in a public trial where the parents are accused of crimes arising from the same acts which led to the juvenile case. The privacy rationale fails at least with respect to child witnesses in parallel juvenile and criminal prosecutions.

Even when the identity of a child is known to the media in a high profile case, the child's name usually is not disclosed.

The case for public access is that transparency will help to curb the excesses described in this series. In particular, media has a role to play in keeping the system honest. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

4. Exclusive reliance by the courts on the opinions of expert witnesses and the input of services providers on the payroll of the social services agency corrupts the judicial process. One alternative is to take the function of hiring them away from the agency and place it somewhere else so that they will not skew their reports to favor the agency. Another alternative is to provide funding for the parents to hire their own experts to rebut the experts chosen by the agency.

5. Rules of evidence which permit cases to be decided on reports rather than live testimony should be repealed. Social services agencies should be required to prove their cases in the same manner as any other litigant.

Star Chamber in America - Part 5

Mom and Dad are back at the Star Chamber for the third time. The court has received the disposition report of the social worker with Dr. Hack's report attached as an exhibit. The recommendation is for continued placement of Amber in foster care. The boys will live with the toxic grandmother. Both parents are ordered into therapy.

Dad has already started his school for sexual batterers. The instructor has demanded that he write about what he did to Amber. Dad who didn't do anything inappropriate refuses to admit that he did. The instructor explains that the first step in treatment is to overcome denial. If Dad can't do that, he cannot make progress. The instructor tells Dad that he will be reported as noncompliant unless he changes his mind.

Mom is furious. She tries to address the Star Chamber directly but instantly gets shut down because she's represented by counsel. "No, I'm not," Mom says. She goes on speaking until Judge Gruff tells her that she will be removed from the Star Chamber if she persists. Mom's attorney says nothing.

Mom and Dad have never been informed that they have a right to a contested hearing with witnesses if they want it. Their attorneys remain silent throughout the proceeding except to submit the matter on the social worker's report and Dr. Hack's evaluation.

The court orders six months of reunification services to both parents and sets a date six months away to evaluate their progress. The hearing is over in 15 minutes.

Star Chamber in America - Part 4

Dr. Harley Hack is a clinical psychologist with an impressive resume. It prints out to eight pages listing in bullet points the degrees earned, papers written, awards bestowed, and lectures delivered.

At the behest of the social worker, Dr. Hack has seen Mom twice. First to do the usual tests and then to ask questions about social and family history.

Dr. Hack sits in his den at midnight facing the computer. He pours a second shot of scotch over rocks as he warms to the task of weaving the narrative of Mom’s life to the results of the clinical tests administered in his office two days ago. Dr. Hack has prepared hundreds of these evaluations before. Cutting and pasting from previous reports on people he can barely remember, Dr. Hack can whip up a report on Mom for the Star Chamber in a couple of hours.

Dr. Hack is far more comfortable perched on Mount Olympus making judgments about parents stuck in the Star Chamber quagmire than he was as a younger doctor with a therapy practice. Back then, he mechanically passed a tissue while feigning concern for patients he didn’t care about. The patients, of course, soon realized what a fraud he truly was. After one or two sessions, most of them would let their fingers do the walking in search for a new therapist. Only the ones trapped by a court order compelling them to see Dr. Hack stayed much longer than that. Figuring there was something wrong in his style more than just the bow tie, he discovered that his talent lay in judging rather than helping.

His personal life mirrors the dysfunction that drove him away from doing therapy. He lives with his wife in a house divided. Separate bedrooms and independent lives. The marriage is held together by inertia, on life support. His grown children barely speak to him.

Dr. Hack begins his report about Mom by acknowledging that he reviewed and relied on the social worker’s twisted reports. Formulaically, he writes that "[mom] appears to be her stated age of 45, presents with appropriate affect, and is oriented in all three spheres."

In a discussion of the psychological testing results, Dr. Hack notes an elevated scale suggesting that Mom is faking good. In ordinary parlance, this means that Mom tried to impress the examiner. Although this is entirely to be expected in the case of a mother wanting her kids back, Dr. Hack chooses his words carefully to turn "faking good" into an indictment of Mom dripping with innuendo of manipulation and deceit.

Dr. Hack goes on for pages describing his conversations with Mom. He bends a few facts here and there to fit his themes. He notes that she chokes up frequently and rambles on about how horrible the Star Chamber is. She attacks the judge, the lying social worker, her inept lawyers and county counsel. Dr. Hack concludes that Mom is clinically depressed, suffers from post traumatic stress disorder brought on by the allegation against Dad and has delusional thoughts that the Star Chamber is out to get her. She is in denial about Dad’s bad behavior and a risk to the kids until she changes.

The Star Chamber will take Dr. Hack's words at face value. It will not occur to parents’ counsel that they should subpoena this guy and light a fire under his ass in cross-examination. There will be no voice to challenge the distinguished Dr. Hack.

If it occurs to Dr. Hack that Mom’s depression and PTSD might come from suddenly having cops rip away her children in the middle of the night, or the injustice of the Star Chamber in keeping them from her, or the perjury of the social worker that gave the Star Chamber the excuse it needed, or having to face this nightmare without counsel, he doesn’t mention them. He knows who writes his check. Best not to bite the hand that feeds you.

Star Chamber in America - Part 3

Mom and Dad arrive at the Star Chamber for their 1:30 P.M. hearing about something. They join the tide of humanity waiting in the hall for cases to be called. A sign posted on the door tells them to stay out until they are called. As the hours creep by, a dull stupor sets in. Occasionally they sit up alert when they catch glimpses of their lawyers popping their heads out the courtroom door. Still no sign of recognition from them. Mom and Dad sink back into semi-consciousness.

Eventually, their attorneys come out to talk to them. We have good news, they say. They tell Mom and Dad that the county is willing to amend the petition to say that Amber has made allegations of molestation against her father, that this has caused her severe emotional distress and the family needs therapy to deal with it. The attorneys propose that the parents "submit on the petition" rather than go to trial. It’s the best thing to do, say the lawyers, because the amended petition does not say that Dad actually molested Amber.

The attorneys warn that the Department almost always wins these cases and that the social worker will be unhappy if they go to trial because she will think they are persisting in denial and failing to cooperate. Besides, say the lawyers, we can get more quickly down to the business of reunifying with the children. "What about the boys?," Mom asks. They will stay where they are or go to Grandma’s house say the lawyers. The judge isn’t likely to return them befor a psych evaluation is completed.

The Honorable George Gruff will hear Mom and Dad’s case. Presiding in Department 44, he hears only juvenile dependency cases. Judge Gruff didn’t pick this assignment. He’s the new judge. As the one with least seniority he ended up here because none of the other 65 judges on the county superior court wanted the job.

Judge Gruff’s background as a deputy district attorney and then a defense attorney representing asbestos manufacturers does nothing to prepare him for handling Mom and Dad’s case. He has no experience dealing with the problems of the poor.

The people who come into his court are indeed unfortunate but this fact does not weigh in their favor because Judge Gruff has an unshakable belief that people shape their own fortunes. This belief comes cheap. Born into a legal aristocracy where men in his family have become judges since the gold rush, a judgeship was as natural a destiny for Judge Gruff as having his baby teeth fall out. He cruises into court from his home perched high in the hills to weigh the fates of people who might as well have come from Venus or Mars.

Judge Gruff’s ignorance forces him to depend on the guidance of Mom and Dad’s adversary, the county attorney who Judge Gruff sees five days a week. His honor respects social workers since they’re about protecting children and would have no motive to mislead him. He knows nothing about Title 4-E funding or social workers attracted to the job because they are control freaks with the need to project their own issues on to hapless parents. About the time Judge Gruff becomes seasoned in the job, he will leave Department 44 never to look back.

The attorneys tell Mom and Dad that Judge Gruff is tough. They are well-advised to accept the social worker’s case plan. Mom will get an evaluation and follow the recommended course of treatment. Both parents will take parenting classes. Dad will go into therapy and attend a school for sexual batterers. Amber will get individual counseling. After a while, if everything progresses well, Amber and both parents will participate in joint family counseling.

The Department will select the evaluators and therapists from a list of approved providers who depend on the Department’s continuing largesse to pay their bills. The social worker will furnish her reports to the assigned professionals for their use as background. These reports will tell them what result the Department would like to see. The parents don’t get their own independent evaluators or therapists because they have no money to buy them like the Department does.

Once inside, Judge Gruff calls the case. The attorneys who have never interviewed their clients tell the court the parents are willing to submit on the amended petition. The court asks Mom and Dad if that’s what they want to do. They respond, "yes." "Very well," says Judge Gruff who then takes waivers of the right to a trial from the parents and explains that the court will decide the case on the social worker’s report.

The court then finds the allegations of the amended petition to be true. Mother is ordered to have an evaluation. The social worker is granted discretion to place the children with grandma. The case is continued for 30 days for the results of Mom’s evaluation.

Note about players in the Star Chamber

County counsel represents the social worker and the Department. A different lawyer represents the children. This attorney almost always supports whatever the Department wants to do even if it’s not what their clients want. This disregard for the children's views is permitted in California under Welfare & Institutions Code section 317 which states that the duty of minor’s counsel is to advocate for the minor’s best interests and not for what the minor wants. Section 317 is at odds with ABA standards for minor’s counsel, adopted in most states, which require counsel to advocate for what the children want just as an attorney for an adult would be required to do.

Parents’ counsel are appointed by the court and paid by the county. Usually a small group of attorneys handle the bulk of the cases. They appear regularly in the Star Chamber. They form a collegial bond with the other players. They understand that we’re all in this together to get things done in a demanding, high volume court.

The losers in the Star Chamber are the parents and children whose rights are traded in to maintain the spirit of cooperation and efficiency.

The truth finding process is nullified. The parents and children never get heard. The social worker’s unrebutted warped narrative becomes the foundation for the court’s findings. It’s nearly impossible to undo these findings once they are made. They will continue to haunt the parents for months, even years.

My apologies to conscientious truth telling social workers and parents’ counsel who work hard for their clients and may even meet with them in their offices before trial and talk to them on the phone. Kudos for not succumbing to the excesses of the Star Chamber. There are far too few of you.

Shortest Story Ever Told

For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.

Ernest Hemingway

Star Chamber in America - Part 2

Mom and Dad are getting ready to return to the Star Chamber for the next phase of the case. After coming home from the last appearance, they immediately sat down at the table to figure out what this was all about. As they read, they became increasingly alarmed.

Their daughter, Amber, age 12, turned in her father for touching her inappropriately. The molest happened on a Saturday night a month before she was placed in foster care, according to Amber. Dad told her not to say anything about it. The night that she was picked up, she had left home against parental orders and gone to her best friend’s house where she revealed the molest to the friend’s mother who made the call, as Amber knew she would.

Dad remembers very well the night that his world turned upside down because there had been a showdown over Amber’s skipping school and hanging out with older boys. Dad couldn’t be sure but he suspected Amber was having sex. After finding a roach in her room, he knew she was smoking pot. For a couple of weeks, Amber steadfastly refused to do any chores or participate in family activities. She spewed hate at both parents when they tried to communicate with her. That night, Dad took away her I-pod, access to the internet, and banned her from going out for two weeks hoping her behavior would improve. These restrictions scuttled Amber’s plans to hang out. She was especially irked because Dad rescinded his OK for her to go with her best friend’s family on a weekend ski trip to Tahoe. Amber was enraged.

Mom and Dad haven’t seen Amber since she was placed in custody. That was the day before the social worker and cops stormed the house to grab the two boys.

They haven't missed a single weekly supervised visit with the boys who are five and eight. They sit around a table in a small sterile room at the Department of Social Services. While parents and children are happy to see each other, the setting is stressful and unnatural. It's even harder for them when the visit ends.

A stern lady with glasses and hair in a bun writes down everything they say and do. There are rules to follow or the visit will be terminated, she warns them. No talking about the case. No talking about when, if ever, the boys will come home. No words to lend hope to them that this nightmare will end. No crying in front of the children. The children are not to cry either. No whispering. The boys are not allowed to talk about their foster home or the new school they attend. This information might give the parents clues about where they are. Any item given to the boys must be inspected by the lady with glasses and hair in a bun. Notes or cards from the parents must be read before delivery. Any violation of these rules will be reported to the social worker who will pass it on to the Star Chamber with the social worker’s conclusion that the parents are uncooperative, sneaky and clearly not to be trusted.

The visits last one hour, usually on Tuesdays but occasionally they are abruptly canceled to serve the convenience of the Department. Sometimes the missed visits are made up and sometimes not. It’s all up to the social worker. The Star Chamber has granted the social worker discretion to set the terms. The children sometimes don’t get to the visits on time because the foster parents have to drive 80 miles each way. Although the parents have not violated any rules, the social worker refuses to expand visits, citing the Department’s scarce resources.

Even thought there’s no allegation that the boys have been neglected or abused, they were taken under the rule of the Star Chamber that if you take one child, you take them all.

Mom and Dad are very scared. They tried to make appointments with their court-appointed lawyers. They left message after message in voice mail but the lawyers never returned their calls. They’re not really sure what’s supposed to happen in court today because no one has explained the process to them. What they don’t know is that today is the day set for the hearing to decide whether the allegations made against them are true and to decide where the children will live.

The petition says that Dad molested Amber and Mom failed to protect Amber from Dad. A small sentence in the petition says the boys are at risk in the custody of their parents. Mom is characterized as mentally unstable and under Dad's control to such a degree that the children are not safe in the home.

The social worker has interviewed all of the collaterals in the case including the children’s doctors, teachers and daycare workers. The worker has also interviewed the estranged maternal grandmother who has held a long term grudge against Dad. She's sure he's a good for nothing. He certainly isn’t right for her daughter. Grandma says she’s not a bit surprised that Dad would molest Amber. Grandma is upset that the parents won’t let her have contact with the children more than once a year. The parents admit this. She's toxic, they say. The grandmother would love to have custody and the social worker has arranged to visit the grandmother's house as the first step in placing the children with her.

The social worker interviewed Amber about the details of the molest. Initially she confirmed that it happened. But after a while Amber started to crack. Eventually, she recanted her story completely. The recantation doesn’t make it into the narrative of the social worker’s report for today’s hearing because the social worker doesn't believe Amber's recantation. Recantations happen, she reasons, because children want to be with their parents, even ones who mistreat them.

The social worker has also interviewed Mom and Dad. She tells them in no uncertain terms that they need to take responsibility for their actions. She says children don’t lie about these things. If you want your children to come home, you will tell me what happened. Mom is in tears throughout the interview. The loss of her children and the cruel allegations against the father have nearly driven her over the edge. The social worker notes that Mom is so emotionally unstable and fixed in denial, that she is not capable of taking care of the children at this time. Clearly, she needs a psych evaluation with follow up treatment and possibly drugs to control her moods. She advocates for this in her report to the Star Chamber.

The social worker has talked to the boys over and over again to get them to make statements damaging to their parents. She tells them that no parent is perfect and that if they want to go home, they will have to disclose everything that is bad about their Mom and Dad.
She accuses them of lying when they stand by their story that they are well treated.
The social worker asks about the grandmother. The older boy says she’s weird and he’s not comfortable around her. She scares him. She makes everyone uncomfortable. The social worker writes this up in her report, informing the Star Chamber that the parents have caused the children emotional harm by alienating them from the grandmother who the social worker has interviewed and found to be warm, nourishing and good for the kids.

The social worker recommends that the children be declared dependents and remain in foster care for the time being while she investigates the grandmother as a suitable placement.

Star Chamber in America - Part 1

The star chamber was a court in England for the trial of prominent people whom the monarchy believed would not be convicted by common jurors. The court sessions were held in secret with no indictments, no juries, and no witnesses. Evidence was presented in writing. There was no appeal. Parliament abolished the infamous star chamber in 1640.

For the most part, our system prohibits the worst excesses of the star chamber. Provisions in our constitution secure the right to a public jury trial, the right to confront our accusers through cross examination, and the right against self-incrimination. The right to appeal is guaranteed generally by statute.

Having mentioned the star chamber, you’ve probably figured out that I’m going to talk about the military tribunals at Guantanamo where inmates sit for years not knowing what charges or evidence landed them there. But I’m not going to talk about that. I’m going to discuss a different court system that touches many more lives than the few hundred at Guantanamo. It's a system that exists in every county in the United States and it’s called the juvenile dependency court. This is the court where parents go when their children have been taken away based on allegations of parental abuse or neglect.

The juvenile dependency system shares many hallmarks of the star chamber. The allegations are usually drafted in a vague manner subject to revision at any time as opportunity arises. Defending against fluid allegations that may be radically altered at the whim of the court, the parents are forced to deal with a moving target. The proceedings are secret. There is no jury. The entire case can be disposed of by submission on a social worker’s report largely consisting of hearsay. The families have a huge stake in the outcome because it may mean termination of parent-child relationships and transitioning of children into permanent adoptive homes. If the children are very young, the parents have only six months to reunite with them before a permanent plan is made for adoption.

Most of the parents sucked into the system are poor. Living constantly on the edge of financial ruin, they must meet the system’s demand for their time to deal with the disaster that now confronts them. The state has taken the first step to sever the relationship between these parents and their children.

The federal government funds the system through Title 4-E of the Social Security Act. The law rewards state and local governments for each child placed in foster care. The sky is the limit. Only a small fraction of this money ends in the hands of the foster parents. The rest is used to hire more social workers to get out and grab more kids. The feds will pay a bonus for each child successfully placed for adoption. If the child has special needs, the feds will supplement the money. These monetary incentives favoring permanent removal of children infect the bureaucratic culture in such a way that children are often removed for the flimsiest and most trivial of reasons.

The first step in the process is the detention hearing where the court will decide if the children will be kept in foster care until a trial is held. Most of the time they already are in custody having been removed from their homes by a social worker and/or the police. There’s a high probability that the removal was effected illegally because the children were taken without a warrant when they were not in danger. Frequently, the social worker accompanied by armed police officers who know nothing about the case barge into the house without consent. The juvenile court does not care about that.

We will talk about a hypothetical case involving Mom, Dad, their daughter, Amber and two sons. The children were removed and currently reside in foster care. The court will hold a hearing today to determine where they will live until the case is decided. A petition has been filed alleging that Mom and Dad have abused and neglected the children.

The detention hearing (item 26 on the court's afternoon calendar) will likely be over in less than 10 minutes. Mom and Dad have had no time to prepare for it. They were just handed a slew of documents at the door and won’t be able to look at it until they get home. It’s equally likely that their newly appointed attorneys haven’t read it either before they utter the only ten words they'll say during the hearing: "your honor, we'll submit on the social worker's detention report."
The children are detained. Mom and Dad are grieving. The only salve offered by their new lawyers is, "don't worry, we'll have a chance to talk about this later." In a few weeks or months depending on how busy the court is, there will be a trial or as it's known in juvenile court lingo, an adjudication hearing.

Words Matter

I’ve been thinking a lot about language lately. I’ve been around long enough to witness many new words emerge, drop out, and others take on new meanings in the American lexicon. In some cases these new meanings entirely displaced old ones. Take, for instance, the word "gay." Historically, the word meant merry, happy or carefree, like having a gay time with friends at a picnic in the park. That word cannot be used in this sense anymore. In the past, a gay man would have been mighty attractive to a woman who certainly didn’t want to be stuck with a stodgy and dull one, but should she discover he’s gay today, it’s probably time for a serious discussion about divorce.

The word "google" entered the language in the past ten years as a verb. Only recently have I been able to google information about someone or something. Before that I had to trudge down to the library or hire an investigator to find out what’s what. Now I don’t have to because I can google practically anything I can imagine. I found out that my dog is googleable because his picture was in the newspaper. Last year, my client’s dog, Jade, was shot and killed by an Oakland cop. Now Jade can be googled too.

In the realm of American politics, there’s a darker side to the dynamic change of our lexicon. It doesn't please the ears because it's, well, un-American. We now have a huge bureaucracy called the Department of Homeland Security. When, before 2002, had you ever linked the word "homeland" with anything having to do with the United States of America? Before that, the word had associations with distant places and dark regimes. For one thing, it evokes a disturbing image of Nazi Germany which was then described alternatively as the fatherland and the homeland. During the apartheid period in South Africa, homelands were ghetto territories where the oppressed black population was kept. Similarly, during Stalin’s reign, minorities who were presumed subversive lived in segregated communities known as homelands. Is it a mere coincidence that the utterly alien-sounding name "Department of Homeland Security" came to fruition during the Bush administration which also deceived us into a war in Iraq, ignored the Bill of Rights and the Geneva Convention, redefined torture to excuse torture, and made its elite base even more appallingly rich than it already was? Too creepy. It's time for a name change.

Another word that bugs me is the word "czar" as in "drug czar." Whatever the czars in pre-revolutionary Russia were about, and some of them like Catherine the Great weren’t necessarily bad, they had nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with autocracy. So why call any government worker in America a czar if you don't mean to give that person plenary power to do whatever he wants even if most of us don't like it? Germany had its autocratic Kaiser before and during World War I and rotting ancient Rome had caesars, all of these titles being variants of the word "czar." America is not supposed to have czars. We’re supposed to have public servants.

Ok, then there's the "war on _______ [insert your favorite thing to declare war on here]." The last good one we had was the war on poverty but that got eclipsed over forty years ago by the war on Vietnam. Since then, we’ve had the war on crime, the war on drugs, and the war on terror. I think we may have had a few others too, but they were fleeting, more like skirmishes than wars.

To have an effective war on something, you first have to objectify the war's target to obscure the fact that you will be terrorizing, imprisoning, and killing people. That's why the war has to be waged against an abstraction like terror or objects with no nervous system like drugs. It’s also a good idea to set a lofty, unattainable goal so that the war persists for a very long time, like Palestine vs. Israel or the Hundred Years’ War. Next, you want to make sure that there’s a lot of money to be made from prosecution of the war. Otherwise, what's the point in waging it?

A while back, walking down the street, I discovered that my city government in Berkeley, California, has a place called the Customer Service Center. For me, the place was mainly where I would have gone to take care of parking tickets if I didn't have a computer to google my way to the website to pay on line. What disturbed me about the title was the word "customer." Through a devilish linguistic sleight of hand, I've been robbed of my citizenship with its attendant rights and obligations to shape the destiny of my city. Now I'm relegated to a passive consumer of city services who's supposed to shut up and pay. I don't remember a vote on this. And I've looked all over but I can't find any contract I ever signed with these people. Frankly I wish I had so I could look for loopholes. For now though, I'll play the contented customer as long as the City plays by the rule that the customer is always right. For some reason though, I don't see this working out.

So maybe you can google your homeland customer service center and find the right czar to inquire gayfully about getting a war started on something that's bothering you.

This Blog

From the Latin, "res ipsa loquitur" the title of this blog means the thing speaks for itself. This blog is dedicated to free discussion of serious and whimsical topics. Although I am a lawyer with a penchant to wax eloquently or not about legal issues, I expect to publish material on a much broader range of topics with the hope that you will enjoy them and post your thoughtful insights.