A friend sent to me a Washington Post video investigative report published this week called, Stop and Seize: Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes. After I watched it, I sucked in my breath and said to myself, “No wonder there’s a Tea Party.”

The Post reports that, since September 2001, $2.5 billion dollars have been seized in cash by law enforcement officers from nearly 62,000 people on America’s roadways–without a warrant or indictment.

Legally permissible “civil asset forfeiture” is occurring every day throughout the country through “highway interdiction” programs. Drivers who are stopped on U.S. roadways by law enforcement officers can be forced to give up their cash to avoid a canine search of their car or the threat of arrest, with no charges even being filed.

This type of activity is authorized under a 1980s expanded federal law, and similar state laws, allowing law enforcement officers to seize property and cash without having to prove a crime was committed. People who lose their cash this way must retrieve it by filing an expensive lawsuit and winning in court.

Since September 11, 2001, the use of civil forfeiture laws increased more than 50% from 2003 to 2007 to combat drug and terrorism financing.

The cash seized is often sent to the U.S. Justice Department, which keeps at least 20% and returns the rest to the law enforcement agency that seized it. The cash seized can be used to pay for more training. Proponents say the system works, because it rewards police for fighting crime. Critics say that this instead creates a “perverse incentive” to target cash instead of crime. You decide.

The Post reports that one victim did achieve a court victory, even attorney fees. But by the time he had recovered his lost cash, he had also lost his livelihood. In his case, it took a jury less than 35 minutes to find in his favor. Most people can’t afford a legal fight to regain their cash and often settle for less than what was taken from them, or they must pay attorney’s fees from their cash.

As you and other Ohioans begin early voting at the end of this month [I’ve already requested my ballot and wish I could vote for Jennifer, JH] and move forward to Election Day November 4th, you’ll likely hear lots of commercials for and against issues and candidates. When voting for judges, imagine yourself as one of the individuals featured in the video. Then vote for candidates whom you believe will most protect your rights and respect the rule of law.

Jennifer Brunner, 2014 candidate for Franklin County Court of Appeals

The study of law is something new and unfamiliar to most of you; unlike any schooling you’ve ever been though before.

We used the Socratic method here; I call on you, ask you a question and you answer.

Why don’t I just give you a lecture? Because through my questions you learn to teach yourselves.

Through this method of questioning, answering, questioning, answering we seek to develop in you the ability to analyze that vast complex of facts that constitute the relationships of members within a given society.

Question and answering.

At times you may feel that you have found the correct answer. I assure you that this is a total delusion on your part; you will never find the correct absolute and final answer. In my classroom there is always another question; another question that follows your answer.

You are on a treadmill; my little questions spin the tumblers of your mind. You’re on an operating table; my little questions are the fingers probing your brain.

We do brain surgery here. You teach yourselves the law but I train your mind.

You come in here with a skull full of mush and you leave thinking like a lawyer.

I once seriously considered law school purely because I wanted to have a Kingsfield. Dr. Dru Evarts at Ohio University was a close as I ever got.

Six years ago this clip was not yet available—it was posted in 2017—but given the opportunity, thanks to Jon LaRosa’s comment, to review the quote I was able to find Kingsfield’s soliloquy.

Enjoy.

Rule No. 71 – Eat Meals.

From Food Rules, an eater’s manual by Michael Pollan

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook. See also Eating Mindfully by Jan Chozen Bey.

Today’s headlines include:

Local News

Murder trial
Truly historic
GOP dinner speaker seen as a lighting rod
WVUP ceremony salutes victims of 9-11
Committee backs 7th St. parking pad

Top Headlines Poll: Do you feel safer today than on Sept. 11, 2001?

I would say that I feel marginally less safe because after two disastrous, undeclared wars and standing on the brink of a third, the United States continues to flail about and throw hundreds of billions of dollars with no clear plan, no clear goal and no clear purpose other than to thump our collective chests in false bravado.

Great pictures of Marietta…

What’s going on here…

Previously…

You might notice that lots of the things you try to do online today seem slow. But it’s not your internet connection, your router or your computer – the internet is on protest.

The protest is about the US legislation due to be brought in by the Federal Communication Commission over what’s called “net neutrality”—essentially whether the internet should run at one speed for all companies and services, or should be divided into a fast and a slow lane.

If the legislation is successfully passed, companies including Google, YouTube, Netflix and Amazon will likely have to pay for a higher speed internet connection to continue delivering streaming video and other internet services at the same rate they do now to customers and avoid users being infuriated by slow loading times and stuttering video.

Samuel Gibbs writing in Battle for the Net: Why is my internet slow today? for The Guardian.

The American Civil Liberties Union has an excellent idea…

Previously…

I provide essential daily care for a client with disabilities. My client, like my daughter, needs support with food preparation, cleaning, bathing and other daily activities that most people take for granted. I would do anything in the world for her.

But after three years, I’m paid only $9 an hour by the company I work for.

People like me do work that the rest of our society counts on to help those that can’t help themselves. We serve our communities – and, often, we help companies make a lot of money. But we don’t see much of that profit, and workers like me and the fast food workers aren’t paid enough to provide a decent life for ourselves and our families.

Something is wrong in America when many of the people who do essential work that makes the country run every day don’t have enough money to live on, while big companies are making billions of dollars. Whether we work in home care or fast food or some other kind of job, it’s time for us to work together and change that.

Latonya Allen writing in Do you want someone caring for your elderly parent to make minimum wage? for The Guardian.

Parents pay me several times Ms. Allen’s salary to tutor their children, but I only see my students for a tiny fraction of the time Ms. Allen, indeed all home health care workers, spend with their clients.

Minimum wage is not, however, the solution: collective bargaining through a union is the best way to bring about change.

[O]ur lives are plagued with what the blogger Merlin Mann, calls “interstitial time” – small chunks of minutes spent waiting at the doctor’s surgery, or for someone who’s late, or for a meeting postponed at short notice.

It feels like time wasted. But it needn’t be. The poet William Carlos Williams, for example, wrote much of his oeuvre on the backs of prescription pads during gaps in his workday as a paediatrician. Here are some insights from bloggers and authors on using interstitial time, condensed into a form you can digest in three minutes, while waiting for that delayed train:

1. Don’t fall for the “major project” fallacy: really important things, we tell ourselves, deserve big blocks of time and undivided concentration—so they never get done. In truth, most “major projects” won’t be worse for being worked on in short bursts.
2. Batch your tasks: You’ll fit more into a sliver of time if you’re doing several similar tasks – answering a stack of emails, say – than if you try to switch between different kinds of activity. Workplace studies show that time spent “task-switching” eats up the day. Even if your lifestyle does allow long, uninterrupted work periods, batching routine tasks is still sensible: deal with all your email twice daily, for example, and you’ll spend less time on it overall.
3. Take inspiration from knitters, Mann suggests. Knitting fulfills the three criteria of a good interstitial-time activity: it’s portable, it can be done amid distractions, and even a few seconds spent on it contributes to the end result. (That’s not the case with tasks requiring “set-up”, such as waiting forever while Windows boots up on your laptop.) Identify in advance which of your tasks fit the knitting criteria: those involving reading and (hand)writing are a good place to start. Or take up knitting.
4. Do nothing, but do it deliberately. You don’t have to use interstitial time to cram more activity into every last minute. But if you want to use it to “stop and smell the roses”, you have to choose to stop. Martin Boroson’s fantastic book The One-Moment Master is all about learning to condense the practice of meditation into these fleeting moments. And about how, from a certain perspective, a sequence of fleeting moments are all we ever really have anyway.

Oliver Burkeman writing in his column will change your life for The Guardian.

In each case, the results supported the idea that self-control literally relies on glucose. When blood glucose is depleted, we’re less able to exert self-control. The researchers say that the brain has a limited reserve amount of glucose, which allows us to handle the initial task demanding self control, whether it be watching a movie without reading accompanying text, or avoiding fattening snacks. Once that glucose supply is depleted, self control becomes much more difficult, across an array of different tasks.

The researchers are careful to point out that consuming sugar isn’t the only way to increase blood glucose levels — it may be that eating protein bars or complex carbohydrates offers better long-term results. However, my method of using chocolate to help give me the self-discipline to write CogDaily posts has only rarely failed me, for a test period of over three years!

Dave Munger writing in Practicing self-control consumes real energy for Cognitive Daily.

When I was in college my evening study ritual involved two packs of Marlboros and a six pack of Pepsi. Later, when I’d given up smoking and was often in the computer lab where liquids were banned, I switched to Snickers bars. As a budding writer and editor for Harcourt Brace in the ’80s my writing fuel was coffee and a box of Duncan Doughnuts Munchkins.

The challenge these days is how to get the glucose without piling on the pounds again. Roy Baumeister and John Tierney in Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength say this:

When you eat, go for the slow burn. The body converts just about all sorts of foods into glucose, but at different rates. Foods that are converted quickly are said to have a high glycemic index. These include starchy carbohydrates like white bread, potatoes, white rice and plenty of offerings on snack racks and fast-food counters. Eating them produces boom-and-bust cycles, leaving you sort on glucose and self-control–and too often unable to resist the body’s craving for quick hits of starch and sugar from doughnuts and candy. Those all-you-can-eat pancake breakfasts on Fat Tuesday my make for wilder parties, but they’re not all that useful for the rest of the year.

To maintain steady self control, you’re better off eating foods with a low glycemic index: most vegetables, nuts (like peanuts and cashews) many raw fruits (like apples, blueberries and pears) cheese, fish, meat, olive oil and other good fats. [Emphasis mine, JH.] (These low-glycemic foods may also help you keep slim.) p. 58-9

How do you get your glucose?

Rule No. 70 – Breakfast Like a King, Lunch Like a Prince, Dine Like a Pauper.

From Food Rules, an eater’s manual by Michael Pollan

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook. See also Eating Mindfully by Jan Chozen Bey.

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
     But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
     Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
     On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
     That couldn’t be done, and he did it!

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
     At least no one ever has done it;”
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat
     And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
     Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
     That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
     There are thousands to prophesy failure,
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
     The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
     Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
     That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.

It Couldn’t Be Done by Edgar Albert Guest

Today’s headlines include:

Local News

Murder details
Children-in-poverty numbers up
Barnett remembered as tireless volunteer
Theater’s tax exemption proposed
Longer mowing season

Top Headlines Poll: How interested are you in news about the second royal baby?

Great pictures of Marietta…

What’s going on here…

Previously…

Texas Representative – 08/25/2014—The House’s most unique and courageous conservative seeks smart, happy interns (of all ages and backgrounds) for the remainder of the year. Alas, we cannot pay you. Schedules and start/end dates are negotiable if you’re worth it. We do not insist on specific, arbitrary submissions: send us whatever personal materials you think will give us reason to hire you, even if that’s just a standard boring resume and canned cover letter. Writing samples are encouraged, but not required, because even a short cover letter belies and betrays a lousy writer. Brevity is the soul of wit. This Member is not a jerk, and neither loathes nor avoids interns, but loves them, and actually speaks to them. If you are selected for this internship you will have extraordinary access to the Member and to meaningful projects that go well beyond the standard intern grunt work (or your money back). Personality and ideology are important. Please bring a confident, vigorous intellect and no drama. Ideal candidates will be true patriots who can count up to 17 in trillions, and care more about future generations than they do about sucking up to current leadership. Mushy pleasers/appeasers keep walkin’. HINT: vapid granolas who fear guns, hate babies, are ashamed of America, and think Islamic terrorists and illegal aliens are just misunderstood will not be comfortable here.

So, as I read down the list of job openings, every single posting is headed by the name of the member of congress seeking applicants, save this one. Why is that?

The U.S. government is paying private contractors billions of dollars to support secretive military units with drones, surveillance technology, and “psychological operations,” according to new research.

A detailed report, published last week by the London-based Remote Control Project, shines a light on the murky activities of the U.S. Special Operations Command by analyzing publicly available procurement contracts dated between 2009 and 2013.

USSOCOM encompasses four commands – from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps – and plays a key role in orchestrating clandestine U.S. military missions overseas.

Researcher Crofton Black, who also works as an investigator for human rights group Reprieve, was able to dig through the troves of data and identify the beneficiaries of almost $13 billion worth of spending by USSOCOM over the five-year period. He found that more than 3,000 companies had provided services that included aiding remotely piloted drone operations in Afghanistan and the Philippines, helping to conduct surveillance of targets, interrogating prisoners, and launching apparent propaganda campaigns.

“This report is distinctive in that it mines data from the generally classified world of U.S. special operations,” says Caroline Donnellan, manager of the Remote Control Project, a progressive thinktank focused on developments in military technology. “It reveals the extent to which remote control activity is expanding in all its facets, with corporations becoming more and more integrated into very sensitive elements of warfare. The report’s findings are of concern given the challenges remote warfare poses for effective investigation, transparency, accountability and oversight.”

Ryan Gallagher writing in Murky Special Ops Have Become Corporate Bonanza, Says Report for The//Intercept.

What kind of country goes around bombing people with no strategic purpose and with little motive other than to “flex muscles” and “show toughness”? This answer also seems clear: one that is deeply insecure about its ongoing ability to project strength (and one whose elites benefit in terms of power and profit from endless war).

For those who keep running around beating their chests talking about the imperative to “destroy ISIS”: will that take more or less time than it’s taken to “destroy the Taliban”?

Does it ever occur to such flamboyant warriors to ask why those sorts of groups enjoy so much support, and whether yet more bombing of predominantly Muslim countries – and/or flooding the region with more weapons – will bolster rather than subvert their strength? Just consider how a one-day attack in the U.S., 13 years ago, united most of the American population around the country’s most extreme militarists and unleashed an orgy of collective violence that is still not close to ending. Why does anyone think that constantly bringing violence to that part of the world will have a different effect there?

Glenn Greenwald writing in Americans Now Fear ISIS Sleeper Cells Are Living in the U.S., Overwhelmingly Support Military Action for The//Intercept.

President Obama has started describing his new strategy to confront the Islamic State, and despite it being a mishmash of wishful thinking and perpetual militarism, the focus of the Washington elites in the press and elsewhere has been almost entirely on the optics: Is he overcoming the perception that he wasn’t doing enough? What will the political reaction be?

The question we should be asking, as I noted on Friday, is: Why the hell does he think it has any chance of working?

Granted Obama isn’t talking about launching another all-out invasion. “You… cannot, over the long term or even the medium term, deal with this problem by having the United States serially occupy various countries all around the Middle East,” he said in an interview for NBC’s “Meet the Press” broadcast on Sunday. “We don’t have the resources. It puts enormous strains on our military. And at some point, we leave. And then things blow up again.”

But he is apparently planning on re-upping the country for another 3-year hitch in the endless war he used to talk about wrapping up.

Obama will talk about his plans in a speech to the nation on Wednesday, one day shy of the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. He gave a preview on Friday, during a press conference in Wales, and then again in the NBC interview.

His plan calls for stepped-up airstrikes, inevitably leading to civilian casualties; for the kind of Middle-Eastern diplomatic needle-threading that has consistently eluded him in the past; for a political miracle in Iraq; and, despite all the precedent to the contrary, for American-trained indigenous military forces that actually fight.

Dan Froomkin writing So We’re Going to War Again, and All Anyone Wants to Talk About is the Optics? for The//Intercept.

Rule No. 69 – Order the Small.

From Food Rules, an eater’s manual by Michael Pollan

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook. See also Eating Mindfully by Jan Chozen Bey.

On Vacation…

From my dad, of course…

Local News

MURDER TRIAL
League debate on minus incumbent
New rules limit access to pain pill ingredient
River fans to meet in Marietta
New major a major success

Top Headlines Poll: What do you think of stricter regulations pertaining to drugs containing hydrocodone?

Great pictures of Marietta…

What’s going on here…

Previously…