Archive for October, 2011

Today in really weird news (h/t Lowering the Bar, again):

The Federal Aviation Administration says it will look into a videotaped skydiving sex stunt to determine if the pilot might have been distracted during the incident over Kern County.

Honestly, there ought to be an investigation if it turns out the pilot wasn’t distracted. Wouldn’t that mean they’re doing it wrong?

No, I’m not adding pictures to this post.

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

UPDATE 10/28/2011: The FAA cleared everyone after reviewing some video:

According to video evidence from the stunt FAA spokesman Ian Gregor says the pilot did not appear to be distracted while maintaining their typical piloting role during a skydiving exercise.

Yup, I bet they reviewed the hell out of that video. Since it’s all in the name of safety, I’m cool with it.

October 22, 2011 is National Pit Bull Awareness Day! In celebration, Austin pit bull education and advocacy group Love-A-Bull is hosting the Texas-Sized Pittie Pride event on Sunday, November 6, 2011 in Republic Square Park in downtown Austin. They will be looking to set a record for the world’s largest gathering of pit bull-type dogs. I was there last year and can affirm that it was a great time with some amazing people and the most wonderful dogs in the world.

The night before, they will host a VIP Kickoff Party at Austin Speed Shop, 1414 S. Lamar. More information and tickets are available at Love-A-Bull’s Meetup page.

Special guests at the Pittie Pride event and the VIP party include:

• Actress, producer, writer, and animal welfare advocate Holly Marie Combs
• Singer, songwriter, teacher, and traveler John Shipe (see below)
• Tim Racer & Donna Reynolds of BAD RAP
• 101X radio host and animal lover Deb O’Keefe

Here’s a sample of John Shipe’s musical stylings:

Here are a few of my own pictures from last year’s event:

Friends of Town Lake Animal Center (full disclosure: I’m on the board) will host the Green Gala on October 22, 2011 at the animal shelter’s new location in east Austin. Tickets are on sale now, so go buy some. I’ll wait……

Come enjoy local food and drink and music from The Hot Club of Cowtown.

Seriously, go buy tickets!

The shelter will be moving from its current location on Cesar Chavez, which it has occupied since1952 and the city has managed since 1992, to a new facility at Levander Loop in east Austin, near the intersection of Airport Boulevard and Highway 183. The new facility will open November 12.

Town Lake Animal Center has launched a blog, The Last 100 Days of Town Lake Animal Center, to chronicle the move and the shelter’s history.

 

 

Dangit, why did I never think of this???

If you are injured and in need of a lawyer, Chandler Mason hopes you will remember his bald head.

Mason, an Atlanta personal injury lawyer, is differentiating himself in a crowded field with billboards picturing himself and promoting his website, MyBaldLawyer.com.

I once billed myself online (in the pre-social media era, before I was actually marketing myself for business purposes) as the “Official Bald Guy of the New Millenium.” It was pretty lame. I can’t even find it on the Wayback Machine anymore. This guy is doing it right.

The Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control has fined Brewvies Cinema Pub in Salt Lake City $1,627 for violating “attire and conduct” regulations. The offense? While serving alcohol, the bar showed the move “The Hangover Part II,” which features nudity, sexual content, and so on.

It’s tempting to mutter “crazy Mormons” under your breath and move on, but this merits a bit more examination. Also, I don’t know that this has anything to do with the peculiarities of Mormonism in particular, and I’d rather make this about dumb laws being enforced in a dumb way than about any sort of religious thing.

See, here’s the thing that sticks in my craw: the fine levied against Brewvies is $400 more than the fine levied against another Salt Lake City bar, Jam in the Marmalade [Ed.: Huh?], for serving alcohol to a minor.

Yes, serving booze in the presence of two-dimensional boobs can carry a greater penalty than serving alcohol to someone not of legal drinking age. Something is amiss here.

To their credit, the officials in charge of assessing and enforcing the fines seem less than thrilled with the situation (although that did not stop them from issuing the fine in the first place):

“I’m struggling with the concept that an adult beverage may be served but an adult movie cannot be shown at the same time,” said newly appointed [liquor-control] commissioner Constance White.

Commissioner David Gladwell said he had concerns with the “grave” offense levied against Brewvies. He noted that Jam in the Marmalade restaurant was slapped with a lesser “serious” offense involving service to an underage drinker.

So, maybe there is a chance at either leniency in this case after a little hue and cry, or maybe some basic common sense regarding future incidents of people daring to watch an R-rated movie with a beer. I would also point out that Brewvies describes itself as a “cinema pub,” and its name appears to be a mashup of “brew” and “movies.” This is what they do. If you make it so they can only show Disney movies, you’ve sort of missed the point of a cinema pub.

To the many people in Utah who are not crazy (you know who you are), I invite you to come visit Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse. They have good burgers, beer, and more nudity than you can shake a stick at. Interpret that last sentence however the hell you want.

This is Sarah Churman, a 29 year-old woman born with severe hearing impairments. With the help of the Esteem Inner Ear Stimulator, she can now hear for the first time. Just watch the video:

In a world where some seem to have a less-than-friendly view towards science, remember that science did this.

 

I have one viable claim to hipsterdom: I was into “Firefly” before it was cool.

I watched the show obsessively in the fall of 2002. I evangelized for it. I yelled at people who dared to doubt its awesomeness. I wrote letters to Fox urging them to give the show a fair shake. I mourned–O, how I mourned!–when the show came to its ignominious end (oddly enough, by showing the very first episode last).

Several years later, when the DVD allowed the multitudes of people who either didn’t know about the show in 2002 or had better things to do on a Friday night in 2002 and couldn’t work a VCR to discover the show anew, I was there to say “I told you so.” When a surge of popular support and demand led to the 2005 release of Serenity, the feature film follow-up to the TV series, I was out front to see it, to marvel at the power of fans, and (SPOILERS AHEAD) to mourn Book and Wash.

“Firefly” lives on in many ways, even if Joss Whedon’s subsequent projects haven’t been quite as compelling (although I am a big Dr. Horrible fan). The career of Summer Glau as the go-to strange, smart, unsettlingly hot guest actress on various shows (most recently “Alphas”) is but one of the testaments of “Firefly.” It has also left a lasting impact on my vocabulary (“shiny”) and left us many, many excellent quotes.

And that’s where I am no longer content to say that haters gotta hate.

That’s where the tribulations of University of Wisconsin-Stout theater professor James Miller enter the picture. Professor Miller’s tale threatens so many of the things I hold dear in life: satire, snark, free expression, generous use of move and TV quotes, pushing both buttons and envelopes, and so forth. To understand Professor James Miller, though, you must first understand Captain Malcolm Reynolds.

Captain Malcolm Reynolds, or “Mal” to those who know him (he doesn’t really have friends per se) is a fictional character portrayed by actor Nathan Fillion, but not a soul has seen an episode of “Firefly” and not wanted to hang out with Mal. He fought on the losing side of a mid-26th-century civil war waged across an entire solar system. Afterwards, he bought a spaceship (a Firefly-class cruiser) and travels the ‘Verse. If you have a job, he and his crew will take it. They don’t much care what it is.

Mal left us with quite a few classics of television philosophy before they took the sky from him. Chief among those is this exchange with a new passenger on his ship:

Simon: I’m trying to put this as delicately as I can…how do I know you won’t kill me in my sleep?

Mal: You don’t know me, son, so let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake. You’ll be facing me. And you’ll be armed.

See, it’s an expression of honor. Mal wants Simon to know that, even though Mal doesn’t like Simon, Simon is part of his crew. As such, Mal will protect him, fight for him, and never, ever betray him. (Part of the story is that Simon has a hefty price on his head as a fugitive from the government, and has to stay hidden and on the run. Simon is extremely nonviolent. Mal offers him safe haven.)

Not everyone sees the quote that way, of course. Specifically, Lisa Walter, UW-Stout’s chief of police/director of parking services, found a poster on Professor Miller’s office door displaying that Malcolm Reynolds quote to be unacceptably threatening for an academic environment. So she took it down, and then notified Professor Miller. She told him that “it is unacceptable to have postings such as this that refer to killing.” She further warned him that future postings in a similar vein could lead to a charge of disorderly conduct.

Seriously.

I was not able to locate any examples of UW-Stout faculty or staff getting into criminal trouble for being a Roberta Flack fan, but it is possible that it could happen using Chief Walters’ standard.

Professor Miller, not being one to go quietly, put up a new poster stating his thoughts on the dangers of fascism and its possible effects on the skull and brain. Of course, UW-Stout administration, having spent the past several years developing an immunity to irony, found this poster comparably objectionable, somehow concluding that Professor Miller was encouraging fascist violence.

The matter went up the chain of command, all the way to the university chancellor. Surely the highest echelons of university power could see this for the overblown clusterf*** that it was, and cooler heads could prevail, right?

If you think that’s where this story is going, you must be new to my blog. I deal in stupid stuff.

Chancellor Charles W. Sorensen had this to say:

[W]e…have the responsibility to promote a campus environment that is free from threats of any kind—both direct and implied. It was our belief, after consultation with UW System legal counsel, that the posters in question constituted an implied threat of violence.  That is why they were removed.

This was not an act of censorship.  This was an act of sensitivity to and care for our shared community, and was intended to maintain a campus climate in which everyone can feel welcome, safe and secure.

So a quote identifying all the reasons why a fictional character won’t kill you, along with an obviously-stylized bit of satirical protest, constitutes “an implied threat of violence”? Is the administration honestly worried that Professor Miller might come to school with a gun and only shoot people who are similarly armed, awake, and facing him? Or that he might don a helmet and beat stick figures with a baton? Have universities become so teacuppish that students cannot handle this level of non-threats?

I weep for the future. I weep for the students of UW-Stout who have to get an education and plan for a future in such a colossally cowardly institution. I weep for the cancellation of “Firefly” (and no, Fox, I am never letting that go, dammit.)

I end with the remainder of that exchange between Mal and Simon:

Simon: Are you always this sentimental?

Mal: I had a good day.

Simon: You had the Alliance on you, criminals and savages… half the people on the ship have been shot or wounded including yourself, and you’re harboring known fugitives.

Mal: We’re still flying.

Simon: That’s not much.

Mal: It’s enough.

Extra reading on this topic:
College professor threatened with criminal charges for Firefly quote, io9, September 26, 2011
I Swear By My Pretty Floral Bonnet, I Will Censor You, Popehat, September 26, 2011
Chancellor Charles W. Sorensen Vigilant Against Threat of Satire, Figurative Speech, Hurt Feelings, Popehat, September 28, 2011
Banned posters rile ‘Firefly’ TV show fans against UW-Stout, Pioneer Press, September 29, 2011

I tend to assume there are multiple sides to every story, i.e. more than just one or even two. For every episode of outrage on the web, there is often an at-least-remotely-plausibly-mundane alternate explanation to the outrage.

That does not seem to be the case with one young Mr. Ben Cochran, a nursing student at East Carolina University.

If there is a counter-narrative to this tale, I have yet to find it. And I looked.

Mr. Cochran had the sniffles. Possibly really bad sniffles. Possibly soul-crushing, mucus-hacking, life-ending-in-an-earlier-era sniffles. So he went to the student health center. And there he experienced the horror of his incurable but not fatal viral infection taking a back seat to the frivolity of women’s reproductive health. So he took to the student paper to complain. Interestingly, the paper apparently first published the “unedited” first draft. I’m not going to bother quoting at length, but just stop reading if you get offended by anatomical terms most of us stopped using in junior high:

What girl have you ever heard of that goes to a doc in the box for birth control? None of them. They go to their gyno. It’s a matter of efficiency. If you have a lung problem, you see a pulmonologist. If you have a heart problem, you see a cardiologist. If you have a cunt problem, you see a gynecologist.

This was subsequently edited as follows:

What girl have you ever heard of that goes to a doc-in-the-box or walk-in clinic for birth control? None of them. They go to their “gyno.” It’s a matter of efficiency, as well as personal safety. If you have a lung problem, you see a pulmonologist. If you have a heart problem, you see a cardiologist. If you have a lady problem, you see pest control or a gynecologist.

The student paper apologized, citing “a staff member’s mistake” as the reason for the original edit surfacing, but also standing by “the publishing of the article due to our firm belief in free expression.”

I wholeheartedly agree that the paper has the absolute right to allow Mr. Cochran a forum to out himself as an entitled, narrow-minded dimwit (IMHO). In fact, if Mr. Cochran is willing to offer evidence of his glaring lack of qualifications for the job of human being so readily, the paper practically has an obligation to publish it.

Clearly he lacks a basic understanding of female anatomy, female sexual autonomy, and the many health benefits of birth control for women above and beyond the ability to bone with wild abandon. He also raises certain questions as to his qualifications to serve in the nursing profession (a female-dominated profession, one might add), although he is still in school, so there’s time. I was going to just let it go, figuring haters gotta hate, but then I noticed this:

If you insist, sir.

This is an educational opportunity for Ben Cochran. The internet is a big place. But it remembers. It remembers everything.

I decided to write about this because just yesterday I read an article entitled “When it comes to online reputation, ‘life’s not fair, and companies aren’t either’” about companies that perform detailed online searches for companies reviewing job applicants. It cited an earlier Gizmodo article about a company called Social Intelligence, which screens the following for prospective employers: “aggressive or violent acts or assertions, unlawful activity, discriminatory activity (for example, making racist statements), and sexually explicit activity.”

I view this as a public service to the nursing profession and, in the shorter term, the students of East Carolina University. Ben Cochran is a nursing student at East Carolina University who thinks that the convenience of male cold sufferers trumps the reproductive health of female college students, and who might not know the difference between Pabst Blue Ribbon and a pap smear. The Google search algorithms are going to love him.

On the plus side, The East Carolinian had this poll up at 11 a.m. CDT on October 3, 2011, favoring the availability of birth control on campus 99 to 1.

For a final chuckle, observe this exchange:

Rachel Rodgers, the self-proclaimed 21st-Century Lawyer for Generation Y Entrepreneurs, has put out a “21st Century Lawyer Manifesto.” It proclaims a new ethic, or aesthetic, or something, for the newest generation of lawyers. I think this mostly includes the ones who came of lawyering age in the era of social media and no longer reasonably expecting to have a high-paid legal job upon graduation. The manifesto has 9+ elements (the “+” will be clear soon enough):

1. We are a diverse group of people that come in all shapes, sizes, t-shirts and tattoos.
2. We embrace our weirdness.
3. We will not let being lawyers prevent us from being business savvy.
4. We will not let our past with tradition rob us of a future with innovation.
5. We will utilize technology in all of its glorious forms.
6. We value actual morality over “ethics” rules.
7. We understand that the true value of money is determined by what it costs us to make it.
8. We will not live in fear.
9. We recognize our duty to do epic sh*t now.
10. [You tell me.]

See, #10 is a fill-in-the-blank. It’s a partly-DIY manifesto, making the whole thing delightfully (or obnoxiously, depending on your point of view) meta.

It’s worth reading the whole thing to get the nuance of each element. Overall, I absolutely support utilizing new technologies, rethinking some concepts of “ethics,” and generally shaking up the legal profession. I have no doubt that there will be vehement and altogether predictable retorts from certain lawyers about how unrealistic and irresponsible these newbie lawyers are being.

I see several problems with this manifesto.

For starters, I’m all about being “weird,” but not about being “weird” for weirdness’ sake. Maybe I’ve got that item on the list all wrong, but as lawyers we have a job to do and a broader legal system to represent. While the current system seriously eschews outside-the-box thinking in favor of a rather lockstep approach, that did not happen overnight. In truth, most outside-the-box ideas suck (cf. Sturgeon’s Law). As lawyers, for many of our clients, the stakes are quite high (livelihood, custody of children, liberty, etc.) Clients need to know that we are either using methods that are time-tested, tried, and true, or that we have worked out these new techniques and have the utmost professional faith that they will work. Otherwise, the hypothetical outside-the-box legal tactic doesn’t work, the client gets angry at the lawyer, the lawyer gets sued for malpractice and/or gets dragged before the state bar, CLE presenters use that lawyer as an example of what not to do, and everything goes right back to the way it was before. Being “business savvy” does not always equal being an effective advocate.

For another thing (and I’m not sure whose problem this is) is that replacing the current ethical regime with a broader concept of “morality” sounds awesome on paper. Try it in a contentious divorce case where one spouse wants a peaceful split and hires a newfangled “moral” attorney while the other spouse borrows $25K from a family member and hires the sharp-fanged divorce lawyer who keeps opposing parties’ extremities as trophies. I’ve dealt with divorce lawyers who, while they may be wonderful people with their families at Thanksgiving dinner, seem constitutionally incapable of even recognizing opportunities to peaceably resolve legal disputes. Decades in the nastiest divorce trenches will do that to a person. Long periods of time hearing about the worst of the worst divorce cases can sometimes make judges pretty cynical too. Not all divorce lawyers and family court judges are like this, of course, but a lawyer seeking to inject a bit of “morality” into the process should expect to get chewed up and spit back out, minus a few extremities, more than a few times.

The biggest threat to any kinder, gentler model of lawyering, then, comes not only from other lawyers who don’t subscribe to that ideology, but also from these lawyers’ own clients. Most people don’t have a clear understanding of how the legal system works (I blame lawyer TV shows). The system may be the best one conceived by humanity to resolve disputes, but it quite often sucks. It is inefficient, often unfair, and often mind-bogglingly counter-intuitive.  Clients expect justice, and they do not always understand how difficult (and expensive) true justice is to achieve. Many lawyers go for the illusion of justice through aggressive litigation, and that has become the standard model. Do not think for a second that this type of lawyer would hesitate to pounce on a newly-moral lawyer for any advantage available.

Are these reasons not to try to change the legal profession in ways that would quite possible make it fairer, more “moral,” and a more enjoyable (or at least less soul-crushing) way to make a living? Of course not. These are noble goals. The thing that “21st Century Lawyers” of the Rodgers model need to understand is that the early adopters of this model may end up martyrs to the cause. Good luck to them.

Lots of fun at BlogathonATX. Just thought you should know.