Isivivable Are Among Women

When I was a boy, I saw Al Pacino in  . . . And Justice for All. Inspired by the film, I decided to be a lawyer when I grew up.

I was good with words, so everyone encouraged that. My mom, who always seemed to be convinced that one had to be handsome to be a lawyer (and seeing through the complimentary glasses that are standard-mom-issue), was sure that I was a double-threat.

What I saw in that film was a guy who was willing to sacrifice a career for what was right -- a guy who saw the flaws in the legal system and decided to stand up against them ("You're out of order! You're out of order! The whole trial is out of order!"), whatever the cost. The drama of this appealed to me, too -- as did the dramatic element of arguing a case in front of an audience.

Smoke Gets in Your Brain

I have no idea why this occurred to me, but . . .

Some years ago I was playing in a now-defunct bar called "Olde Grads." The band was positioned on a stage behind the bar. Looking past the backs of the bartenders, you saw shapes in a haze moving, dancing, drinking. The smoke was so thick in the place that the stage lights created solid curtains of color when they flashed.

One night, I was feeling particularly (and literally) sick of the smoke. As the drummer, I was farthest back, up against the wall. I saw a switch. Wondering what it would do, I flipped it. Immediately, the smoke cleared from the bar. It was an exhaust fan. The bartender (a guy who, I am sure, had left a few horse-heads in the beds of transgressors) whipped around with a crazed look on his face. As he searched for the cause of the clear air, he smoothed back his gray hair, chewed furiously on his soggy cigar and uttered the most unspeakable profanities. "Who the ____ turned on that  _____ fan?"

Zero Tolerance

The Red-faced Man speaks:

We need to start early. We need to tell our kids, from the beginning, that the real word is just waiting to swallow them whole. They need to understand that it all comes down to numbers and that no one cares about them.

You do something wrong, you do something wrong -- that's it. Nothing else matters. Everyone knows the real world is zero tolerance (which is why our schools should be). The judicial system does not care about the degree of a crime. A crime is a crime. No one cares why you did it or what the circumstances were or whether you were acting in self-defense. If, for instance, a woman is being raped and she reaches for a knife to defend herself and kills the rapist, the court sees that as no different than some street-person killing a nun and stealing her money. They always get the same punishment. Murder by accident is punished the same as premeditated murder. Right? So why should we teach our kids that there are grey areas?

What Would "What Would You Do?" Do?

You've probably heard of the show "What Would You Do?" On the show, produced by ABC, they set up scenarios and wait to see, well  . . . what people will do in morally questionable situations. When all is said and done (or not done), John Quinones steps in for an interview.

I've only seen it a few times but, for instance, last Friday, they got actors to portray construction workers who were saying inappropriate things to a pretty girl (also an actress) in front of a New York City lunch truck. Bystanders reacted in various ways, from ignoring the whole thing to offering to do some Picasso-inspired renovations on the construction workers' faces.

How We Oil the Cold Machine

Issue 1:
In Connecticut, a drunk driver who is in jail, currently serving ten years for running over and killing a fourteen-year-old boy (the man was doing 83 in a 45 mph zone), is suing the deceased kid's family, claiming they owe him $15, 000 because of "great mental and emotional pain and suffering" and loss of "capacity to carry on in life's activities." He says the kid should have been wearing a helmet. Well, he should have, right?

Issue 2:
People are outraged at airports because the TSA is inspecting their nude bodies on X-ray scanners in order to -- claims the TSA -- keep the airways safer. The people who complain say this is an invasion of their privacy; it is akin to accusing them of being criminals -- worse, terrorists, they say. The TSA says these machines are going to keep the skies safer; the rest does not matter to pragmatists. They have a point, right?

Issue 3:
In the quasi-historical film Braveheart, William Wallace, after fighting viciously for the freedom of Scotland from England, dies like this (warning -- brutal content, in case kids are around):