Jury service: A slippery slope

The first time – and the only time – that I served on a criminal jury, we, the jury, found the guy guilty. It was a police buy and bust operation. Should be illegal for the police to do it – it borders on entrapment – but because “we’re only getting him to do for us what he would have been doing anyway,” it’s not considered that.

Add to that, the guy, the defendant, had previously been a CI. A Confidential Informant. He was on the street, but working with the cops. Apparently he, like many, had decided he was working with the cops so he was gonna do some work on his own, and was thinking he was gonna get extra credit. Running his own little (unauthorized) sting operation to get the goods on somebody. But instead, he got himself arrested, and ended up in a trial, with me on the jury.

After testimony, we went to our chambers and discussed. I couldn’t believe how it went. We were so quickly unanimously in favor of conviction… except for one of us. Me.

It was then that the jury politics came in. The self-appointed head of the jury was Walter Cronkite’s Chief-of-Staff. She was someone unfamiliar with not getting her way. She wanted to go to lunch. She had important things to do. Everyone looked at me when I started asking questions. They made good points. But they couldn’t explain the fact that his cop-handler should have been there, and wasn’t there. I wanted to at least hear what he had to say. It seemed like he was hanging his guy out to dry. I wanted to know the back-story before making up my mind. No one else did. I resisted for a while, but on a second poll, I caved.

Now, over 20 years later, I still feel guilty about it. Ms. Adler probably doesn’t even remember doing jury duty. She is now the head of some nonprofit, doing good work, I’m sure, for Syrian refugees. That’s all well and good. But I remember how she ran roughshod over that jury, and how she persuaded me, a reasonable person, to behave in an unreasonable way.

To those whose lives were most affected by our “collective” decision, I am sorry.

Where the rubber meets the road

I think if you go back far enough in the supply chain of any manufacturing process, you’re going to reach a point where the people doing the initial harvesting – whether rubber, cotton, gold, coffee, or diamonds – will be found to be living in relative economic poverty.

I suppose this is true of the harvesters of souls, too; those who find, help, treat, work with, the “least of us, the homeless” – outreach and shelter workers, animal rescuers and conservationists, etc.

“Note harvesters” and “color and shape harvesters” as well – those who work in obscurity and/or poverty to make their music, their art, their poetry, from forgotten or undiscovered fragments they encounter or cultivate or simply recognize in the world.

But I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss the prospects for hope and real prosperity of spirit among these hunters and gatherers. Living close to the ground, getting one’s hands dirty, being able to connect with the nature around you, is not without its rewards. I think all of us who have ever marveled at the beauty of a found stone or seashell, or relished the simple pleasure of paddling down a river or hiking in the woods, or cried a tear of joy or relief when a rescued bird you’ve cared for flies away, or pointed with pride to a building you laid the bricks for, or “made a song” out of the sounds of tin cans or balloons or spokes on a wheel, has felt an inkling of that. That these feelings often come to us in the midst of (or as an antidote to) living our lives “back home” in relative splendor, is some testament to the potency of these simple joys of doing and of being that we sometimes overlook.

Rubber tires – A dirty business | a DW Documentary

The Republican Party Now Must be Banned

I’ve always felt that we need to have at least two strong and healthy political parties to make our system “work.” But based on this week’s events alone – Trump’s statements regarding his “trust” in Kim Jong-Un, the Michael Cohen testimony, and the Republicans’ lack of preparedness for same and refusal to ask meaningful questions – not to mention the tragic and despicable events of the other hundred-some weeks we’ve suffered through under this regime – I am starting to be of the mind that one of them should not be the Republican Party.

When the Democrats take control of the Senate in 2020, I would like to see the Republican Party, as it exists today, banned. Made illegal. A hate group. A terrorist organization.

There are various international standards for political parties to be banned. “The standard of proof for banning political parties, mandated by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg [for example], is high. In societies that value free speech and association, it is not enough to prove even the worst motivation; a party must also have a ‘real potential’ to make good on evil designs.”

[Germany’s supreme court decides not to ban the neo-Nazi party]

While Germany’s NDP party was not banned, even though it bears in principle a startling resemblance to the National Socialist (Nazi) Party, the reason it was not banned was that it failed this critical test. Its numbers had shrunk to a level that could not deliver on its promise.

The US Republican Party is fundamentally different, however. It can deliver on its promise, and is in the process of doing so, to the nation’s deep and possibly irrecoverable detriment. The Republican Party, it seems, does pass this test, and so must be banned.

This will not be easy. It will be a wrenching process. But it is a process we must be willing to go through if, in the words of Elijah Cummings, we feel any obligation to “keep our democracy intact.” If we don’t care about that, then forgive this intrusion. If however we do feel this obligation, to ourselves, to our peers, to our children, then our path is laid before us. It is only for us to walk it, and not to simply cease our journey over its arduousness or inconvenience.

The purpose of this article – more of a note, really; a marker – is not to demonstrate my case. Clearly I have not done so. The purpose is to draw that line in the sand. A spade has been called a spade. Add your own examples. The point is, either we look at where we are, or we don’t. If we do, it’s hard to miss the precipice ahead. We can either turn aside now, while enough of us still have our wits about us, and some level of influence over outcomes, or we can join the mass of those crying out as we go over the cliff.

If you think it’s beyond us to resolve, and instead are looking to God, hoping or praying that He will protect us and fix all of this, or wondering instead why He doesn’t send help, someone to take care of this situation, consider this:

He did send help. He sent you.

Babies born with missing limbs – do we know why?

In today’s news, a BBC story emerges: French Ain babies: Missing limb births prompt national inquiry.

This is so sad! And it’s a story that we need to follow carefully here in the U.S. as well, on its own merit.

But now I’m going to go off on a bent.

Reid Hoffman. Founder of LinkedIn. Famously made the statement (which I’ve railed against at every opportunity): “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

For years, I’ve been saying that the problem with this statement, this philosophy, obvious to the most casual observer, is that it is infective. It’s contagious. Why just the first version of the product? Why not the second one too? You still have to beat your competitors on the development curve, don’t you? You have to get those new features into the market, or they will.

Problem: you don’t have time to fix what’s wrong with release 1 before release 2 comes out. You don’t have time to fix either release 1 or release 2 problems before release 3 comes out.

In short, you have these products with the same problems dating all the way back to their initial launch, that sometimes do not get resolved (obviously they may not be show-stoppers, so much as frustrations, limitations, things that require workarounds or corollary products to address the deficiencies), maybe ever.

I’ve watched this trend in Microsoft Office, in QuickBooks, in Gmail, and others.

But I never considered that it may be applicable to life sciences as well. Medicine. Drugs. Implants. Testing and/or therapeutic equipment. I’m forced to wonder, in the context of the above article, whether this is one of those cases. Obviously the cause of these birth defects is not yet known. Or rather, not yet publicly known. My guess is that there is someone who knows. Someone who might have known that this could happen, but chose not to or was told not to or was not in a position to be able to release that information. The truth will out.

Meanwhile: One-Third Of New Drugs Had Safety Problems After FDA Approval. After! One-third! These products have been withdrawn from the market, or warnings or new usage guidelines have been issued, or they have been revised or reformulated, etc.

So as that old saying goes, “Why is there always time to do it over, but never enough time to do it right?”

Maybe – now that we could be talking about babies, and not just computer programs – maybe people will stop and take that time to do it right the first time. There are no re-do’s in life.

Faith restored by cinema, and the library. Thank you, Kanopy.

As one article I recently read starts out, “There’s literally never been a better time to get a New York City Library card.”

I just got mine, after not having one for at least a decade, to be able to watch Kanopy, the film-streaming service connecting libraries and educational institutions around the country with thousands of films that “truly resonate with us, that inspire us, enrich us, and challenge our perspectives” (from the http://www.kanopy.com site). I am literally moved to tears by what is available on Kanopy; it feels like I’ve been given a new lease on life amidst the dramatic downward spiral of Hollywood’s vapid offerings. Independent film houses are few and far between, there are no more video shops to rent foreign or independent films, and nearly all other streaming services are trying to out-blockbuster each other with further mindless and meaningless big-budget content.

Kanopy, it seems, stands alone. And did I mention that it’s free? All you need is a library card. With that, you can watch up to 10 titles per month, so it’s not for binge-watching. But a full life should barely be able to accommodate 10 meaningful films a month… along with concerts, visits to museums and cultural institutions, and books to read, all of which are enabled, for free, with a library card.

Cutting the [cable TV] cord was the first step. The second step is using that detachment to select the material available to enrich one’s own life, on one’s own terms. With so much media and political pressure to join one bandwagon or another, the extent to which we are subject to outside manipulation is not even clear to us, even if we try hard to be vigilant against it. The fact that a group of people spends millions and millions of dollars to make the latest huge new sensational film should mean something, right? I mean, it must be important and compelling. Right?

Contrast that with someone who, with no money, no big resources or sponsors, a pocket-change and credit card budget, but with vision and purpose, would set out to make a film, to tell a story. We are so conditioned to thinking that we need to throw more money, rather than less, at every problem, in order to solve it, that going the other way is one of those things that makes us slap ourselves in the forehead and go, “Duh, why didn’t I think of that?!”

So, thank you, NYPL (or any public library close to you). Thank you, Kanopy. Thank you, NPR. Thank you, PBS. Thank you to all the organizations whose purpose is to enlighten and enrich, to bring the greatest good to the most people. We need that, now, more than ever.

The breaking point is near… the breaking point is here.

José Andrés, another famous chef, went to Puerto Rico immediately after Hurricane Maria, to help figure out how to feed the people. Instead of figuring it out, he and his associates found themselves simply doing it, from the moment they landed. Actually before they landed, in calls to as many chefs as he could reach there, the plan was, “Let’s not plan, let’s not meet, let’s start cooking!” FEMA didn’t grasp the urgency of it. It wasn’t about “how to feed the people in the weeks to come.” It was how to feed the people NOW.

I am learning about this from a TED Talk (“How a team of chefs fed Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria”) right now. I love TED Talks. They keep me sane.

So, the first Monday they were there, they did a thousand meals. By the following Sunday, they were doing 25,000. They kept outgrowing their spaces. 25,000 became 50,000. They moved their operation to the Coliseum. They became the biggest restaurant in the world. They were making close to 70,000 meals a day. From one location alone.

Volunteers showed up by the hundreds. At any given moment, 700 volunteers were working on feeding the hungry. This was not plastic food. It was real food, food that people recognized, food that brought comfort, as well as sustenance.

Get this: at one point, FEMA was actually asking him, “How are you able to do this? How are you able to get the food to prepare?” He replied, “Simple: by calling, and paying, and getting.”

And at this point in this Talk, I just paused and cried for a few minutes. I don’t like crying! But every day I’m simply stunned, at some point during the day, by what our current president and his administration are doing to this country. And what they are NOT doing FOR our country. And Puerto Rico is part of this country. What they did there should be enough for every one of them to be impeached at the very least, or perhaps sentenced to death. Instead, they skate by, lying their way out of one accountability after another.

When it comes to people, families, feeding people, making sure that people have roofs over their heads, that the sick are being cared for, that people have at least some glimmer of hope for a meal and a place to lay down their heads… these are the bedrocks of basic civilization anywhere, everywhere. And in this country? We don’t even think about these things, because we take them so for granted. So to look at these people here, in Puerto Rico, or the people (yes, people!) rounded up at the southern US border, separating parent from child so that we can then apply our “unaccompanied minor” handling protocol… these things are NOT the marks of a civilized country, they are NOT something to be proud of, they are NOT Christian or Muslim or Jewish or atheists’ values! They are an absence of values, an absence of morals or ethics, an absence of a backbone or a soul or a heart.

The things that our government is doing (or not doing) are not normal, not acceptable. Don’t be fooled! It’s not anyone else’s fault. It’s not Obama’s fault. It’s not the Democrats’ fault. It’s not the law’s fault. It’s the people in charge, and the people in charge right now, who are causing all of these things to happen, are Donald Trump and his administration, Paul Ryan and his party loyalists in the House, and Mitch McConnell and his loyalists in the Senate. These people don’t need to be impeached; they must be tried for treason, and, once found guilty as they are, sentenced to the same sentence given to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, or to Sacco and Vanzetti. Their crimes have already cost thousands of lives, and have perhaps irreparably harmed the nation’s economy (the real economy, the people’s economy), the environment, and the entire future of the United States.

At this point, there is no idly sitting by, watching it through a lorgnette. To paraphrase even George W Bush – demonized a few short years ago, who now looks like a saint by comparison – “Everyone has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with Trump.” There is no middle ground. There is no “Let’s wait and see,” no “give him a chance.” All of that is behind us now. The wait is over. The chance has been given. At every conceivable opportunity – and more often than not, even before we were aware that there was an opportunity – the path that leads the opposite direction from all grace and goodness has been chosen as the path all of us are by implication forced to take.

Are you comfortable being labeled as the generation, or the era, or the society, that allowed this to happen? I am not. I don’t want to get arrested, or lose my job, or lose my home. I don’t want to die. But I don’t want to sit on my fucking ass either, as if there is nothing to be done. At some point, in spite of the horrendous risks, there necessarily comes a point at which no more can be tolerated. I have a high tolerance, and a lot of trust in “the system;” trust that things will work out, eventually. But this is a terrific test we are being put through. I don’t know how much more bending the entire system can take, without actually breaking. I feel that we are getting precipitously close to that threshold.

When things finally do break, as they ultimately will, it’s never a pretty sight. It’s never better than it would have been had things been arrested just prior to breaking. It’s always better to stop when it’s still bending. But we have to accept that it’s going to break. We have to accept that we are at the limit. We can’t have some say, “No, I think we are not there yet. I think we can go a little further.”

Do we really have to wait till it actually breaks before we all acknowledge that the limit was reached? Granted, there’s still wiggle room while it’s bending. He said this, she said that. “We’re not that close. It’s still in flux. It’s still working. It’s still…”

SNAP!

Is that what we’re all waiting for?

Signature Bank earnings down. That may not be so bad.

I wish we had not gotten everything so backwards.

It used to be that there were companies, who wanted to make money, and customers, who wanted to spend less (and get more). There was an old saying, “the customer is always right,” or “the customer is king.” Companies did what they could to attract and retain customers. Without the customers, they knew that they had nothing.

Now, enter stockholders. Suddenly these companies have a new source of revenue, and a new set of deliverables, that has nothing to do with whatever it is that they “look like” they do. It’s just a return-on-investment scenario. Companies are favored that are making the most money. Investors naturally think it’s a great thing if companies they have a stake in are making a lot of money. But so too do people who don’t own the stock. They get confused, and all up in the hype. Random people think it’s great for these companies to be making huge profits. They think it’s a sign of healthy economy if companies are making a lot of money.

If a company is making a lot of money, though, the customers are getting less, and paying more. There are no two ways about it. Everybody behaves as if they own shares in X Company, even if they don’t, and they all get super excited when the stock performance numbers are good. But those shareholders, or wannabe-shareholders, are the exact same people who, when wearing their consumer hats instead of their shareholder hats, will complain about the prices, or that they aren’t getting enough for their money.

It’s kind of like the “aspirational voters,” who vote Republican because that’s how they see themselves – they want to be rich people – even though every time they do so, they are actually rewarding the people who are cutting their chances of “making it,” that much more. They are voting against themselves as they actually are, and voting for themselves as they wish they were.

Signature Bank earnings down $100 million thanks to dud taxi loans

So yeah, Signature Bank’s earnings are down. This is a bank that said yes to the medallion loans when other said no. This is a bank that said yes to the company I work for (disclosure), and gave the most favorable rates for business expansion. This is the bank that will open a branch office on the 12th floor of an office building at $50 a foot rather than using street-level retail spaces at $250+ per square foot. From a customer’s perspective, this is a great bank (as banks go). Perhaps from a stock-ownership perspective, it’s not.

But we have to ask ourselves, who, really, is king nowadays? It’s certainly not the forgotten customer any more. That’s just the poor sod who actually buys the products. The only players you ever hear about are the shareholders. But far more of us are customers, of far more companies, than we are shareholders.

Why are we continuing to vote against ourselves?