Miles's blog

I don’t generally whine about the “nanny state” laws government pass to protect us from ourselves.  I fully realize that most people are idiots who, if left to their own devices, would drive without seatbelts, text while driving, and drive with their kids on their laps.  I love no-smoking laws, seeing health department grades for restaurants, and knowing that defibrillators are present in public buildings.  I am fine with the removal of trans fats from fast food, and making restaurants post nutrition information in a conspicuous place.  Let the government protect me from myself, I do a damn poor job of it.

But now the mayor of New York is going too far.  He proposes to ban the sales of soft drinks in sizes of more than 16 ounces.  Bloomberg is on a mission to make America healthier. (To Bloomberg, New York is America).  He said that too many people decry the obesity epidemic but few do anything about it.  (I question the use of the word “epidemic” for something which is neither an illness nor contagious.  The fact that millions of people choose to get and stay fat—myself included—is not the same as millions being felled by the flu or suffering from yellow fever.  But the media and even health professionals call it an epidemic, so who am I to say they are wrong?)  New York, Bloomberg asserts, will be the roadblock-in-chief.  Sugary drinks, everyone concedes, are a major source of the calories leading to obesity—for me, too—so restricting their sale, Bloomberg feels, will deny people this source of sugar.

When I read this my first thought was “You’ll have to pry my Big Gulp from my cold, dead fingers.”  How outrageous, I thought, that he will keep little gulps legal but prevent me from loading up on cold refreshment on hot days.  (And if you have been on the East Coast in the summer you know how humid it gets and how much you need to drink.)  But upon reading the fine print I saw that Big Gulps remain legal, while other sales would be prohibited.  Like most things, the devil is in the details and this plan was truly hatched in the hell populated by those whose small minds lack vision.

Mayor Bloomberg is proposing that restaurants, food carts, movie theaters, sports arena, and the like—in other words places that sell food to be consumed on the premises or immediately—be allowed to sell sweetened soft drinks in containers no larger than 16 ounces.  Sales of unsweetened drinks will have no limits.  Fruit juices (defined as containing 70 percent or more of actual juice) will be unlimited but fruit drinks with sugar (like Sunny D, I guess) will be covered.  The article did not talk about sports drinks like Gatorade but I assume they will be restricted, as I assume will energy drinks like Red Bull.  Unsweetened coffe can be sold in any size, but lattes and frappucinos would be covered by the new law.  So you can buy as big an unsweetened coffee as you like and pour in the sugar packets all you want, but lattes are restricted.

Big Gulps, however, survive (although in theory only in Manhattan because there are almost no 7-Elevens) because grocery stores and convenience stores are not included in the regulation.  And while food carts are covered, newsstands are not.

Here’s a good one.  Fast food places like Chipotle that just give out cups and have soda fountains can still do that, allowing for unlimited refills, as long as the cups are not more than 16 ounces.  So McDonalds, which fills the drinks themselves, will be at a serious competitive disadvantage. 

Bloomberg seems to view this like a businessman.  If you want more than 16 ounces you have to buy two drinks.  This will make them more expensive so people will be motivated to either drink less or buy diet drinks.  I suppose that is true, but if newsstands and convenience stores are not covered I think in large part he is merely shifting the market.  Sit down restaurants I think can still give refills, and so will fast food.  Others will merely lose business to newsstands.  Movie theaters and sports arenas are the places most likely to see a shift to diet drinks as there is a major disincentive to standing in line to get more and few people will want to hold onto a second drink to drink it while warm an hour into the movie.  I just don’t think all in all this will work to any significant degree.

What is next?  Limits on sales of cupcakes (found a really good place next to Grand Central), cheesecake (no place beats Veniero’s) and chocolate chip cookies?  Will he outlaw Supersizing my fries and restrict sales of footlong hot dogs?  I would prefer to see a law criminalizing taking the elevator one floor up or two floors down.  Or prohibiting cab rides of less than half a mile.

If America is serious about childhood obesity Halloween should be outlawed.  The government and others are spending millions of hours and billions of dollars trying to figure out how to reduce sugar consumption in schools, but once a year we encourage everyone, even curmudgeons like me, to give out the single worst kind of sugary treat to even the smallest children.  You can, of course, give out apples or Trident gum or some such if you want your house t.p.’d, but the culture of America is to be supplying bigger and bigger size Milky Ways.  Kids certainly stock up on millions of empty calories each October 31, pretty much undoing a lot of the other efforts.  Where does Bloomberg stand on Halloween?  He claims he is willing to make tough choices.  Fine.  If you are going to take away my 24-ounce Coke, then take away those urchins’ grocery bags full of Hershey’s.

I have made no secret of my problems with the current war on drugs.  Not only do I think it is failing for emphasizing the wrong thing, but drug prosecutions are fueling the criminal justice debate to the detriment of law enforcement and prosecution.

Two pieces in today’s New York Times demonstrate this.  In one the article quotes a federal judge railing against the mandatory sentences he is forced to impose on drug dealers, whining about the dealers lack of management of a drug enterprise, but still being held accountable as a principle because he was a complicitor.  And while he could have restricted his comments to his issues with the specific statutes in question, he goes on to make a broader point that the prevalence of mandatory sentence provisions has deeded the criminal justice system over to the prosecutors rather than the judiciary where it belongs.

The second is part of the Times’s continued attack on what they derogatorily call “stop and frisk” or the right of police officers to detain and search those for whom the police possess reasonable suspicion they have committed or are about to commit a crime.  Another federal judge recently issued an opinion that the New York police are abusing this power by exercising it both without sufficient suspicion and in a racist manner.

Of course, the paper prints no defenses of either mandatory sentences or Terry stops because that would undermine their position that the greatest threat to a free society is government abuse. 

I am not going to defend either of these policies or debate the Times’s position, because I think that at this point the focus in on the wrong part of the issue.  The issues should be whether the police are doing improper Terry stops and whether the current mandatory sentence provisions are appropriate for the crimes committed.  Because most of the problems with these situations are related to drug prosecutions, an area where most of America believes the laws are too onerous and expensive to prosecute, it allows those with anti-law enforcement bias to secure a wedge to take on these broader issues.

I hate the problems related to drug arrests and prosecutions fuel the criminal justice debate.  One of the problems with the stops and frisk is the police reliance on “furtive gestures.”  The ones who whine the loudest, I suppose are those whom will have something to hide if stopped by the police.  Most of the others have probably never ridden in a police car.  Having done so  numerous times, I fear the furtive gesture.  When the police have reasonable suspicion that the suspect is armed, the furtive gesture supports a legitimate right to search for a weapon.  Unfortunately, I bet the cops are using this primarily as suspicion to search for marijuana.  In fact many of the articles tying problems with Terry stops rope in arrests for small amounts of marijuana. 

This conflating of two different issues serves law enforcement poorly.  Too many times the police use their legitimate or other suspicion of drug possession as grounds to search all over.  Of course in modern America finding drugs is all too common an occurrence.   Because the police action seems disproportionate to the problem, in other words most people don’t want to give up any level of privacy to support drug prosecutions, the entire police underlying stop and frisk is called into question.  If the police would restrict use of Terry stops to more serious offenses no one would have a problem, as indeed few people did in the 45 years since Terry v. Ohio was decided until recently.

Similarly, mandatory sentence laws were enacted because judges could not be trusted to use their discretion wisely, at least not all judges.  For a judge to hate them is no different than a dog hating a leash.  When disgruntled judges rail against mandatory sentences for violent crimes, however, or repeat drunk drivers nobody is too sympathetic, but when use drug sentences everybody takes notice.   Ignoring the fact that without muscle men and lookouts drug dealers cannot function, judges spin their scenarios of sympathetic defendants whipsawed by the cruel prosecution’s use of excessively harsh sentences to attack the underlying principle that the legislature sets the parameters of sentences not judges.  They hate that they are subordinate to an elected body in this respect, and the war on drugs has given them a voice.

Too many issues are soaked up in the debate on drugs which should be kept out.  But the tunnel vision of too many cops and prosecutors that the solution to America’s problems is vigorous prosecution of drug cases is dragging the debate on drugs into the rest of the criminal justice arena.  In my mind, that is a bad thing.

Sometimes when I can’t think of what to blog about, or if I can but I think it is stuff you might not want to read, I turn to my favorite web surfing tool, stumbleupon.  It turns up all kinds of fascinating websites.  For example, I just watched a fascinating video where physicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson explained why we probably are not alone in the universe and his curiosity about whether some species exists which is as much smart than us as we are from chimpanzees.  Apparently our DNA and chimp DNA are about 99 percent similar.  My question is more along the lines of if homo sapiens evolved the extra one percent from whatever came before (because I don’t believe we are evolved from chimps but both of us from a common ancestor) why would there not be a further evolution into the species Tyson wonders about?  Of course evolution takes a long time so we will never know.

When I use stumbleupon it often takes me to sites with the kind of positive messages that people put up in their workspace which allows them to dream of going somewhere else and doing something else while they toil away at a job they hate which allows them to make just enough money to be reasonably comfortable but not enough to actually allow them to do all the things they dream about.  Here are some of my favorite sayings:

“It is better to fail at something you love than succeed at something you hate.”  ­­-- George Burns.  (This clearly is written by someone who tried what he loved first and succeeded.  I would like to run this comment by actors who ended up working as waiters all their lives.)

“What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”  (I suppose they are driving at trying to write a best seller, climb Mt. Everest, or find a cure for cancer, but I can’t help but think about Bernie Madoff.)

“Stop being afraid of what could go wrong and think what could go right.”  (The exact thought process of millions of people who got in trouble failing to plan for what went wrong.)

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.  It will not lead you astray.”  -- Rumi.  (Rumi?  Who the hell is Rumi?  ((Apparently a 13^th century Persian poet.))  This sounds great except I am drawn by the strange pull of a remote controlled, large-screen television.  Hard to believe I won’t go astray focusing on that.)

“Nothing is to be rated higher than the value of the day.”  -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe  (Quotes like that must be why nobody reads this guy.)

“Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.”  -- George Washington Carver  (Yeah, but it is not my fault, I have a lot of problems.)

“Ships in harbor are safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”  -- John Shedd.  (I think this quote was displayed on the Titanic.)

“Never, never, never give up.”  -- Winston Churchill. (Good thing the Germans and the Japanese did not listen to his advice.)

“Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.”  -- Maori proverb. (You also get a wicked sunburn.)

“Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds.”  -- Albert Einstein  (True, but even more true is that mediocre minds seem to belong to the most vocal and most popular people.)

“Nothing is impossible.  The word itself says ‘I’m possible.”  -- Audrey Hepburn.  (I like Audrey’s movies, but really, can anything be more trite?  Audrey was a  movie star at 23, so wonder she thought nothing was impossible.  How about this, Audrey:  “Failure is inevitable.  The word itself says “Fail you are.”?)

“The best way out is always through.”  -- Robert Frost. (Of course, they had not discovered black holes when he lived.)

“The glow of one warm thought to me is worth more than money.”  -- Thomas Jefferson.  (He lived on an estate, in debt, and owned dozens of slaves.  Maybe a few too many warm thoughts.)

“Think with your whole body.”  -- Taisen Deshimaru (I don’t know who this is, but it sounds like good advice.  I have to stop now, writing this blog has made my appendix hurt.)  

Sometimes I am amazed that homo sapiens survived as a species seeing as how most of them are a bunch of morons.  Apparently millions of people are all upset that scientists have created plants through the use of genetic modification containing desirable traits like resistance to disease and insects.  Alarmists call this “Frankenfood” and wail to the heavens that we need protection from these "freaks."

Oh please.  I can’t see the difference between genetically modifying a plant in the lab from doing it in the soil.  Pretty much all of our food has been modified over the years.  Do these people really think native turkeys grew to 30 pound normally with huge breasts?  Are they reluctant to put American Beauty Roses in their vases and to have Pekinese dogs for pets?  Ever since humans figured out how to breed animals they have been genetically modifying what evolution created.  Native Americans grew maize, which Europeans altered into the giant stalks of corn which now feed the world.  What difference does it make whether later modifications were done by use of modern technology?  The point is modern science can do something to improve our lives, let’s embrace that.  Instead people have become suspicious of modern technology.

Thousands of children are suffering from whooping cough, a disease for which there is an effective vaccine because they fear the side effects of the vaccination might cause autism.  I wonder how they feel when their child is sick.  Vaccination has been the single greatest medical breakthrough in history.  Smallpox is eradicated from the world, polio is a dim memory, and all the stuff I got like mumps, measles, and chicken pox Meg was spared from.  But for some reasons millions of people, led by a bimbo whose only claim to fame is that her artificially enhanced breasts looked good on the pages of Playboy, choose to disregard modern medicine.  Of course, if they get some incurable form of cancer these same people will be screaming for the FDA to let them use some experimental medication.

I have always wondered why people seem so concerned about food which the FDA has approved, but then think nothing of buying marijuana on the street from some guy who they would never let in their house, and then ingesting a substance he gives them in a used plastic bag for which they have no indication of what is in there. Like I said, people are morons.

For years I have wanted to research what people’s acceptance was of things we now take for granted.  Were thousands afraid to put electric lights in their homes?  Did groups picket against penicillin?  Did wackos seek to ban airplanes?  I doubt it.  In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries I think most people embraced new technology.  People born at the dawn of the civil war when train travel was new lived to see jet airplanes and men orbit the earth.  The technology they witnessed must have made the world of their seniority seem like a dream.  Their parents were treated with leeches and they saw the benefits of micro surgery. 

Modern Americans (and apparently Europeans) fear technology.  People today see harm from nuclear energy.  They know abused technology has led to oil spills, air pollution, chemicals in the water supply, and a constant fear that someone is going to use a nuclear weapon.  So they resist genetic engineering for their food, while they simultaneously embrace genetic counseling before conception.

At any rate, I have no problem with frankenfood.  I would like to suggest, however, that as long as they are genetically engineering food can they make lima beans taste like chocolate and lettuce taste like steak?

H.L. Mencken once wrote: “No one in this world . . . has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of plain people.”  The creators and producers of the Broadway musical “Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark” must have that quote plastered into the walls of their offices.

I went to see the aforementioned musical yesterday and found it to be the worst theatrical production I have ever seen.  I mean worst ever.  Worse than Meg’s school productions.  This was just, plain bad.  Not bad in a campy way, so bad it is unintentionally funny.  No, this production reeked from top to bottom.  I can’t believe the writers, directors, choreographers, actors, etc failed to realize that they were putting on the worst piece of garbage to ever hit the American stage.  Through their many creative problems which went on for over a year, it must have been obvious to them that this show includes not a semblance of originality, creativity, style, or class.  I feel sorry for the performers who have to go onstage eight times a week.  Or rather, I would feel sorry for them except they seem to be part of a smash.

Even the title is stupid.  Turn off the dark?  Is that the same as turn on the light?  I fail to understand what turning off the dark means because Spider Man not once in this show turns on any lights.  Unfortunately, there is a song of the same name in the show, which a sleeping Peter Parker hears in his dreams sung by the spider goddess Arachne while he is lifted over his bed and floats 10 feet above the stage. 

Most of the show, in fact, takes place above the stage and over the crowd.  Because my seat was in the eighth row I had the uncomfortable problem of trying to see action going on behind me and over my head.  Often times the flying performers were only a couple of feet above me.  Such proximity did not add to my theater-going experience.  Trying to following the action often meant one of the bright stage lights directly shining into my eyes, temporarily blinding me.  I was actually grateful for the relief.

The creators of this show have substituted aerial motion for action.  Spider Man and the Green Goblin engage in the climactic struggle high above the crowd.  There is no dialogue and their fighting is less exciting than Japanese kite fighting.  It appears the performers are concentrating much more on not falling than any dramatic portrayal of an epic struggle between two superpowered antagonists.  Spider Man of course emerges victorious by using his web, which the actor drops on the crowd below as some sort of tepid audience involvement.  While I was trying to get these strips of paper off of me, small children were racing through the seats scooping them up as souvenirs. 

There is no real plot, of course, like most comic book adaptations.  Boy meets girl, boy meets spider, boy becomes conflicted hero, loses girl, then has to confront evil villain who has kidnapped girl, ending with girl pledging undying love for our hero despite the risks.  This lack of any real drama is not uncommon in musicals and is not a problem if other aspects of the show are interesting.  In Spider Man, however, not a single other thing is.

The music is boring.  There is not a single song that has any real rhythm.  They croak along, amplified to ear-splitting levels, sung with the false melodrama of actors trying to sing about deep subjects while wearing ridiculous costumes.  The choreography is standard Broadway stuff, but on a very basic level, as if most of the dancers had to learn it last night. 

I realize this is based on a comic book and the sets are supposed to be cartoonish, but they are so silly, and the presence of the stagehands so undisguised, that this looks to be something put on by a high school rather than a multi-million dollar Broadway production.  The costumes are equally hideous.  The Green Goblin and his henchmen are not frightening, but merely clownish.  Patrick Page as the Goblin is deliberately overacting, but even that seems to be boring.  There is a difference between an actor taking his craft to extremes and one who appears to be making a mockery of the piece he is performing in.

It is difficult to evaluate the other actors as they don’t have much to do.  Even Matthew James Thomas as Spider Man/Peter Parker didn’t really act as much as emote.  Rebecca Faulkenberry as Mary Jane was adorable and has a nice voice, but she is more ornament than love interest. 

Despite all these problems, the Foxwoods Theater was almost full.  This is a big theater, more than 1800 seats on three levels.  The audience seemed to be loving the show, although they failed to applaud at places where normally Broadway theatergoers would do so.  I got the impression that many of them had never been to a show before and quite a few were speaking another language.  The gross receipts for Spider Man are the envy of Broadway, totaling more than $100 million. 

While I hated it, I am not sorry I saw it.  Forevermore, no matter how long it runs, Spider Man is Broadway legend now.  And now I know that whatever I go to see next, it has got to be a step up.

According to USA Today the infrastructure of America is deteriorating so badly that it not only adds billions of dollars of unnecessary shipping costs, but it actually threatens to restrict the economy.  Highways full of gaping holes, and waterways, railroads, and ports are in need of major repair.  However, with the political sentiment in this country prohibiting the raising of taxes, it appears very few of the repairs will be made. 

The drumbeat against raising taxes, of course, has always been present.  Currently it has been seized upon by primarily Republican legislators and their right-wing supporters.  Speaker of the House John Boehner recently said “taxes kill jobs.”   No one seemed to call him on that but I sincerely doubt that it is true.  The corollary of the no new tax pledge is the consistent wailing about the national debt and the burden it is placing on America’s youth, as if at some point in the future the premier of China will call in these debts and summarily throw out all 300 million Americans in some sort of super-foreclosure.  Of course, if you won’t raise taxes and you must eliminate debt the only way to do so is to cut expenditures.  Governments on all levels have been doing so for years.  Neverthless, the economy is not improving much and government services have become intolerably bad.  Meanwhile, politicians cannot even engage in a debate over the solutions contained in the Erskine-Bowles plan because to implement any of the suggestions would require compromise, which has become a sign of weakness.

Boehner may or may not be right that taxes kill jobs, but only in the private sector.  The theory goes, I guess, that when people (rich people in this case since the proposed new taxes fall primarily on the richest Americans) are required to turn more of their earnings over to the government, they stop buying things and investing in American businesses.  Even assuming that is true (I mean are you telling me that someone who makes over $1 million dollars a year will stop buying goods if forced to pay an extra $10,000 a year?) what exactly will they stop buying? American-made goods?  They might choose to buy imported cars, fancy stereo systems, and high-end furniture.  They might choose to buy paintings for $120 million. 

I doubt they will restrict investment in businesses which will make them money, but of course they will put less in the stock market.  So businesses like Apple, Exxon, and Facebook will have lower stock valuations.  Why is that a problem for the economy?  Wouldn’t you rather know your money is going to fix the bridge you drive over than to help create the iPad4?

Taxes create jobs in the public sector, and for those businesses which contract with the government.  For some reason, many people have a problem with government work.  They decry the size of government and insist the problems with America derive from too much of it.  I have written before about my feelings about reducing the regulation of food safety, drug safety, and law enforcement.  I saw on the news the other night that the federal government is financing a major study on Alzheimer’s.  Does Speaker Boehner feel that is a waste of money? 

Yale economics Professor Robert J. Shiller made a pretty compelling case in Sunday’s New York Times why austerity measures on behalf of governments sound good, but work badly.  His point, in part, was that thinking of government economics like family finance is a misleading analogy.  That while a family can pull in the purse strings, the government is not in the same position.  However, even using the analogy, if your family was hurting for money would you turn down a chance to make more?  Governments need revenues.  Taxes are the source. 

Shiller points out that economic theory since the 1940s has been that raising taxes and expenditures the same amount results in raising national income in that exact amount.  The economy grows without loss of income.  Why? Government workers.  They pay taxes for one thing.  They create the foundation—infrastructure, for example—that allows for growth in the private sector.  More government employees means shorter times to generate needed government paperwork.  More regulation might prevent stock fraud, Medicaid fraud, and increased tax collection.  Perhaps it would stimulate approval of new drugs.  Increased medical research could in the long-run reduce medical costs for treating illnesses.  After all, government expenditures eradicated smallpox.  Was that a waste of taxpayer money, Mr. Boehner?

The Great Depression was ended but increased government expenditures, first through New Deal Legislation, later to fight World War II.  Some of the new government employees are probably collecting money from the government anyway in the form of unemployment or food stamps (or both).  Putting them to work would be a far better use of the tax dollars.  More employed people mean more with health insurance, reducing premiums and allowing for hospitals to collect from more patients.

I know I sound more and more like a Democrat every day.  Believe me, that is not my intent.  But I do believe increased government expenditures, possible only with increased revenue, are necessary.  And I believe that a country whose citizens are willing to pay $194 to see Book of Mormon, thousands of dollars to have cancer surgery on their cats, and over $400 million a month on video games can afford it.

(You know, the more I read these types of blogs, the less interesting they are.  I think I will stick to more personal blogs and more funny ones and leave politics to the professionals.)

As everybody knows the one thing I have lots of is time on my hands.  I have frittered a lot of it away over the past seven months (but I have also done a lot of good things) so I decided that while I am sitting in Stamford awaiting my next trip to New York I should try to improve myself.  I have decided to take a class.  Not a normal class at a stuffy college, or even a vocational class at a local community college.  No, I have decided to take a class the modern way—online.  Well, not technically online since I am not going to formally sign up and listen to lectures and take tests, but I am going to order a class to be downloaded to my computer or perhaps sent to me on DVD.  Aspiring to learn the most I am going to find a class on the website of “The Great Courses.” 

(After all, if they called it “The Mediocre Courses” or “The Mundane Courses” nobody would sign up.  I have no idea if these courses are great or not.  Maybe they are great not in the sense of quality, but in that they cover important topics.  Anyway, having seen the ads in the New York Times I am going to take the plunge.)

I am not sure which course to take.  The website has broken the courses up into topics, ranging from “Science and Mathematics” through “History” and “Philosophy and Intellectual History,” to “Better Living.”  This kind of wide selection has long been a problem for me.  I just spent 10 minutes at the grocery story deciding which kind of microwave popcorn to buy.  Not only did I have to factor in price, but I wanted to have some concern for the amount of fat, sodium, and calories, all weighed against taste.  I don’t know why there is no app for that.  I agonized over this, and that was only for a five dollar purchase.  These courses are hundreds of dollars some of them, although the website does have a list of “courses under $40” further adding to the degree of difficulty in making a choice.

I decided to rely initially on herd mentality and start with “best sellers.”  After all, if these courses are truly great, thousands of others would have selected for me.  I am in luck, the first one listed under best sellers is a writing course “Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer’s Craft.”  I have tried to fancy myself a writer for a while, but my last formal class (aside from one adult ed class about 15 years ago) was in college, which I graduated while Gerald Ford was in office.  (That is not an exaggeration.  For those of you too young to remember and who did not listen in school, Ford was the president after Nixon resigned and before we spent four years with a peanut farmer prior to the Ronald Reagan bringing us “Morning in America.”)  However, I am not sure building great sentences is the best way to create good writing, as a sentence is merely a means to an end and not the end product itself. I will keep looking.

I love history and the next best-seller is right up my alley:  “The World was Never the Same: Events that Changed History.”  (Apparently all course titles have to use a colon.)  There are 36 of these events, some as momentous as 9/11, others more obscure. Caesar crossing the Rubicon was important and something I know nothing about, that would be interesting.  I am not sure what happened when Dante saw Beatrice, or who Erasmus was and what was the book that set the world ablaze. This looks promising.  Unfortunately it only has a rating of 3.2 out of 5, which is pretty low for the business’s own website so I will keep looking.  “Turning Points of American History” has a five star rating, and I can learn about things like “The Scourge of the South—Hookworm.”  Who would have thought a measly worm would be a turning point of history right up there with Gettysburg and the Declaration of Independence? (I guess a dash replaced a colon for this guy, maybe that is what accounted for the high rating.)

But I do read a lot of history so maybe I should take a philosophy class.  Not “Argumentation: The Study of Effective Reasoning.”  Too late for that.  I should have taken it back when I was trying cases and writing appeals.  I quit being a lawyer so I could avoid argumentation.  Maybe “No Excuses: Existenialism and the Meaning of Life.”  I have no idea what that means, but the meaning of life would be a good thing to figure out.  Philosophy, though, is too hard.  I should look for something more interesting.  Perhaps in the “Better Living” section.

Here is something useful: “The Everyday Guide to Spirits and Cocktails: Tastes and Traditions.”  Susan told me bartenders can make a lot of money.  Perhaps I should learn a new trade.  I am onto something, I think.  “Medical Myths, Lies, and Half Truths: What We Think We Know May Be Hurting Us,” would be informative, but probably scary as they might say that the ginko I take doesn’t work and that I should eat more fish and fewer oreos.  Perhaps I would be better served with “Practicing Mindfulness: An Introduction to Meditation & Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition.”  Kari Quevli has been telling me for years that western thought is highly overrated.

I have been enjoying the symphony and art museums lately, perhaps I would be best served finding classes in the “Fine Arts & Music” section.  There are classes specifically on “The Symphony” and “The Concerto” but maybe I should take the more global “How to Listen To and Understand Great Music.” Just enjoying the sound, apparently, is not sufficient.  They have classes for all the greats—Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms and many others.  Or maybe I should learn about fine art.  Either “The World’s Greatest Paintings” or “How to Look At and Understand Great Art.”  (They seem to want to instruct on using the senses.  Not just how to understand music but how to listen to it, and how to look at art.  Do they want me to turn my head, close one eye, or turn my back to the symphony?  What is next, how to smell your food or how to taste wine?)

There are a lot of choices.  The courses under $40 might be the best way to get my feet wet, and I see there is one I should have taken a long time ago—“Art of Public Speaking: Lessons From the Greatest Speeches in History.”  Hundreds of jurors and rooms full of district attorneys would have been spared hours of pain had I taken this one.  More relevant would be “Sensation, Perception, and the Aging Process.”  I will need that so I can know how to listen to the music and look at the art while I get older.

As new facts emerge in the Trayvon Martin killing, the actions taken by the police the night of the killing make more sense to me, even if the media, and those who choose to advance their agenda on the killing of a teenager, refuse to acknowledge that.  The media is now reporting that the defendant George Zimmerman suffered numerous injuries including a broken nose, black eyes, and cuts on his head.  The victim had only the fatal gunshot and a cut on his knuckle, which is consistent with delivering a blow. In other words, the injuries support that Martin had beaten up Zimmerman.  That alone is reason enough not to make an arrest in light of Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense.

The New York Times, however, is troubled by what they described today as “missteps” on the part of the police.  To me they seem not a reflection of incompetent policing or even a bad investigation, but the kind of second-guessing performed by criminal defense attorneys in an attempt to create doubt.  I am not saying the investigation was perfect, I have not read the reports.  But I screened thousands of cases in my career and I almost never saw one which did not have issues.  Police officers on scene are confronted with a chaotic situation, often spending a long time just figuring out where to start.  In homicides like this, there is only a single witness, and everything else must be circumstantial.  For a police department which does not regularly do homicide investigations handling a murder presents significant issues.

Most second-guessers, whether media, pundit, defense attorney, or appellate judge fail to understand just how confusing a crime scene is.  This is because most of them have never ridden in a police car (although many media members I am sure have taken trips in the back seat.)  Police officers arrive one at a time, usually, each having to be filled in by the previous ones.  Even when there is a homicide, other police work does not stop.  The rest of the city still needs officers to respond to calls, patrol the streets, and work the headquarters. Even big cities have trouble getting enough resources to a homicide scene.  Usually over time the district attorney and other agencies pitch in, but the initial response generally is only a few cops.

Much of the criticism of the Times pertains to the speed of collecting information and not really to the significance.  Of course, this plays into their theory that the cops were racists who just assumed the white guy was justified in killing the black kid.  I have no idea if that was true, but I don’t believe the so-called “missteps” support an inference that the police rushed to a conclusion.  And even if they did, nothing demonstrates such a conclusion was based on racism.  Many times, in my experience, police officers, and others including myself, have reached erroneous conclusions based upon incomplete investigations.  I cannot tell you the number of times I was forced to make a filing decision knowing more information was necessary to fully comprehend the facts, but feeling that utilizing the information I was aware of, and some educated guesswork based upon the my own experience, along with the police officers and other members of my office, I felt we should file charges.  There were times in my career those when charges had to be dismissed after the case was more fully investigated.  That happens, and is the result of the realities of the long time it takes to fully investigate and case and the short deadlines involved in filing charges. 

The prosecutor in Florida at least had a local resident with strong ties who he felt he could risk releasing (a risk fully justified because Zimmerman turned himself in when charged).  We often faced a situation where we would have had to release someone with a long criminal record, who was violent and dangerous, and who had no local ties.  In other words I often faced the choice of filing an admittedly incomplete case or releasing someone into the community who presented an obvious and substantial threat.  Many of those cases included “missteps” worse than described in today’s Times, but police officers are just as prone to mistakes as anyone else.  Cases are not perfect.  That is why the standard is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and not all possible doubt, which seems to be what the media demands today.

The actual “mistakes” don’t even strike me as anything unusual or serious.

·        No door-to-door canvassing on the night of the murder.  This may or may not have discovered much.  In my experience canvassing, especially in the middle of the night, never leads to much, although certainly we often ask it to be done.  But there is nothing indicating that information was lost.  Those same people can be questioned later and provide the same information.  The Times is all upset about the timing, which seems to be irrelevant as all it could have done perhaps is to show Zimmerman should have been arrested that night.  Since he is now charged and arrested how has this “failure” hurt the case?

·        The police only took one photo of Zimmerman prior to medical attention.  Actually this is one more than normally taken.  When the police respond and find an injured person, their first concern is to get medical attention.  Generally the police do not take photos of injured people while awaiting the paramedics.  Not only is it insensitive, to do so would stop the rest of their investigation.  The more serious the injuries the less likely it is that the police will take pictures before medical attention is secured.  The police are not going to manipulate someone to take photos.  And while pictures right there would be good evidence, generally the paramedics and doctors can describe the injuries using photos taken after treatment so evidence is not lost.  I have not once heard of a juror complaining that photos were not taken prior to medical attention being administered.

·        The police were not able to shield the crime scene from the rain so Zimmerman’s blood washed away.  Seriously?  They believe the police in every case should instantly erect a tent to shield the crime scene?  They watch too much tv.  I don’t know how hard it was raining that night, but it can rain hard in Florida.  Any blood would have been washed away long before they got there.  And what were they supposed to do, have the first responding patrolman ignore the two people he found and erect a tent?  Do they think cops should carry a tent in every patrol car?  This is the kind of stupid criticism that sounds good to people who have never ridden in a police car.

·        The police did not test Zimmerman for drugs or alcohol.  Apparently his constitutional rights are irrelevant.  I have no idea if they had probable cause to test for drugs or alcohol.  I assume not as there seems to be no indication he was under their influence.  They should have asked, and if they failed to ask that was a mistake, but without probable cause there is no reason to think any evidence was lost.  Even if he was under the influence that would be mitigating so any loss here inures to the benefit of the defense.

·        The police could not get the password to the victim’s phone.  All that did was delay finding out who he was talking to.  She came forward and her statement was secured.  No impact on the case ultimately.

Putting all this together I fail to see how the decision not to arrest can be criticized.  The police and prosecutor decided to complete a full investigation of a local resident who ultimately turned himself in when charged.  Whether or not that decision was based on racism I cannot know, maybe it was, but even had he been arrested that night what would have changed? 

I am not suggesting that Zimmerman is innocent, or that the people involved were not racist—I have no idea either way on either issue.  What I am suggesting is that people who are choosing to make accusations either don’t know the facts, don’t understand the law, or don’t care about either.

I have not blogged for a while because Susan was visiting.  We had a great time while she was here.  We toured the former Rockefeller home known as Kykuit in the Hudson River Valley north of New York.  Upon Nelson Rockefeller’s death in 1979 this massive building (36,000 square feet), the contents and grounds were donated to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  Starting in 1994 a local agency began giving tours of the estate, and it is a terrific tour.

John D. Rockefeller was, of course, the richest man in the world when he decided to build himself a new home in 1913.  Under the guidance of his son, John, Jr., the Rockefellers built a massive four-story home, surrounding it with elaborate gardens.  They picked an incredible lot, high on a hill overlooking the Hudson River at its widest point.  The house has huge windows and a gigantic patio overlooking this view.  It is the kind of spot it is easy to imagine just sitting in all day and staring out at the view. 

The grounds are incredible. Not elaborate like Versailles, but big and well appointed.  There is a nine-hole golf course and an outbuilding with both indoor and outdoor swimming pools and a bowling alley.  There are rose gardens and a building where they used to grow orange trees during the winter to be replanted outside in the spring.  Apparently flowers were cut and brought to the house every day for decades.

Although Sr. was basically a bore, Jr. and his wife had an interest in art, primarily European art.  Upon the old man’s death, Jr. and his wife filled the home with art.  They commissioned a pretty ugly fountain, the replica of a piece from Florence, replete with statutes of Roman gods.  This monstrosity still sits at the end of the driveway in front of the home.  Jr. hung portraits, some of family, some of famous men like Washington and Lincoln and some because the background of the portrait included bodies of water.  Seriously.  That is like buying a painting because the color matches your furniture.

However, the third generation, Nelson Rockefeller, former governor of New York and Vice-President of the United States, was a art connoisseur.  Nelson hobnobbed with Picasso, among others.  He tore out the old kitchen which was in the basement of the home and installed what can only be described as an art museum.  Along with his Picassos he has pieces by Bracque, Calder, and Warhol.  The main room of the house is dominated by a huge Miro.  Rockefeller filled both his home and its grounds with sculpture by masters like Brancusi, David Smith, and Henry Moore, whom I believe he knew personally. 

Some of the more interesting pieces are tapestries of famous Picasso paintings which Rockefeller received permission from the artist to have created.  And while some critics describe this as tacky, I think they are fascinating.  These tapestries are huge, perhaps 10x6 feet, much larger than the paintings themselves.  Next to where Rockefeller had a pair of swimming pools (one for adults, one for children) was a small house which he used as a soda fountain.  Flanking the taps used to make ice cream sodas are two large vases made by Picasso.

All of these works passed to the National Trust for Historic Preservation along with the house and land.  They have left each piece exactly where it was placed at the time of Rockefeller’s death.  Whether this is by order of the bequest or their choice I don’t know.  Certainly all of the art is worth millions of dollars, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars.  (After all one painting recently sold for $120 million dollars. About the total expenditure of the DA’s office for the past seven years.)  Unfortunately, the tour does not emphasize the art, and much is in areas which are not part of the tour, so we could only glimpse a fraction of this world-class collection.

The incredible generosity of the Rockefellers in donating this property to the National Trust is staggering.  Even if the family felt the house was too large and too old to maintain, there was no reason they could not have kept or sold the artwork.  Yet, this man who was in the one percent of the one percent gave it all to an organization devoted to preserving the history of this nation.  The Rockefellers are well-known for philanthropy and this is a classic example.

Personally, I wish they had chosen differently.  While the choice to leave the art with the house does allow insight into the way Nelson and his family lived, I think it does not do justice to the caliber of the work.  The tour we were on did walk us by the art and the guide even discussed some of the pieces superficially, but the impact is lost.  There are several different tours of this estate, but there is no tour specifically to showcase the incredible art collection.  It is almost an afterthought of showing how the rich live.  I have no idea what art sits on walls kept from view, but we could see upstairs at one point and obviously many pieces lined the walls.  I believe Rockefeller should have left all his artwork to the Museum of Modern Art which his mother helped found, or even to have authorized a sale.  The National Trust could raise enough money to protect many historic sites in America.  The artwork could have been preserved in a way which would allow for many more people to enjoy it, and it could be put in context with other works. 

I have included some pictures of the grounds, but they did not allow pictures inside the house.

One of the attorneys for a defendant accused of the 9/11 crimes, Cheryl Bormann, has demonstrated nothing if not excess zealotry.  She appeared in court in a full hijab, completely covered except for her face.  She claims to have done so out of respect for her client’s religious beliefs, and says she always covers herself in this manner when she speaks to him.  I can accept her acting this way if she thinks it is important.  However, not being satisfied to make whatever statement she was making in her own appearance, she went to an extreme that, in my mind, follow the actions the defendants in trying to make a mockery of the court.  She demanded that all women in the court dress in more modest attire.  The reason: so that the defendants would not be “distracted” by the women, thus committing a sin.  The prosecutor made the only reasonable response when asked to reply-he did not give this request the dignity of an answer.

Forgetting for a second that demanding anyone else do anything else to prevent you from committing a sin is both outrageous, stupid, and the epitome of failing to take responsibility for your own actions (but this “logic” is behind the repression of women in many countries), that an American attorney can seek a court order along these lines shows how the practice of law has degenerated into something demanding little more respect that bouncer at a strip club.  The entire arraignment took on a circus atmosphere, not the least because the attorneys for these terrorists exacerbated the problems their clients chose to create.  Apparently zealous representation now means deliberately obstructing the process.

I mean seriously, asking a court to rule upon the clothing of others in the courtroom?  Here is what the New York Times quoted her as saying:

She also explained that in 2008, during an earlier attempt to try the case before a tribunal, a female paralegal on the prosecution team had regularly worn short skirts and “very revealing tops” to court, which was a distraction to the defendants, making it harder for them to focus on a proceeding that may result in their execution. A woman on the prosecution team on Saturday was similarly dressed in a way that clashed with her client’s religious beliefs, Ms. Bormann said.

How much focusing does a defendant have to do in the courtroom?  And whose responsibility is it to get him focused?  How far does this elimination of distraction go?  Will we see motions for post-conviction relief based upon denial of due process for excessive cleavage? 

I have been distracted in court many times, often for the same reasons the attorney claims these defendants are.  (And I bet pretty much every male attorney has too at some time.)  But somehow I managed to put aside my interest in feminine pulchritude to concentrate on the task at hand.  There are lots of distractions in courtrooms, from disruptive defendants to loud spectators to sleeping jurors.  But this is a serious undertaking, and anyone involved needs to be focused.  As the attorney stated, these defendants are on trial for their lives, and they are going to be distracted by a little T&A?  I doubt it.  I am willing to bet that on the four planes these terrorists had hijacked on 9/11 there were women with revealing clothing, and the hijackers did not seem too distracted in getting their jobs done. 

More distressing to me if that an attorney wanted to indulge this attitude.  I have seen and heard of many stupid and even outrageous requests by criminal defense attorneys, but never anything as ridiculous as this one.  Ms. Bormann can dress in any way she sees fit as long as it respects the decorum of the courtroom, but to actually ask a judge to enforce a dress code is unthinkable.  Does she really believe we should let the defendant’s control the process?  It sounds like in many ways they already are—receiving prayer brakes, for example.  Should our processes really bend to the personal beliefs of everyone involved?  Ironic that these defendants, who demand everyone bend to their beliefs, should refuse to compromise theirs.  I guess in modern American courtrooms, everyone has to yield to the parties who are most strident.  And no compromise would be acceptable to the defendants.  Their beliefs demand completely-covered women.  Longer skirts and turtlenecks don’t solve the problem.  It is all or nothing, so why would be Bormann want half measures?

What do you think would happen if we were on trial in a country controlled by these men?  I guarantee their courts would not care what we think or want.  Everyone is entitled to a fair trial, and even to some reasonable accommodation to their individual circumstances, but extremism on behalf of our court system is neither required nor commendable.

There was a funny musical on Broadway a few years ago called Urinetown which I can’t help thinking about when I read the newspaper.  The premise of Urinetown was that measures had to be taken to reduce water usage due to an extreme drought.  Laws were passed prohibiting toilet usage except through official restrooms which required a fee.  A monitor of one of these restrooms justified this practice by singing “It is a privilege to pee.”  The populace grew increasingly outraged until they finally overthrew this onerous burden and opened up toilets for all.  Of course, this led to complete depletion of water and death by thirst.

Although Urinetown satirized building a civilization on the profligate use of finite resources, I cannot help but take another message from it as I read the newspapers: Populist pressure on governments to secure short-term goals can backfire leading to serious long-term repercussions.  

Japan is embroiled in turmoil because local governments have thwarted plans to restart the country’s nuclear reactors.  All of them were shut down in the wake of the catastrophic failures of some plants following last year’s tsunami.  The national government has put them through stress tests and wants to get them open soon. The mayor of Osaka has become the most popular politician in Japan for refusing to let the nuclear plant in his area open by playing on the public’s justifiable frustration with the national government’s cozy relationship with the nuclear power industry.  Unfortunately, unless some of these reactors open soon, Japan will face major brownouts during the summer which might result in the closing of some factories causing loss of jobs. 

Governments in Europe are facing electoral frustration, civil disobedience, and seeming societal disintegration over their attempts to deliver austerity budgets requiring the reductions of government programs, individual income, and job security.  Attempts to curb government spending on the back of the workers have raised to a boiling point previously simmering resentment against greed and graft on the part of elected leaders.  However, unless some austerity measures are instituted, governments in places like Greece will be unable to borrow money, leading to financial collapse and possible bankruptcy with unforeseeable, but inevitably detrimental, effects.

Most of the world supported the “Arab Spring” in the Middle East which saw government change in much of the Arab world, and attempts to institute real democracy.  The process, unfortunately, has led to continued frustration that democracy is arriving too slowly, or perhaps in ways that lots of people don’t really want.  Civil disobedience in Egypt seems to be as prevalent now as it was in the final days of Mubarak, and the only ones poised to take advantage are the Muslim Brotherhood and those with even more restrictive Muslim agendas and belligerence to Israel.  

All of these news items make me think of Urinetown’s poor, toilet-starved citizens, rallying behind a charismatic leader in a just cause, but then ending up worse off than when they started.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not against democracy, protests, or nuclear energy.  I understand governments need to conform to the will of the people.  However, unbridled democracy can be dangerous.  America’s founding fathers knew this and set up a limited representative republic.  Throughout America’s history, prior to the creation of social media, the term “populist” was not seen as necessarily a compliment, but more of a cheap electoral strategy to pander to the will of large groups of disenfranchised or disenchanted voters by advocating programs which sounded good on the surface but really were impractical.  Populist politicians like William Jennings Bryan inevitably lost because what they advocated would ultimately lead to severe negative repercussions.  

Modern politics, however, does not have the checks and balances of prior era.  Leadership and statesmanship have gone the way of the dodo bird; the media sees themselves not as part of a greater society but rather as muckrakers-in-chief; and instant, worldwide communication has enhanced the influence of superficial thinkers.  Thousands can now be drawn to occupy Wall Street based upon a few inflammatory sentiments placed on Facebook.  Such gatherings would have been difficult to arrange when it would have taken a significant portion of the people who might have heard about an event to allow it to draw big crowds.  In other words, if you had to get your message out by slow media, you would only reach a small number of people.  Unless your message had resonance with a high percentage, it would be disregarded as irrelevant.  Now, however, any high-volume rant can be viewed by millions.  Even a tiny percentage of like-minded thinkers can mobilize into large groups, giving the image of a major movement, even if the percentage of those in sympathy is rather small.  The media, of course, sensing interest which they equate to news, exaggerates the coverage, further drawing in people who just want to be famous.  

Of course defending the status quo is very difficult.  First of all it is just not cool.  I mean, throughout history, people who want to preserve current governmental and societal structures were seen as repressive, lacking imagination, dim-witted, and ultimately people to be scorned.  People love a good iconoclast.  (Of course they want to sip Starbucks, text on their iPhone, and order Domino’s delivery (all large corporations) while they watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas on their cable tv, and send a donation to Occupy Wall Street on their iPad.  They hate big government, law enforcement, and global corporations, but call 911 to report their $5000 bike has been stolen and god damn it why won’t the police drop everything to respond.)  Everybody finds fault with the way things are (me included) and thinks they know a better way (me included).  

Government and corporate leaders, of course, have been a major part of this problem.  For too many years those with power have used it unwisely, overzealously, and just plain stupidly.  In the past people were willing to put up with a modicum of these problems as long as the trains ran on time, and perhaps they still are if the trains were still on time.  But the trains are late, the planes are torturous to take, and innocent people are being released from death row.  Too many legitimate beefs have created a situation where vast numbers of people want to just say no to the status quo, whether Tea Partiers who want to eliminate most of the government as we know it, or Occupy Wall Street who think the answer lies in reducing corporate profits and influence.  I hope that somehow this populist push will be tempered with consideration of long-term effects, or at least acknowledgement that conforming government and corporate actions to popular will might result in the need for some sacrifices for the greater good.  What, no latte?

Notre Dame’s starting quarterback was arrested early yesterday morning following his attempt to run from the police who were investigating a party.  The player, Tommy Rees, resisted arrest and either assaulted or tried to assault an officer.  (The description given by the police was he “ lifted a knee to an officer during the arrest and had to be pepper sprayed while on the ground.”  They also said an officer had the wind knocked out of him but not as a result of being kneed by Rees.  Being the Notre Dame in South Bend can’t hurt, Rees has been charged with only misdemeanors following his booking on felony charges, including assaulting an officer. 

Not having read the reports I can see this kind of case filing going either way if an officer was not injured more severely than some scrapes and having the wind knocked out of him.  On the other hand I expect there was some pressure on the DA, probably implicit rather than explicit, not to file a felony if this was a close call.  Starting the case as a misdemeanor gives attorneys on both sides lots of room to maneuver in terms of deferred prosecutions and diversion programs.  Rees was also drunk, having a blood alcohol of .11.  He is 19 years old.

Let’s see what actually happens to him.  As you might recall Boston University summarily kicked two players off their hockey team following allegations this season.  Certainly their charges of sexual assault were significantly more severe than what Rees did, but the immediacy and severity of BU’s response was impressive.  Notre Dame, on the other hand, has a different history.

According to Yahoo Sports, former Irish wide receiver Michael Floyd had three alcohol-related incidents at the school.  He was suspended during spring practices but never missed a game.  You will love the coach’s explanation for why at least suspension for a single game was unnecessary: 

[Coach] Kelly "suspended" Floyd for four and a half months, which essentially kept him out of spring workouts, but he was allowed to participate in voluntary workouts and didn't miss a game. Kelly took some heat for his treatment of the situation, but Kelly maintained he would have kept Floyd out the entire season if he felt he hadn't learned his lesson.

Learned his lesson which time?  The final time?  I mean really.  What kind of message does this send to your team, the student body, and society at large?  As long as you are a really good football player the consequences of breaking the law, abusing alcohol, violating school policy and taking actions detrimental to your own well-being are virtually non-existent.  I am not sure any undergrad at Notre Dame with three alcohol-related.   Apparently Floyd was allowed to remain a team captain.  According to the ESPN, Notre Dame suffered an alcohol-related fatality when one of their recruits, a 17-year old football player from Cincinnatti died after falling from a balcony while drunk on spring break in Florida.  Leaving out the question of why high schoolers are going on unsupervised spring break vacations, what will it take for Notre Dame to realize underage drinking is a problem?

I suppose the answer to my question is that the only situation which will cause college sports to change is when the drinking impacts their ability to win football games.  Right now the school is better off letting players with alcohol issues remain with the team so that they can get a coveted bowl berth, thus earning the school a nice payout, and the coach, who almost certainly has a reward in his contract for bowl wins or final rankings, makes significant coin.  If drunken players caused losses we would see kids kicked off the teams immediately, but since players like Paul Hornung proved you can be both a drunk and a Hall of Famer, alcohol abuse is not near as big a problem as being a fumbler, or having slow speed in the 40-yard dash.

Underage drinking, of course, is a problem much bigger than college sports, and obviously many, many undergrads drink illegally.  I would hope there are consequences for all of them.  But when a high-profile undergrad is allowed to drink, run away, and resist arrest without any identifiable punishment, it undermines efforts to address underage drinking on his campus, and perhaps on colleges in general.  I hope Notre Dame chooses to take action against Tommy Rees.  But unless he is beaten out by one of the other three candidates for starting QB  I doubt they will.  (By the way, did you notice the headline of the article stressed the QB position and not any problems with alchol or assaulting the police?)