Outside Counsel

To George Clinton and P-Funk last night, a show I've really been looking forward to. Apparently a lot of people were-- it was more mobbed than anything at Thursday in the Square I've ever seen. It was also the most racially mixed TATS show I've ever seen. It broke down like this: the African-Americans were mostly my age or a bit older. They've been fans since the 70's. The white people were mostly slightly younger than I am or in their 20's, proving what Things White People Like says: white people like Black Music that Black People Don’t Listen to Anymore. I can meekly protest that I've been a fan since the Carter Administration, when "Flash Light" was on D.C radio every third song, but the reality is that I spent more time in 1978 with "This Year's Model" and "Give 'Em Enough Rope".

It looked to me that the African-Americans had shown up early, with folding lawn chairs, and just set up for the duration. That would be consistent with the way the black community enjoys Junetenth at MLK, and there have been plenty of times at TATS when that would have been a strategy which would have worked, but last night was not one of them. It was impossible to get to a decent sight line and, worse, unless you can get more or less in front of the stage the sound quality at Lafayette Square is pretty bad. From where we were we could mostly hear what was going on, even if we couldn't see, but I really think the event has outgrown the venue. I think they ought to set up a semi-permanent stage on the steps of City Hall for the summer, and rock out down there. There is more room, it wouldn't disrupt the light rail, and it would be an iconic backdrop.

Pretty much everyone has heard that this year marks the 30th anniversary of the Walkman. I like this reminiscence about the cassette format, which really was pretty sweet. Audio gear in general was a lot more interesting back then. You had your metal tapes, and your chrome high-bias tapes, and people had brand preferences (I was a Maxell chrome guy, which to my ears was the best sounding, and the best value). Dolby B or Dolby C was a big deal, but I favored an alternate noise reduction system called dbx, which meant that when I went looking for a tape deck to put in my car the field was narrowed quite a bit. dbx didn't sound right when played back with other systems.

People laugh now about how clunky the old Walkman were (the size of a paperback book!) but they weren't bad really. CDs wrecked everything. They eventually engineered the Walkman to the point where it was barely bigger than the tape, but a CD player was going to have to be bigger than that, and round.

Nobody else seems prepared to come out and say it, so I will. You don't have women, or African-Americans, or Latinas on the Supreme Court because the women, or African-Americans, or Latinas will rule differently than the old white guys; you have them there so the old white guys will rule differently. And better. Don't think for a heartbeat that the Warren Court would have been what it was without Thurgood Marshall in the room keeping them honest. As despicable as he is, Clarence Thomas still (barely) manages to provide this function.

At Five Thirty Eight Andrew Gelman writes about Protestants, Catholics, and Jews on the Supreme Court. The whole post is interesting, but what caught my eye was the statement that "there's some ambiguity as to whether Episcopalians should be characterized as Protestant". Gelman's data comes from this site, which notes, "Episcopalians have been left out of the "Protestant" category in the table above. Depending on the type of classification system consulted, Episcopalians are sometimes classified as "Protestant" and sometimes not. Episcopalians are part of the Anglican communion, which pre-dates Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation and is often referred to as the "Anglo-Catholic" church, a branch mid-way between Catholicism and Protestantism." News to me, and probably news to most WASPs, I'm guessing.

"Take Me To The River" came on the radio the other day-- the Talking Heads' cover, not the Al Green original-- and it got me thinking about great second albums. I suppose there are more of them than we think, but the sophomore jinx is certainly real enough for it to be a happy surprise when overcome. "More Songs About Buildings And Food" was certainly one of the happy exceptions. It was a game changing recording, moving the band and American New Wave in an entirely different direction. Think of the artists from that period that didn't have a solid second in them. "Radio Ethiopia" has its moments, but Patti Smith had to release "Easter" in order to reassure us that she was as great as we hoped. Television's "Adventure" makes me sad just thinking about it. What would American rock'n'roll have been like if "Candy O" had approached The Cars' debut?

On the other hand, "This Year's Model" outstripped "My Aim is True". "Everybody Knows This is Nowhere" ranks with the best Neil Young sides (and of course "The Freewheeling Bob Dylan" is where everyone starts-- his first album is really only for specialists at this point). I like Madonna's first album, but "Like a Virgin" is the essential recording in her oeuvre. Likewise with Lou Reed: "Transformer" is where he became Lou Reed. They Might Be Giants' "Lincoln" belongs on this list, too.

Of course the music biz has changed in ways that I could never have imagined when I brought home my copy of "More Songs". A second album flop -- a first album flop-- is a ticket to obscurity today.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with Al Franken on the Judiciary Committee, but it used to be the only committee in the Senate that had a membership requirement. You had to be a lawyer back in the day, not an unreasonable requirement in my view. When did that change, I wonder?

The NYTimes asked seven "legal experts" what questions they would like to hear Judge Sonia Sotomayor answer at her confirmation hearing. One of these nominal experts is Alberto Gonzales, once thought likely to be the first Latino Supreme Court Justice, and presently occupying the Bobby Knight Visiting Professor Chair in the Department of Political Science at Texas Tech. What's the deal with Texas Tech? Is it like the Oakland Raiders of academia?

Someone showed up here looking for Joseph G. Makowski, the former judge who tried to fix a DWI for a lawyer friend. The DA reckoned that prosecuting a DWI lawyer was more important than going after a crooked judge, and gave Mr. Makowski a walk when he agreed to step down from the bench. The State Commission on Judicial Conduct took up the matter next, in order to determine if he should be retroactively removed from office, which would cost him his pension. The Commission closed its investigation last month. The bottom line is that Mr. Makowski agreed not to seek judicial office in the future, and keeps his pension.

I would have thought that judicial corruption would have been taken more seriously. The DA declines to prosecute, the Chief Administrative Judge allowed him to keep hearing cases while the whole investigation by the DA was going on (he was on the bench when he resigned), and now the commission that is responsible for punishing judicial misconduct brushes the thing aside, essentially saying that Mr. Makowski's sanction should be the punishment he chose for himself. I'm all for leniency, since to wish ill, even when we are talking about the worst judge in the area, is bad karma. But I am still surprised.

We've presently embroiled in a lawsuit that has me deposing representatives of the Catholic Church, and as I was walking to the office of my adversary the other day I was thinking about the place the Church presently occupies in intellectual discourse. In the mid-Twentieth Century it was a significant player, after all. Telhard de Charden, Flannery O'Connor, Andre Malraux.... It occurred to me that although the Church is still a significant political force in the world, the force of its ideas has been pretty significantly blunted. Characters like Cardinal Ratzinger played a role in this, I think, and the fact that American Catholics prefer a cafeteria plan has as well. No doubt there are other contributing factors, but the plain fact is that there really aren't any Catholic intellectuals who are participating in a meaningful way to the broader discourse. It's become a closed system.

From Teresa Nielsen Hayden I have have now learned two things. One is that the Pope has issued a new encyclical, and that it says many good things. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

The other is thatNewt Gingrich has just converted to Catholicism, and now I'm back on solid ground. I've long thought that the serious structural problems with the Republican Party could be attributed to the fact that they believe Newt is an intellectual. (George Will too. No, seriously, they think that.) Now he's a Catholic intellectual. The mind reels, and no doubt poor Flannery O'Connor spins.

I am all about Lawyers in Movies these days, in preparation for my class, and this makes me want to watch any kind of movie whatsoever that doesn't have a lawyer in it. "North by Northwest" doesn't quite qualify-- there is a lawyer on hand to defend Cary Grant from a DWI charge-- but even so, it is close to time for me to watch it again. "Here, you see", Hitchcock said to Truffaut, "the MacGuffin has been boiled down to its purest expression: nothing at all!" Sadly, the article that I posted to here is no longer up. I love the idea that "North By Northwest isn't a film about what happens to Cary Grant, it's about what happens to his suit. The suit has the adventures, a gorgeous New York suit threading its way through America." Still, I like what Michael Wood seems to be saying in this piece also.