Outside Counsel

I heard "David" driving around listening to WFMU about a month or so ago and thought the world of it. My pockets are full of the scraps of paper that I use to jot down the names of artists I hear on FMU that I want to follow up on, but I am not as diligent in doing this as I wish I was. When I read the review of "Get Away From Me" in The New Yorker, though, I realized that Nellie McKay was someone I wanted to hear more of.

I am not sure I can remember the last time I pushed the drawer of the CD player closed and was rewarded with such a consistently hook filled, catchy, clever set. I just want to quote it: "god i'm so german/have to have a plan/please ethel merman/help me out of this jam," jerked my head around, for example, but there are little lovelies like that on every song. It's not just the lyrics, either-- these tunes are musically interesting; McKay has an engaging voice; and the overall quality of the recording is sharp and clever. I have no idea how late to the party I am with this artist, but if you haven't heard her yet, seek this side out.

EGA asked, "Do you know what a Jungian shadow is?" I didn't, so she explained that it is the persona that embodies the dark side of one's personality. "Like a doppelganger?" I asked. "No, more like an evil twin," she said. I allowed myself to speculate for a moment who mine might be, but she said, "No, I doubt that you have one. I expect that you are someone else's."

McSweeney's Pros and Cons of John Kerry's Top Twenty Vice Presidnetial Candidates.

"7. Paul Tsongas, former Senator, Massachusetts

Pro: Fiscal conservative, appeal could cross party lines
Con: From same state as Kerry, died in 1997

10. Nancy Pelosi, Representative and House Minority Leader, California

Pro: Could lure disenchanted liberal voters who might otherwise go with Nader
Con: As a liberal, hates America, would make religion illegal, raise taxes by 500 percent, move Capitol to France."

(Recomended by RC3.org Daily.)

Al Gore is certainly correct, point by point, in this speech, but saying that Bush is "the most dishonest president since Richard Nixon" actually sells his point short. George W. Bush is the the worst president in the history of this country. He makes Nixon look good, as hard as that is to believe.

I don't think anyone could have predicted the ways that Bush would be a disaster as president, but it had to be pretty clear that he was going to be bad. The jury charge for foreseeability says: "The exact occurrence or exact injury does not have to be foreseeable; but injury as a result of negligent conduct must be not merely possible, but be probable. There is negligence if a reasonably prudent person could foresee injury as a result of his or her conduct, and acted unreasonably in the light of what could be foreseen. On the other hand, there is no negligence if a reasonably prudent person could not have foreseen any injury as a result of his or her conduct, or acted reasonably in the light of what could have been foreseen."

Gore's tepid campaign contributed to this disaster, and I'm still mad about it. A speech like this needed to have been made four years ago. I'm glad that someone is making it now, but I'm not hearing John Kerry say anything like this yet. We need Kerry to speak the truth, the way that Gore now feels free to: "There was then, there is now and there would have been regardless of what Bush did, a threat of terrorism that we would have to deal with. But instead of making it better, he has made it infinitely worse. We are less safe because of his policies. He has created more anger and righteous indignation against us as Americans than any leader of our country in the 228 years of our existence as a nation -- because of his attitude of contempt for any person, institution or nation who disagrees with him."

Al, where were you man?

I can't say that I'm as attuned to hot dogs as I am to some other sorts of things-- there have probably been years when I haven't had one at all. Still, every now and then a hot dog is just the thing you want, and when I feel that way, I go to Ted's. Knowing that Jane and Michael Stern feel the same way makes me want to try the other places on this list.

As I predicted, I have successfully resisted picking up "Live 1964". Michaelangelo Matos
is scathing in this week's Voice: "Joan Baez appears on four cuts, a warning itself. And the material that was released at or around the time is performed better on albums worth owning." The pattern for the minstrel of Minnesota of late has been to release a side of new material, followed by a box set of archival material, alternating every other year or so. He has now released back to back live albums. I like the Rolling Thunder Review collection, and feel like this was a period in his career which was overlooked for too long, probably because "Renaldo and Clara" was such a dog. (I've never seen it, and would love to, which probably means I am more of a Dylan freak that I would ever admit.) I saw a Rolling Thunder show, at Niagara Falls, and thought it was swell-- good as "Live 1975" is, it would have been better if it had included the Roger McGuinn numbers, and the weird number that Mick Ronson played, and even the Ramblin' Jack Elliot song, whatever it was.

Back to back live albums is a pretty good sign that an artist's creativity is flagging: add to that the fact that Dylan's discography over the last ten years includes two greatest hits collections and two more live sets (including an MTV "Unplugged" set. Now c'mon.) and the pattern comes into clearer focus. If anyone is entitled, I suppose he is, but it seems to me that there must be loads of more interesting stuff in the vaults.

If he is going to milk it, lets have more of the "Basement Tapes" stuff that we know is out there. Let's hear "Blood on the Tracks" as originally recorded. There has to be decent tape of the Forest Hills concert that Al Kooper has talked about for years; there are Dylan songs that others have covered that we haven't heard him do. He retained the rights to the set he did at George Harrison's Concert for Bangla Desh, and that numbers among the very best live recordings he ever did. (For my money, the all time best version of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" is buried on a box set that features more Ravi Shankar than Ravi Shankar's mother needs, Ringo forgetting the words to his own hit single, and a pointless Billy Preston number.) We have way, way more recordings of duets with Joan Baez than we need, how about a collection of collaborations with some of the other people he has sung with --many of whom had voices that work better with Dylan's than Baez-- what were they trying to prove?

You know, Your Honor, when you are trying to work with lawyers to promote the settlement of a matter, it is not helpful when you tell one of the lawyers in caucus that you are going to make an adverse ruling on an issue in the case. The message that this sends is not the message you think you are sending. It is possible that you think you are being helpful, by focusing counsel's attention on a possible weakness in his case, but what you are really saying is, "I am an asshole. I will bully you, and I am indifferent to my role as a neutral presiding over this matter." It surprises me when this happens, and it happens quite a bit. I understand that you have a crowded docket, and that you pride yourself on being able to move your calendar, but you will not move me by telling me that you are prepared to create an appellate issue if my client refuses to evaluate her case the way you do. What you are actually doing is encouraging the parties to take a shot, and see what a jury will do. We already know, now, what you are going to do: you are going to screw up. It will cost us time, and it may cost us money, but you have taken the uncertainty out of the process, because now we know that if the case goes forward, and you do as you promise, we will all be coming back to do it again.

As a junior in college I worked for a semester as an intern at the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution. It was an interesting experience that hasn't provided nearly enough grist for Outside Counsel. I did get a chance to see some legendary figures in action: Virgina's William Scott, the man voted "Dumbest Senator", who held a press conference to deny it was the Minority Leader of the Subcommittee, for example. (Scott stories were particular favorites among staff members-- he was truly astonishingly stupid.) Orrin Hatch was a freshman Senator back then-- I sat in the room and listened in amazement as he testified at a hearing on D.C. representation in Congress, opposing the proposed Constitutional amendment that would have granted this to the residents of the District on the grounds that doing so would open the door to minority groups in the states to seek representation in the House and Senate. I got to see Alabama's James Allen invent a filibuster technique to stall ratification of the Panama Canal Treaty-- and I got to meet S. I. Hayakawa, who argued that "we stole it fair and square." I saw James O. Eastland, and John Stennis, Strom Thurmond, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. I came away from the experience with a pretty good Bob Dole story, and a respect for the institution. It is, and always has been, as populated by fools and poltroons as any other gathering its size, but it has mostly done what it was intended to do, and the breakdown that we are witnessing is a sad thing to see. This excellent essay about why this is happening seems to me to really nail the explanation.

There is, I think, a way out: it will not come by way of rules changes, or legislation-- in many ways those aspects of the Senate's function are big contributions factors in the creation of its present breakdown. What I think needs to happen if for the members who take the role of the institution seriously to begin flexing the powers that come with the oversight process. John McCain (who I don't really care for) and Teddy Kennedy (who I'm not that crazy about, either) both seem to realize this, and they are both much more effective as Senators because they do. If I stop and think about it for 15 minutes I can probably come up with the names of 15 more Senators who could be doing more good by being more active in this capacity. We don't need more laws-- we need to understand what is going on with the systems, programs and institutions that our present laws have created. The Senate, with its presumption of longevity and continuity, is set up to do this, and Senators that can pry their eyes from the reflection of the man who should be President that they see in the mirror every morning should be doing this job. When that starts happening, some of the sense of working together that the members seem to have lost will be restored, and we may see a Senate that dithers less, and governs better. It may be that we are already seeing this: The events at Abu Ghraib seem to have stirred John Warner into action, and there seem to be some other Senators who are beginning to realize that they've been played for chumps, too. It's a damn shame that none of them stirred themselves to make the sorts of inquiries that they should have and could have before we put our country into this disaster, but if they are paying attention now, that can only be a good thing. (Electrolite pointed me to The Decembrist. I wonder if I'd have ever met any of these Brooklynites if I'd stayed in the City of Homes and Churches.)

Bob Dylan's birthday. "Don't criticize what you can't understand."

I think it is time again to start considering Dylan for a Nobel Prize. Back when he was a beatnik bard there were some rumblings, but the magnitude of his contribution was probably not fully understood then. We have a better perspective now. I'd have to say that I cannot think of any more deserving world literary figure-- can you?

Nicholas Kristof makes a valid point when he says that we may be rushing to judgment if we press for Donald Rumsfeld's firing over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. There are so many other valid reasons to want to see Rummy, and the rest of this bunch fired that screwing up the war that they lied about to get us in, and lied about when they told us how it would go, and lied about when they told us how much it would cost, and lied to us about how long we'll be there, that the sickening way that we are actually losing the war is really pretty trivial. Still, for what it is worth, I have now read Sy Hersh's New Yorker piece, and I find the reporting from the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who exposed Mai Lai more credible than the assertations of Bush and Cheney to the effect that Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a swell job. There have been war criminals in our government before, of course: what is notable is the way that the persist in the body politic of the United States, like a low grade infection that flares up every now and then. How else do we explain Kissinger, after all. Indeed, the puscilamity of the present Bush administration is perhaps best understood as a residual of Kissinger's foreign policy: he was the big gun when they were all mopping up during the Ford Administration, and it is not hard to imagine them thinking that they would get things running right during the long period while they waited for their time to come again. The fact that our present President had a load of them on board when it was his turn only reinforces the idea that they reckon that this time is their last shot: however it is that they want the world to be, we are seeing them take their best shot at making it that way now.

What I find odd is that so many conservatives seem to think that the project is consistant with their view of how the world should be.

Dhalia Lithwick nails why the "slippery slope" argument against gay marrage doesn't cut it: "One of the most persistent complaints of conservative commentators is that liberal activist judges refuse to decide the case before them and instead use the law to reshape the entire legal landscape for years to come. The Massachusetts Supreme Court, in finding that the ban on gay marriage violated the state constitution, did exactly what good judges ought to do: It confined its reasoning to the case before it, rather than addressing the myriad hypothetical future cases that may be affected by the decision. Opponents of gay marriage should consider doing the same."

For the past few summers EGA has worked at A's office, this year she was asked to play on the softball team. It was not because of any softball talent-- the invitation came about as a result of EGA's double X chromosomal, and the league rule requiring a minimum cohort of persons so equipped. Still, she's a gamer, and having accepted the invitation she asked me to work with her a bit on some fundamentals. It's been a while since I've had a catch-- probably nearly as long as it has been for her, since I ended up using the glove she used when she was seven, while she used mine. Although she insists that she is not sportif, she takes instruction well: when I explained why she shouldn't throw off her back foot ("Think of your body as being a catapult") she looked thoughtful for a moment, and then made perfect throws. I'd forgotten how satisfying the "thwap" of a caught ball in a glove is. There was a time when having a catch was the most exercise I engaged in, and it was nice last night to do it again, in the cool spring evening, as LCA played soccer.

I just got a letter seeking an adjournment of a matter on for this Friday. Even if I had an objection, any resistance I might have put up was lost by the second line: "One of the attorneys is having a Bris for his newborn baby...." Application granted, counselor.

Cosmic retribution may be certain, but it is certainly not swift. At least, not usually. I should know: I've been skating along, dodging payback for years, but it may finally be catching up with me.

I was working A's hobby Saturday, driving daughters to and from soccer and ballet. As we passed Outokumpu American Brass I saw that the fuel gauge needle was hovering right above "E" so I switched the display above the rear view mirror from "Temperature/Direction" to "Distance to Empty". It read, "12 mi."

"Ha ha!" I said. "Now I am going to drive around with DTE on, running out of gas, just to annoy LCA!" This had the desired effect: "FAther!" she complained, "Buy gas!" Things continued on in this vein for another mile or so; I pulled into one gas station, then pulled out, in part to continue the tease, but also because Regular was $2.12. I figured I'd go to the Delta Sonic three or four blocks away, where the gas was likely to be the least expensive in the area.

You know how there is a little slope at the Delta Sonic on Delaware that rises up from the sidewalk to the pumps? That was where we were, waiting for a pump to open up, when the van conked out. It was raining, so the pavement was slick from the detergent runoff from the car wash, and it took three other guys and me to get the van to the pump, with CLA at the wheel. I have never seen such swift karmic payback.

Sensing that Fortuna's wheel was spinning against me, I immediately set out to make things right with the universe. Once we had dropped LCA off at dance, I turned to CLA: "Want a driving lesson?" Of course she did, so we found an empty parking lot, and commenced her initiation into the rites of the fraternity of internal combustion. Of course, this meant that EGA had to have a lesson as well-- she is actually old enough to drive, and may well have her license by the time she goes back to school. For now, if they are being pursued by Nazis, they will be able to get into a car and drive away to make their escape, just like in the movies. I have always regarded that as the basic minimum of knowing how to drive.

Some things to try on the grill this summer. A won't eat horseradish, so the Grilled Salmon Fillets with Creamy Horseradish Sauce are out, but the Cabernet Burgers look good, and the Peppers with with Wasabi Vinaigrette, and the Grilled Corn Salad with Lima Beans and Tomatoes, and the Grilled Dixie Chicken.....

To Bill Charlap, at the Albright Knox Art of Jazz series over the weekend. Speed to burn, and a lot of technique. Dick Judelsohn said he was something like Tommy Flanagan, which is apt; I was reminded somewhat of Oscar Peterson. Charlap is touring in support of a CD of Leonard Bernstein interpretations, so there was a lot of that, which presented an interesting issue: Bernstein often composed jazz-influenced material, but the swing is built in-- there is not a lot of room for improvisation. Numbers like "Cool", or "Jump" sound great, but where do you go with them? Nowhere much, is the answer, so although I'm sure it's fun to play, if all it is about is technique, something seems missing. It wasn't all Bernstein: I'd say the best thing he played was an extended "Blue Skies" that was simply terrific. In all, an interesting piano trio contrast The Bad Plus. In a lot of ways someone like Charlap is kind of an anachronism, but, on the other hand, the tradition within jazz that he represents is a perfectly valid continuing strain of the music, and certainly worthwhile.

I'm playing Imperialism across the board.

In his review of Professor Thane Rosenbaum's book, "The Myth of Moral Justice: Why Our Legal System fails to do What's Right" Adam Liptak quotes Justice Holmes: "I hate justice, which means that I know if a man begins to talk about that, for one reason or another he is shirking thinking in legal terms." As usual, the Yankee from Olympus nailed it: the law and justice have two different stands in the marketplace, and are concerned with different things. If you are shopping for apples, you shouldn't complain that the tomatoes you bought aren't crispy enough. It is hard enough for the law to be fair: the whole architecture of our jurisprudence is constructed around the idea of resolving (or preventing) disputes on grounds that are relevant and even handed, balancing one consideration against another. Expecting consistent "justice" on top of that is ignoring what the law actually is, and confusing what the law does sometimes with what it should be doing.

Still, it sounds like Professor Rosenbaum is on to something: "One of the dirty little secrets of the legal system is that if people could simply learn how to apologize, lawyers and judges would be out of business." Not quite, but it is certainly true, in my experience, anyway, that if an aggrieved party is given a forum to make his complaint heard, and afforded an opportunity to have his wounded feelings addressed, the cost of compensating that party for the wrong which has been done to him frequently drops precipitously.

This simple idea is why mediation often works, even when the lawyers for the parties are convinced it will not. It is also why experiments in "court ordered" mediation often don't work as well. Such "mediations"-- like the one I attended yesterday, as a matter of fact, typically involve only the lawyers, meeting with a neutral. Usually the parties are not involved, and therefore do not feel particularly invested in the process, which ends up amounting trying to setting a price on a matter. Ideally the parties themselves should try to work out a compromise that will satisfy themselves, with their lawyers present to make sure that each client's rights are protected. That's what I did the Friday before last, actually, just the two principals, with their lawyers, me and another guy, in a conference room with our clients. As the lawyers worked over the parameters of the dispute, the principals, who had been doing business together for years, worked out the heart of the matter, the way they probably should have in the first place.

There's more than one tool in a good lawyer's belt, and criticisms of the legal system that focus on the litigation process are frequently blind to the reality that there is a good deal more to law than lawsuits and what goes on in the courtroom.

There aren't many photos of me that I like. This is one, which I'm using to try out a bit of software that will allow me to post photos. 

I can't decide if I want to spend twenty bucks on a haircut, or just buy a pair of clippers and take it down. I'm leaning towards the clippers.

Marianne Faithfull on William Burroughs. (Via Bookslut.) Two iconic figures, both of whom should probably also have Athletic Clubs named after them.

"A duck dinner has come to us!" I am going to make this, next time I have five hours to roast a duck.

The Top 25 Weirdest Items You Can Purchase Through Amazon. I know some people who would like several of these items, actually. (Via Bifurcated Rivets.)

"The following is a collection of moments from the last 50 years of pop, some of them obvious, some of them, I hope, not so, all of them possessing some deeper cultural relevance." A Brit-centric list: The Smiths and New Order aren't as important here, for example. And I continue to question the importance of Nirvana, although it may just be that that whole thing completely passed me by. (Via Follow Me Here.)

Although the parallels are obvious enough, I'm not so sure I see this race as being like Dukakis-Bush. I'm thinking it looks more like Nixon-Humphrey in 1968-- war going badly, country divided as much by the war as by cultural issues, and close to a dead heat in the polls. The difference then, of course, is that neither was an incumbent. Humphrey was as compromised by the war as Kerry seems to be-- HHH because he was a member of the administration that was prosecuting the war, and couldn't distance himself from it, Kerry because he likewise cannot distinguish what he would do from what Bush is doing, except on issues of style.

I can't tell if Kerry is laying back for the big push that he'll need at the end, or if my thinking so is merely wishful thinking. Humphrey almost made it-- with the benefit of hindsight, we now know that '68 was much closer than it looked at the time. I have never been crazy about Kerry, but I am at a loss as to how anyone could favor Bush over him-- Bush seems to me to be pretty clearly one of the worst Presidents the country has ever seen. He has done long term structural damage to the economy, and I do not think that America's stature in the world has ever been lower. The US is fortunate because it is difficult to break something that is blessed with as many advantages as we have. This is a country with natural resources that place it in the top ranks for any commodity that is essential for a modern economy (think of what Japan could do if it had our oil resources). We continue to be a manufacturing leader, and we have educational resources that are second to none. We have a diverse population that is motivated to work, and an economic structure that allows us to work and encourages the entrepreneurial. For a long time we had the advantage being physically isolated from the rest of the world, which gave us greater security than most other countries had, and allowed us to develop a military that was designed to project force, rather than to defend our borders. This advantage has eroded (on Bush's watch, but let's not put all the blame on this Administration), but all of our other strengths remain. Only monumental mismanagement could have placed us in our current position: no longer a symbol of freedom and opportunity, we are now-- I don't even know what. Greedy pigs at the trough. An occupying army of oppression. The schoolyard bully of the world. And all off this is happening at a time when the economic disparities among our own people are growing greater every day.

I look around at the people I know, and I think, this government is not representative of who we are. I listen to other people talking as I travel, and on TV and the radio, and I think, this is not who they are either. And then I wonder what it will take to get us out of this, and whether people even realize what has happened to our country. I wonder if we will stay on course with this downward spiral out of sheer doggedness. It is incredible to me that something as trivial as who gets to marry who may be what decides the future of "the only indispensable nation." I stand slack jawed in amazement that this sort of cultural issue may be what decides whether the US becomes Great Britain or not, but that is how it goes when you are a hegemon-- it's the internal forces that allow the external enemies to bring down the great powers, every time.

States with the highest IQ's vote Democrat. Well, duh. (Via Flutterby, which adds: "There are many variable that are obviously not included. Connecticut, for example, probably has a significantly higher rating now that George Bush lives in Texas.")

My usual lunch consists of a 3:00 pm Snickers bar, a fact that makes EGA irritable: "The lunch of candy? You have candy for lunch?" Her scorn is almost palpable. Really all I'm looking for is a quick sugar lift to get me though the end of the day: I can't say that I particularly like Snickers bars (although the almond ones, which are basically a Mars Almond Bar, are alright). I don't think of it as food, I think of it as fuel-- if it were food, its overall lack of deliciousness would cause me to reject it out of hand.

The world is not all Belgian chocolate, (which is food), but some candy is indisputably nastier than others. The improbably named Steve Almond has written a book about his candy obsession, "Candyfreak" which sounds pretty funny. In this interview he holds forth on a number of matters confectionery, including this list:

Mistakes Were Made (MWMs)

Twizzlers: not just a horribly artificial flavor, but a texture that falls somewhere between chitin and rain poncho.
Chuckles: a fruit jelly the consistency of cartilage. Explain.
Circus Peanuts: a marshmallow pretending to be a legume. I'm baffled.
White Jellybeans: I defy you to tell me what flavor white is supposed to signify. Pineapple? Coconut? Isopropyl?
White Chocolate: this stuff is, in fact, not chocolate (as it contains no cocoa) but a scourge visited upon us by the inimical forces of Freak Evil.
Lime Lifesavers: The Lifesavers people haven't figured out by now that no one likes this flavor?
(Via Bookslut.)

Etan Patz is a name that sends a pang to the heart-- he was the little boy that was abducted in 1979 and came to personify the missing children movement. Apparently his parents brought a civil suit against the man who is believed to have kidnapped and killed him, who is presently incarcerated in a Pennsylvania prison on an unrelated child molestation charge. In the course of the lawsuit, his deposition was ordered, and he defaulted. New York law provides that in such instances the Court may enter judgment against the defaulting party (I think this is a remedy that exists in most jurisdictions). The story ran in today's papers, and, as it happens, I read about it as I was riding the train to appear before the judge who granted the judgment. I have been before this judge on many occasions, although I have not tried a case before her. Although she has been abrasive, I can't say that she has been injudicious, and, in fact, her rulings have been fair to both sides. She has certainly been abrasive, however, and I wondered how the publicity would affect her.

I needn't have wondered. My adversary, who has borne the brunt of her temper on the lion's share of the occasions when we have appeared before her, was quick to mention the disposition of the Patz matter. "Way to go," was how he put it, and fine-- I'd have worked it in, so I guess it's to his credit that he got there first. We got nowhere on our case, but the judge was in a pretty expansive mood, and didn't yell at anybody. I suppose there is a sense in which judges, who are, after all, political animals, may sometimes feel as though they labor in undeserved obscurity. This judge felt good about this, even though the order was a pretty routine matter. It's funny how vanity works-- as far as she was concerned, the newspaper coverage was about her.

EGA writes:

"We will not be grownups like my parents and their friends: how could we be? My peers, with their regrettable tattoos (the little prince, a three musketeers hat) and armchair communism, will never settle into respectable adult life. They will not have dull, well-paying jobs: they will have dull, non-lucrative jobs to support their feminist book collectives and anarchist zines. Their children will all have ridiculous names: when my generation starts to breed, kindergardeners will have to be called Sage A. and Sage D. and Sage W. to distinguish between them. They will go to Wiccan Sunday school and color in pictures of Gaia. My peers will all be polyamorous lesbians who will have money for Earth Balance but heaven knows where they'll get it. I can't imagine Jovana or Beth becoming adults any other way.

They will, though, I realize. As far as I know nobody stays this way into adulthood. They will all let their hair grow out and dye it brown (I already have, and it matches my eyebrows, but I look washed out and tired). A lot of them will go to law school (why does everybody go to law school?).

"I always think that if I talk to an adult about my problems, they will come up with a solution. This is never the case. Adults don't have any magic, they're just older than I am. Soon I will be an adult and, in all likelihood, an authority figure of some sort. I will not have any answers, either. But I will have a better haircut and less comfortable shoes"

Somewhat unseasonaly cold here in the Queen City of the Lakes today, the morning forcast even called for a killing frost. So cover up your tomato plants, and for g-d's sake, keep Wildfire inside.

I'm holding a ticket for Minister Eric to win. Shoulda bought a Form, instead of trying to dope out this field using online research-- we'll see how they run, I reckon.

Update: 16. Sixteen. A. saw the track and said, "Oh my g-d, they're running at the beach." Good race though.