Coming Soon...

 

Court rooms and crapshoots

I recently survived a long bout of crime/courtroom real-life Netflix drama. Oh boy. What a grueling bout of prosecutor and cop corruption and flagrant miscarriage. And this is with my BS filter on high alert with a close eye on the method, apparent intent and biases of the filmmakers.

What is soon apparent is the horrible realization that not only is justice a deeply slippery intangible ambition but the formula we've concocted to find it is like a four-lane bridge with a three-and-a-half lane gaping hole in it.

There is an assumption that the court system is designed to discover the truth, but if such a blueprint was ever devised we can't possibly be following it.

Cops are definitely not responsible for truth, and no offence intended. That is not at all their job. They perform their job tactically in accordance to situations. Cops reasonably assume that the truth is the objective of prosecutors and court rooms, after they've jailed a suspect. 

Prosecutors have very little incentive toward truth. They are judged, rewarded or reprimanded by their ability to settle cases by one means or another. And for those cases which make it to court it is not their job to find the truth but to win. One way or another. And by the way the temptation to cheat and the opportunity to cheat, are both immense. And to sweep those realities under the rug we sanctify their positions and pretend that they are above reproach, for no precise reason at all.

And where they might be inclined to turn on their too-cozy relationship with law officers in any pursuit of truth they face the frightening monster that is cop solidarity. Find me a cop anywhere - anywhere! ...who is more loyal to the people they purport to serve or to truth or to justice than they are to each other.

And this phenomenon is too universal to blame on individual cops. It's there because of the paradigms they are bred in. Their jobs are dangerous and bloody difficult in ways that don't resemble other jobs. They will naturally lean hard on one another for support and survival.

Witnesses are examined without proper regard for the realities and flaws of human memory and they are put under such scrutiny and threat that they are almost certainly scared into regarding their own safety above the pursuit of truth, not to mention the biases they come pre-equipped with.

When we're talking about the most perilous cases, they are jury-decided and there things really pour down the rabbit hole. Judges have very limited opportunity to guide juries or to guide lawyers. They are auditors of process. The one player who might actually be equipped to finding truth as well as devoted to it, at least at a conscious level, the judge, is removed from the ultimate decision.

As with every (or nearly every) institution or organization, the fatal flaw in the courtroom design is that their rules, process and philosophies rely on illusion, They fail to recognize basic human nature. Human beings will behave in ways that best appear loyal to law, rule, and loyalty to the organization but secretly bent toward the selfish wishes of their egos; secrets often not even privy to the individual's consciousness; the main reason all organizations are to some significant degree corrupted.

Part of the problem with ego in this environment is that egos fool most of the people in a room into thinking that they alone are the smartest person in the room. And everyone involved in a court case; lawyer, witness, judge, jury assumes much too early that they know the truth about unproven elements, and they will espouse those presumptions and resist new evidence to the contrary.

And once juries are left to their own devices, they are almost always immediately split, and not with logic then paving the way to consensus but with subservience to the more persuasive personalities among them.

I never met the lawyer, poet and writer, Ed Wildman. He sadly departed before his friends became my friends. But he was known to say that there was more justice on the streets than in courtrooms: "In the street men generally get what's coming to them. In the courtroom it's a crapshoot."

Of course there are forces in the courtroom that are anything but random. Such as who has the most resources. Whether corporations or individuals, rich defendants have a great track record in courtrooms, and lets face it, in this society there are very few truly lawful ways to get rich.

How to stop the rich from buying legal victory by out-spending the poor? Here's a suggestion:

A court case combatant (plaintiff/prosecutor/defendant) can hire/employ pre-trial counsel and/or investigators as desired but trial lawyers are assigned by the courts. Trial lawyers would be financially incentivized by receiving ratings based on their performance and seniority, paid accordingly, and assigned to cases relative to a simple case-rating system. Cases with the most at stake (dollar amounts/maximum sentences) receive the highest-rated lawyers - on both sides.

Junior lawyers start out serving as assistants to mentoring high-rated lawyers on high-rated cases thus employing defense teams.

Successful claimants and defendants declared innocent pay nothing for their trial lawyer(s) whose performance-based incomes are generated by a tax on the damages and fines paid by the guilty.

With lawyers not being paid directly by their clients it enables this important game-changer:

A lawyer's objective is then not primarily to win, and their score-carding system will reflect it: A lawyer's job is then to seek the truth, each beginning from the perspective of their "client." But their loyalty, as with the judge, is first to justice, truth, and the people.

Another thing: Cop solidarity must be bred out of the system. It is one of the most problematic corruptions in our society. At the least, shouldn't individual police positions be rotated regularly so that familiarization does not take hold? Perhaps a cop's partners should always be newish. I'm sure there are many other ways to support them and fight the problem if we think about it.

With juries I am deeply suspicious of this consensus rule. Where juries are split for a long long time can we not drag some common sense into the equation? Can we not infer that no obvious truth has been made apparent? Can we not then look at liability and guard against the worst possible scenario perhaps?

Look at the case where the defendant spent more than a decade in jail for murder before being discovered innocent thanks to the maturation of DNA evidence technology. Almost miraculously, a bitter cop community soon tried to pin another murder on him where court proceedings pointed at a host of holes in their case. Despite this, eleven gullible members of the jury put him behind bars again following the drawn out bullying of the lone member initially leaning towards the guilty decision.

In that case here was the worst possible scenario consideration. If he was truly guilty but declared innocent, he'd be freed but after spending two decades in prison and detention; thus he already served a 20-year sentence for one murder anyway! Almost zero jeopardy!

Instead they probably re-jailed an innocent man who then spends almost his entire adult life in jail for no reasons. Probably the most tragic jeopardy imaginable. And this is what they took a chance on. To this day people and organizations devote their lives to trying to free this man. What a human catastrophe. They chose to risk the worst possible scenario.

Even when juries are removed from the system I know there are problems. I 've been personally involved in three court cases without juries and every one was a complete debacle.

1. The defendant presented his case to the duty counsel who walked into court, entirely forgot every promise to the client and basically tied a ribbon around him and made a gift of him to the prosecutor and the judge, who seemed thick as thieves. The latter ridiculed the defendant, forgetting he was a judge and not the world's lamest shock comedian. 

2. The court failed to allow a mentally challenged man to get the assistance he required in order to assemble a competent counsel and was easily bullied into complete submission by his opponent.

3. The defendant's documents which proved him innocent or at least 99% so, were of no interest to the busy prosecutor who warned he should accept a deal on a lesser charge and pay $200 instead of risking a $1500 fine plus further tribulations if he risked going before the judge. He could have read the documents and came to the obvious conclusion to drop the case. The defendant, not imagining how he could possibly come up with $1500 complied and went home $200 poorer and his dignity pulverized, this after the deal was finalized by the judge goading the baffled defendant into lying in court in order to justify the details of the artificial arrangement. It all came down to governmental financial management with no regard for truth.

Oh by the way, the great lion's share of USA's two million inmates are poor black men who balked as per above principal and are jailed without trial but through intimidation and the threat of much longer sentences if they don't accept the plea bargain. Logic dictates that the number of incarcerated innocent in the USA is overwhelming. 

I'm glad I almost knew you Ed. Crapshoots indeed. Let us all remember that and guide our affairs accordingly.

Lawyers in Love

Oppose the growing entitlement and presumption of corporations for government hand-outs in favour of equality and support for the poor. 

Vegetable of the Week

As promised, we're caving in to pressure and bestowing the belligerent cucumber with coveted Vegetable of the Week honours, despite vocal outrage from the cat community.

Thanks goes to Aqualad and Macka B for their persistent lobbying on Cu-Cumba's behalf. The latter produced the following video propaganda. Rumours that the original lyrics contained the lines "great hydrater... not a vibrator" could not be confirmed.

Here's your certificate, cucumber. Now get lost.

Sincere apologies to the feline community. Please view the following brief educational video we have put together for your enlightenment:

The battlefield

Here's some video I stitched together, inspired by recent events. You might be prone to seeing it as anti-American criticism but I'd prefer you saw it as satire.

Don't let Pfizer extort taxpayers while already making astronomical profits off Covid; say no to new tax exemptions.

Starfield's stable

Two-minute panda therapy: Pandamondayum

Hey I tried to keep it brief this time! The track is Young Lion by Vampire Weekend. I hope you enjoy...

A Lion's Heart

Urge that Canadian cruelty to pigs end sooner, rather than later.

My ride:  Starfield el Cosmos

Becoming a Person: January update

Dear Diary:

Recent milestones on the the road to Getting A Life Back:

An ability to often sleep six hours in a row.

Often eating small meals or snacks, sometimes four or even five times in a day.

Welfare funding including fairly full medical coverage.

Tax refunds and rebates coming in which do not affect welfare coverage.

Medical tests and diet counselling proceeding through Bariatric Program.

Thorough bloodwork reveals no worries but vitamin D and B12 deficiencies. By taking supplements I can expect greater energy levels.

Started the process to get a new and proper walker.

Minecraft down to a few hours per week.

Starting to read again, sometimes without falling immediately to sleep.

Very close, I think, to regularly writing again.

Next goals:

Get the walker and then more regular exercise.

Finish room reorg within ten days.

Continue to improve diet.

Write.

Catch up on correspondence. Some of my friends have been waiting over a year to hear from me. Writing about myself usually feels exhausting but I have to do it. I know I can. I'm doing it now.

Cheers.

Stranger

Please petition in support of the vital Canadian Polar Bear Habitat at Cochrane, Ontario and its most important member.

Attended my first Minecraft wedding

At last! The Vegetable of the Week!

[Editor's warning: The following announcement contains references to American politics so have a full supply of barf bags handy.]

Ladies and Gentlemen: The moment you've all been waiting for! Our very first monumentally-prestigious vegetable-of-the-week prize shall be awarded! Firstly though, sincerest apologies to the cucumber. It may shock one or two of the one or two of you to know that the mighty cucumber was set to receive this incredibly profound honour in this, its inaugural edition, especially given the very rocky relationship the cucumber has had with yours truly over the years but we really just wanted to get it out of the way early and not have further contests spoiled by distracting media speculation and rumor mongering.

But in the light of urgent media events a creature previously-considered (if barely) human-or-equivalent has been reclassified by the Science & Taxonomy Committee here at FWiGland and suddenly now qualifies in the vegetable-or-equivalent division.

Now before I announce the winner, just be advised that "we" in FWiGland have no partisan motivations whatsoever in terms of Yankee politics. We have absolutely no use for Republicans OR democrats. We're not even American; we just know a few handfuls of Americans personally, and some of them we even like! Now on with the presentation:

Ladies and Gentlemen, newly demoted from the Creepy Old White Politician category, winner of the glorious first-ever Vegetable of the Week award, I give you:

the nerdiest wannabe cowboy who wants American streets teeming with concealed guns...

the anti-choice, anti-women's rights, anti-healthcare nutcase who dementedly blurted "Americans don't need health insurance; they just need to lead good lives...!"

that most devoted boot-licker and obedient pool boy to big oil, the NRA and Department of Radical Christian Lunacy Department...

the eleven million American millionaires' most eager tool for coopting the votes of sixty million sludge-brained Yankee doodle rednecks through fear and the most childishly-delirious of obvious lies...

and all around tool...

the most delirious and aggressive poop-spewing representative from that sweet-home-skies-what-are-so-blue, yokel cousin-humping, statistically-most-dearest state to the Klu Klux Klan; Alabama...!

The racist pea-brained pile of gray-haired poop who (only in Alabama...) got elected on a platform which wholly consisted of getting the Trump Wall built any way any how, and opposing every other matter which did not lend itself to, or detracted from the funding of, getting the wall built...

the "most partisan politician in the house" according to the ratings of the Lugar Centre; a peer Republican body; the party which has lost the popular vote in every election that any sane person can remember...

the "least likely politician to ever become an adult" as voted by the Commission for Over-Age Infants (who I invented just now...) 

The imbecile of epic proportions who appears to be taking tweeting posture lessons from young high school girls and who tweeted (I swear I'm not kidding) that "many Capitol assaulters were fascist ANTIFAs, not Trump supporters..." prompting chairman of the Hopeless Search for North American Brains and/or Humanity Committee to appeal that he be nationally declared Most Complete Idiot Ever and receive a life-time ban from ever opening his mouth again, reminding "...any jackass who needs reminding that ANTIFA is not fascist! ANTIFA actually... literally... stands for ANTI-FASICISM you ass hole...!"

the scumbag who tried to mitigate consequences for his direct role in assembling the notorious Capitol Hill mob by suggesting he only wanted congress persons to witness the mob through the windows and be intimidated by them, rather than allow them in for an impromptu garage sale...

The first filthy fact-murderer in congress to oppose the 2020 election certification based on a stack of evidence-free rumors which he first heard by whispering them to himself...

the pathetic sellout who goes to bed crying every night, wishing his testicles hadn't dematerialized...

the most loyal Trump-rump-kisser in the House...

the douchebag who put the "Mo" in "Moron" and who easily defeated Three Stooges' head-hammering eye-gouging Moe Howard for the Most Idiotic Mo in All of History award...

Mo Brooks!

Yes, Mo Fucking Brooks everyone! From Ala-fucking-bama of the Not-Very-United States of America!

Here's your certificate Mo. Get your mom  or another adult to frame it or stick it to your refrigerator. Also, get fucked, you filthy malignant cretin, preferably in prison where you certainly belong, much more certainly, obviously, than the million or so American black men who are incarcerated without ever having seen a trial thanks to systematic misguided police and prosecutor intimidation tactics; the most obvious case of actual (state-arranged) voter fraud in the NVUSA.

Here you go, folks. Puke bags all around.

Apologies once again to the cucumber, although, frankly cucumber, you're another reason for puke bags. Whoa! Zing! Just kidding!

People See Through You

Tell Trudeau to brand the Proud Boys a terrorist group

Gooby's Garden

Covid19 Survival Guide: Page 11

For those times when you just can't bring yourself to be productive, or to engage in a creative project: Twenty links with excellent distraction power. Don't wait. Add them to your bookmarks at once! 

http://drawing.garden/

https://alwaysjudgeabookbyitscover.com/

http://www.omfgdogs.com/#

https://www.mapcrunch.com/

https://quickdraw.withgoogle.com/#

http://nooooooooooooooo.com/

http://whitetrash.nl

http://www.stuffonmycat.com

http://simonpanrucker.com

http://www.omglasergunspewpewpew.com/

https://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

https://neave.com/

http://www.patience-is-a-virtue.org/

Bad Lip Reading

https://www.boredpanda.com/

https://theoatmeal.com/

https://asoftmurmur.com/

http://theonion.com

https://www.ted.com/

and finally:

https://theuselessweb.com/

... for a random useless web site.

A Fool's Gold

When I was a kid a found tennis ball was gold. It meant insurance. It meant we'd be able to play more sacred street hockey once the current ball got lost or fell apart. Yes they fell apart after awhile. Quicker if it was a newish ball when we'd obtained it and were forced to puncture it in order to tame it a little. Too much bounce was not good for a hockey ball.

But as we grew our boundaries grew and we enveloped a couple new kids who were serious tennis players and then we had all the balls we wanted and then we hit high school and grew deeper pockets and bought proper hockey balls.

A song you loved was gold. You'd wait a week before managing to catch the song on the radio when you were ready with a blank cassette tape to record a crackly version, the intro missing or dulled under a DJ's chant. These days kids grab any song they want, I guess, from the internet.

A James Bond movie was gold to a young kid. And once or twice a year City TV would host a James Bond festival. Two or three a night for a whole week! It was paradise. These days kids grab any movie they want, I suppose, from the internet. I don't know what they do for gold.

Once every couple months I would manage to scrape together eight or ten bucks plus bus fare and journey to the mall.  I might get a vinyl single or an album or, right across from the A&A was the hobby store, Leisure World. And there they had the Dungeons & Dragons campaign modules; at least a dozen to choose from at any given time. I would peruse each one at great length, just the front and back covers through the clear plastic wrappers. The art work; the synopses; titles like The Curse of Xanathon or The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh!

I collected about a dozen of these over the course of my entire childhood and adolescence. As the Dungeon Master I'd study these adventures carefully and then creatively insert them into the ongoing campaign which my friends; the players always enjoyed.

In the last three days I acquired... two hundred and forty more of these modules... and counting. All the classic modules from the eighties are now available on the internet, downloadable for free.

It's raining gold. An embarrassment of riches. I don't know what I will possibly do with them all but knowing they were out there and for free... I couldn't possibly not have them.

Gold

Help Helen Naslund, victim of abuse... and the justice system.

Christmas gifts for my Minecraft friends

Smothering Instinct

I'm extremely forgetful. Perhaps because of my tendency to look below the surface of things and not to stay on top of things? Whatever the reasons, I depend on careful organizational skills and when I find myself under the thumb of the pandemic and not going anywhere there's a tendency to forget about my daily planner which contains (or is supposed to) all my project intentions, chores, appointments and recurring events: everything from teeth-brushing to garbage day to NFL Opening Day.

I sometimes forget to take my meds; both for blood-pressure and the miracle sleep-enabling drug.

Sometimes I forget a couple days in a row and things get sketchy. Recently I went three days in a row without the miracle pill due to a combination of sleep irregularity, lack of organization and terrible service hours/closures of the pharmacy from Friday through Sunday.

The result was the same as the last time I went on a three-day bender. My emotions went right into hyer-drive. While I am always missing a few very dear loved ones and have so since March, a kind of panic sets in in the above circumstance. I feel like something is going to go wrong and I'll never see them again; never hug them; or perhaps that my absence will lead them to forget about me or perhaps to not need me? I don't really understand it. There is no logical interpretation of what I feel; just an extraordinary yearning for certain people.

Certain best friends who I have had in life slipped away from me and lost interest in me despite my continued interest in them. That's probably part of it.

And also being a person who had to fight his way out of the closet in a much earlier day there remains a life-long liability which few straight people could fully comprehend. It lies, normally unwoken, in the pit of every such person who has suffered this adolescent trauma in a less-kind age; as the Eloquent Potter puts it: the fear of being de-grouped. If you know a gay person and you want to utterly kill them just make them feel unwelcome in their established peer group. For us there is nothing crueler.

Now that the internet has given us all a soapbox for preaching our advice any old time at all there's a great tendency to indulge (like yours truly, especially!). But sometimes there's a resentment if we feel that the advice to embrace sacrifice is coming from those who have less to sacrifice. We feel like the call to sacrifice is much stronger when it comes from those who must sacrifice more. This does not reflect on the accuracy or wisdom of the message though!

For instance I am full of parenting advice which I believe in confidently but I rarely ever breathe a word of it because I've never suffered the things which parents must suffer. So my voice is a weaker one. That doesn't mean I'm wrong. It means I'm less trust-worthy.

That's actually a poor example. Here's the point. When my excellent brother and other folks tell me here is the sacrifice we must make in order to ensure our parents health, there is a part of me that knows damn well they are right. But there is another part of me that says "Okay but by the way, go to hell because you have a wife and kids for you to love in your household! I have no one!"

I have a housemate who sleeps two floors above me and a there's her dog too, but these relationships are tricky ones and the love there is not of the sort that seems to keep me alive; not like my family and such dear souls as the Eloquent Potter or Aqualad or Neo for instance.

As much as I adore them, by the way, no one comes close to my Mom. She is number one; our relationship is sacred. But luckily I see her about every five weeks and we either call or skype at least three times a week.  

I found out with certainty after near-thirteen years with Long-Time Companion that the standard relationship model in our society is largely nonsensical to me and that I suck at it either way and since then I cherish close friendships with whom I can share anything (and even the odd one which has edged into sexual behavior though my interest in sex is well into its final hour) and multiple best-friendish companions have in essence replaced the idea of a spouse.

Phone calls and video chats with great friends are great!  But as a person who is starved for physical contact at the best of times these events are simultaneously a reminder of what I am missing.

In my drug-starved despair I hit the facebook status alarm bell, worried or perhaps offended some dear people and an hour later tried to trust my logic and issued a retraction. But the damage was done. Friends of a masculine-problem-solving nature be they men or women; those who rush to fix things as quickly as possible rather than pause to understand them, tried to give me advice; advice I already knew and knew could not satisfy my instinctive perception of my clobbered needs, but bless their kind souls for trying.

Telling a starving man that you have no food, that he'll have to be happy with cigarettes or chewing gum or a harmonica, solves no problems.

I'm a few days back on the pill regular now, and I still miss these people (and some others) quite terribly. But I feel again that this hell-born Covid disaster will surely pass at some point and I will just have to hang on, one way or another, and take my damn pill every day, and pray a vaccine comes to the rescue.

And when this is over I'm coming for you with a giant hug so brace yourself, and just like the childless female penguin who competes so desperately for an available orphan, I'll try not to crush you to death.

The Promise

Tax the Canadian super-rich.

Building the Map Room

Yep. It's Pandamondayum.

Here's a somewhat longer piece of panda therapy I cobbled together mostly from clips from the It's A Pandaful Life! documentary by Russia Today.

The track is Epona by Enya from album The Celts. Granted pandas do not self-identify as Celtic as far as we know but they're far too lazy to object.

Child of Nature

Urge Kijiji to join the growing movement against brutal puppy mills and the proliferation of euthanasia of friendly adoptable dogs.

SMP map room construction begins

Gender Schmender

We know that diversity is king.

We know that genetic diversity produces the healthiest offspring in mammals.

We know that diverse interests produce the most intelligent minds and emotional health and neuroscientists understand why.

We know that biodiversity is key to the biosphere and the potential survival of every doom-pointed mammal (all of us) on this crippled paradise of a planet.

We know that cultural diversity breeds cultural health and understanding and shines light on the darkest bleakest xenophobic redneck minds.

And I know - I know - how diversity in personal style avails joy and celebration in living every day. As such I don't care what you do with your clothes and your hair and your skin paint and your bits, bobs and bangles. Just do what you want, regardless of your sex. Whether you look like a boring traditional male or traditional female or somewhere in between, just please follow your inklings and be original. Be yourself. I won't judge you. Why the hell would I? What could I possibly have to lose?

We know that little girls and little boys are virtually identical in their gender-role-based interests until such a time as adults begin to impart arbitrary traditional roles upon them.

So if you want to "identify" as a male or female or neither or something in between then please do! Think of yourself the way you are inclined to think of yourself, by all means! And express it any way you're inclined.

And I will think of you how I am inclined to think of you, by all means, though I won't care about it.

For goodness sakes try to be a strong. I know it must not be easy sometimes, but looking for help by dictating pronouns is a dangerous game. If you're a close friend and you talk about yourself in such a way that my instinctive view of your gender changes then I will fall into line. I have a friend who went through a full surgical transformation and I no longer think of her as "he" and I instinctively refer to her as she. It just happens. She is very feminine in appearance. And I have other friends whose appearance does not convey to me one role or another very strongly, and so I think of them as I always have since my first impression when we first met.

I don't actually give a damn about the label; it's just instinctive and the only reason it comes to light whatsoever is because of language. There is no genderless form of the words he or she. Them is plural in most contexts. And pronouns are not words we think about when we talk. They pop out instinctively. But he and she means the same damn thing. Can we please learn to think of them as interchangeable? Instead of using them as affirmation? They are a shit tool for affirmation. Can we please not use them to test people? Trying to constantly think about pronouns when speaking is a matter of exhausting mental gymnastics.

When I say he or she it is not a reflection of what you are. It is a reflection of which way I instinctively interpret you lean. And if my interpretation differs from yours, so what? It's just me being honest about something completely void of importance to me. It is not an insult. That doesn't mean that your struggle isn't important to me. There are just other ways I will demonstrate that.

Our language has flaws. It has always been imprecise. We must do our best to communicate effectively, clearly, accurately prior to using language as a tool to show how nice we are.

Not too long ago I visited a drive-through and the person who handed me my lunch had the most beautiful appearance - in my own subjective view of course - that I have ever perceived at first sight. So beautiful. Stunning. Breath-taking. I was unnerved. It was almost tragic. I dearly wanted to linger and to ask this gorgeous creature if I could take them out for dinner. I wanted to know all about this person. I wanted to look at that face. I have no certainty if it was a girl or a boy under that hair and those clothes. If I had to bet I would say she was probably - either currently or originally - anatomically a boy but I really did not care. I did not want in her pants either way; only to bask in her light. This was a surprising experience. I never would have predicted this. And if we went to dinner I would not care what clothes or hair this person showed up in; which gender tradition they presented. I drove away feeling very very sad that such a joyful admiration could not be expressed because I was too scared to challenge our piece of shit societal expectations and superstitions.

Diversity is king.

Dress You Up

Help rescue LGBT+ students persecuted by Turkish police