Beth and I broke up this month. I have nothing witty or ironic to say about that.
Now the story of Alameda Transportation Corridor Authority vs. Gautier Land Company and Los Angeles By-Products can be told. If only it were worth telling. This is the case on which I served as a juror in July and August. Each side hired a real estate appraiser (we heard from four in all) to reach a conclusion favorable to their side. Although we found some of them, and some of what they had to say, credible or bogus -- ultimately, by a variety of methods of reasoning, we wound up just splitting the difference. It kind of makes me sad because we effectively assumed everyone was lying, and gave them no incentive not to lie in the future. In fact if any side was telling the truth we screwed them.
Although I wasn't too proud of our result, I was proud of our process. I was the foreman of the jury, so I brought some Mennonite-style consensus decision-making principles to the table. I was proud of the quality of discourse, and how gracefully disagreements were borne. I think the average IQ of this jury was well above 100 -- in fact, there were two people who work for Barry Barish (my advisor) on the jury. The lawyers were very complimentary of us, I think sincerely, just for listening hard for 11 days of technical testimony and not letting our eyes glaze over.
On August 15th I biked to downtown L.A. during the Democratic National Convention to exercise a little free speech, and very nearly got arrested for my trouble. I rode with some friends who were going to a "Critical Mass" bike rally. We got downtown about 5:00 and it was a very eerie, uneasy place to be. A few dozen yuppies were heading home from work, a few hundred sight seers were waiting around to see if anything would happen, a few thousand activists of various flavors were organizing things, and thousands and thousands of cops in full riot gear were grimly watching it all from clusters on every corner and showing off their sticks and guns. I left the Critical Mass rally as soon as they started their ride (about 100 bicycle activists escorted by about 100 bicycle cops who swooped in as the ride began) because I was going to a rally to protest our insane Iraq policy which is genocidal, failing, and being denounced by a growing list of UN bigwigs in charge of implementing it. My choice of protest was fortuitous for me, because about 20 minutes later everyone on the bike ride was arrested although they had done nothing illegal and held for 48 hours in county jail where they were treated like dirt.
The cops had a tough, 3-fold job -- to keep the fat cats at the convention on schedule, to protect the property of the downtown business fat cats, and to protect the free speech rights of the riff raff. Predictably, the rights of the riff raff were abridged to keep the fat cats happy. Not that they were shutting down all free speech; when they were sure they could achieve all three objectives they left the riff raff alone. But there were many cases in which the police executed some illegal prior restraint against what they guessed the riff raff *might* do. In fact, I think the majority of charges filed by the police against protesters have since been thrown out by judges (including all the charges against the bike riders).
The police have sore backs from patting themselves -- no property was damaged, and why should the protesters mind if they got unfairly arrested as long as the judges let them out? The ironic thing is that at this point, the protest movement is very deeply seeped in nonviolence philosophy and wanting to play by the rules of free speech and (in some cases) civil disobedience. Every time the police abridge those free speech rights, they increase the number of people who will grow disaffected with trying to work within the system and will turn to violence. There is a core of us who are fundamentally committed to nonviolence as an act of discipleship to Christ; but most of the movement are just adopting it because they think it will work. If the system refuses to open itself to nonviolent change, they will try other tactics.
By the time the rally ended, I had two flat tires and no bus maps. So I walked a few miles from Staples Center to Sunset, where I knew I could catch a bus to Hollywood. Then I got off the bus way too early, and walked another few miles to Hollywood Bowl where I bought a $1 ticket just as the piece I wanted to hear (Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini) was finishing. I ran into Doug Yoder in the men's room at intermission, who offered me a ride home, and thus I got sucked into Doug Yoder Vortex for a couple of hours. A very intersting place to be. Let's just say Doug Yoder is the wheelingest-dealingest Yoder that Mennonitism has yet produced. I saw his unbelievably cheap but gorgeous cantilevered house in the hills, along with blueprints for a major expansion and an account of how he's finanching it with a loan based on the huge amount of equity that accrued on paper less than a year after they purchased; as well as accounts of how his non-profit startup is faring and why the Russian Minister of Culture is visiting Pasadena in regard to one of his endeavors. He dropped me off, exhausted in body and spirit, at midnight.
I knew my party (the Greens) had nominated Ralph Nader for president but I wasn't sure what his schtick was. So a week later I went to hear him at a Green rally. You know, for years the Republicans have been trying to convince us that if the Democrats got in, the middle class was screwed -- and the Democrats have been telling us the same thing about the Republicans. And I never bought that. I figured, and have experienced, that the middle class does pretty well under either regime. Following the prophets and gospels in a preferential option for the poor, I used to try to figure out which party offered more hope to the poor and marginalized -- back when it was possible to distinguish Democrats from Republicans. When I saw Nader this month he resonated with a lot of my beliefs, so I was a bit surprised to realize on later reflection that he isn't saying much about the poor either -- his theme is that the Republicans and Democrats have both sold out the middle class to corporate interests. My favorite Nader factoid is that air pollution kills ten times as many people as violent crime -- but you'd never guess that listening to Bush or Gore speeches. Nader doesn't believe in markets as much as I do -- I think Nader is a huge step in the right direction, probably too far in the right direction. But I vote for that step.
Within minutes of sending the July Bobologue, I was informed by Dave White (who makes his living by having opinions about everything that happens or has happened in pop culture, and expressing them in caustic, witty ways) that in fact there had been a movie called Jury Duty, which wrote itself for Pauly Shore in 1995. I read the reviews on the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com, where you don't have to be a Big Deal Big Wheel like Dave White to express your opinions) which began with sentences like, "This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life." Dave also added, "my diary is so family entertainment - my mom reads it every week".
I have a page in my notebook that reads "Bobologue ideas -- Aug: toilet sculpture". I have no recollection of writing that or what it means.
Dave and I moved into a house on Madison Street, on the block where everyone from our Urban Village church group lives. It's a funky old house that has been built on to, and then built on to the built-onto parts. It has corners in places where it shouldn't even have places. I like it. Although my bathroom is really just a hall with a commode in it.
We were a Nielsen family for a week (the people who compute TV ratings). They sent us a viewing diary to fill out, and two bits for our trouble. What we taught Nielsen is that households of our demographic leave the TV off 165.75 hours a week, and watch Dodger baseball the rest of the time.
ME: What kind of dot com do you work for?
SHE: We have some software you can download.
ME: What does the software do?
SHE: It's kind of hard to explain. The best answer is, "Just download
it and see."
ME: You might think about sharpening your marketing message a little
bit.
I might have been the Reform Party presidential candidate if I could have got my delegates credentialed.
OK, I finally figured out the sculpture remark. Jurors get free admittance to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which is currently featuring a wacky Mexican named Gabriel Orozco. This guy thinks of any old thing, calls it art, and the art establishment buys it. Among his works were:
It was way too hot for way too long -- 3 or 4 weeks of temperatures in the 90s and 100s. Now my pants are all a little too tight, I think because I drank too much Coke during the heat wave.
QUOTE OF THE MONTH "Kahlil Gibrahn wrote, `God, save me from
philosophy that does not laugh; from wisdom that does not weep; and
from greatness that does not bow before a child.' Mr. President,
isn't it time to bow before the dying children of Iraq?"
-- Casey
Kasem's entire speech at Iraq sanctions rally
return to Bob Nolty's home page