Nedonna Beach Litigation

I have been bitching and moaning for a week, but I finally had the experience I was needing out here on the Oregon coast that made (most of) it worth while.

I was dreading going straight to bed after another 13-hour day of preparation and attendance at trial 80 miles from home, so I drove north up the coast from Tillamook after knocking off work at 10pm. I ended up driving to Nedonna Beach, where the property at issue in our trial is located.

Our client has owned a fishing house here for 30 years and also owns a pristine 40-acre preserve at the north end. You can find it just above the residential neighborhood and just below the mouth of the Nehalem River in this map/satellite photo. Here’s another shot of it from a higher altitude and still another from a bit higher.

Even though it was pitch dark, pouring rain sideways and past midnight, I knew the streets because I have accidentally memorized every inch of the land from maps and photographs I have researched dating back to 1858.

There is a beach access at the north end where the beach sits on the other side of a short dune, very near a flat, sandy “parking lot”.

I parked my car and walked toward the dune. It was completely dark and on the way I stepped in several puddles of cold rain water half a foot deep. When I got to the beach I had to face away from the wind as the rain pelted my back with gale force speed. I was soaked within seconds and stood with my legs braced to keep from being blown over.

Suddenly this 2-dimensional abstract legal world I have been living became an unforgettable, 5-dimensional visceral experience.

Tonight, safely back at the Shilo Inn in Tillamook, the rain is slapping the windows and it sounds like someone is vacuuming the hallway outside my room.

(And one last shot from way the hell up here.)

Randy Newman Live at MacWorld

On January 15, 2008, Randy Newman played a provocative song called “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country” at Apple’s MacWorld meeting in San Francisco. Eli at Left I on the News added subtitles so you can really see what he’s saying here.

Outstanding Obituary

My brother from New Orleans sent me this over the top obituary of an overworked lawyer in the Big Easy, written by his widow after he suffered a heart attack visiting her in the hospital. Here is a link to his profile at the law firm where he worked. Here is an article published about his death in the paper from his prior home in Pennsylvania, where people describe him as “arrogant” and “noticeably lacking in accepted social graces”, but also as “an outstanding lawyer and smarter than anyone he dealt with”. Lastly, the funeral home’s online guest registry.

“Right On” Award

Last night at my employer’s annual Christmas bash, I was given the First Annual “Right On” Award for working with the litigators and responding to every new challenge and assignment with that attitude (and often with that phrase). I hope the award is soon accompanied by a raise in pay.

Ordinary School Day Turns into Horror – 1981

Six weeks into my 9th grade year in 1981, when I was a fresh-faced newcomer to the campus of Greenville High School in my hometown in South Carolina, a suspended student came to the campus and stabbed a teacher in the chest with a knife during second period.

I was in a nearby classroom when we heard the screams of students in Henry Chiarello’s class who witnessed the event. At first I thought the screams were joyful, perhaps coming from some assembly or pep rally my class had not been invited to. Soon, though, as more students spilled out of their classrooms and saw the teacher on the hallway floor with blood spewing from his wound, it became clear that we were hearing screams of terror. The rest of the day became a blur.

It has been a long time since I thought about that day more than 25 years ago, but when I was visiting South Carolina over the Thanksgiving holiday, the subject came up during a family conversation. The next day I went to the new public library and researched the story in the microfilm files for the local newspaper.

Here is the headline of the afternoon paper, which went to press while our teacher was still in intensive care after the attack. Here is the next day’s headline, and the jump page, published after he died on the operating table during a second round of open-chest surgery. Here is a third article addressing school security policies after the crime. Finally, here is Mr. Chiarello’s obituary.

His killer, an 18-year old student named Jewel Garrett, was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 20 years. I understand she has come up for parole on at least two occasions, but has not been released. I hope she will spend her life in prison and that she thinks about her unspeakable act on a daily basis.

The irony of the story is that she intended to attack another teacher, but she knocked on the wrong classroom door.*

RIP Mr. Chiarello. You did not deserve this.

[ * Update: After replying by email to the comment below and learning more from Mr. Chiarello’s sister, the myth of his being the unintended victim has been disproven. I credit that misperception to the rumors flying around school that day and in the weeks after. As one would expect, the family still grieves.]

Vote for Hillary, or Not…

I came across the Vote for Hillary blog in a comment on another website. At first, I was put off, but once I started reading, I realized it’s a laugh riot.

War Costs $20,000 (So Far) for Family of 4

The Congress’ Joint Economic Committee released a report today showing that the Iraq and Afghan wars have cost $1.6 trillion, or $20,000 for a family of four. So far. Which raises this question, among others: How can Bush get away without acknowledging the war is a massive tax increase on every person in America?

[Flashback: In January 2006, Nobel winning economist Josef Stiglitz estimated the wars would cost $2 trillion. Looks like he knew what he was talking about, but he better revise his estimate for a war that apparently has no end.]

[Update: Stiglitz has a piece in Vanity Fair which further expounds on the financial emergency/crime Bush has unleashed on the US economy.]

Privacy is a Thing of the Past

Your government is watching you (and me) at all times. According to this article, a retired AT&T technician says he connected a device in 2003 that diverts and copies onto a goverment supercomputer EVERY CALL, E-MAIL AND INTERNET SITE ACCESS ON THE AT&T SYSTEM.

And the deputy chief of national intelligence says we just have to trust the government and big business to properly safeguard our deepest secrets. So that’s okay then.

[UPDATE: Further reading on this subject reveals a quote from Mark Klein, the AT&T guy in this article: “[The spying equipment] copies everything. There’s no selection of anything, at all — the splitter copies entire data streams from the Internet, phone conversations, e-mail, web-browsing. Everything.” And the drones in Congress are arguing over whether to grant immunity to these giant corporations who are helping the government spy on everyone, not just so-called terrorists. Sleazebags, all.]

Oregon District Judge Slams USA Patriot Act in Mayfield Case

Oregon District Judge Ann Aiken slammed the US government Wednesday, declaring that key portions of the USA Patriot Act violate the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unlawful search and seizure of “their persons, houses, papers and effects”.

Oregon attorney Brandon Mayfield was targeted by the US government for suspected involvement in the March 2004 bombings of commuter trains in Madrid, Spain that killed 191 persons and injured more than 1000. Mayfield, a practicing Muslim, was arrested after FBI agents allegedly determined that his fingerprints had been found on a bag used by the bombers. Acting under authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), as amended by the USA Patriot Act, federal agents searched Mayfield’s home and office, tailed him and his family, bugged his home and workplace and tapped his phones.

Judge Aiken found that even though the FBI stated that one of Mayfield’s fingerprints was a “100 percent” match to a print lifted from evidence at the scene of the bombings, Spanish authorities had insisted that the print actually belonged to an Algerian militant named Ouhane Daoud. Aiken found that federal agents issued “false and misleading affidavits” in order to justify invasive searches and Mayfield’s arrest as a “material witness” to the bombings.

Aiken found that the US government improperly revised the FISA law under the Patriot Act to conduct illegal surveillance of domestic criminal activity under the guise of terrorism surveillance.

“For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law – with unparalleled success,” Aiken wrote in her 44-page opinion. “A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised.”

Citing the US Supreme Court’s words from a prior case, Aiken affirmed: “The price of lawful public dissent must not be a dread of subjection to an unchecked surveillance power. Nor must the fear of unauthorized official eavesdropping deter vigorous citizen dissent and discussion of Government action in private conversation. For private dissent, no less than open public discourse, is essential to our free society.”

[UPDATE: As expected, the Bush regime, er, administration, has appealed the decision to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.]

Whatever It Is, I’m Against It

This guy is writing some of the finest political satire around today. The tightest and funniest read on life in Bush’s America, usually in under 200 words. Great pictures, too:

Whatever It Is, I’m Against It