I'm Going to Be in Court Tomorrow

I'm a little of nervous.

Snow

How Does One Make a Good Choice with Limited Information

I may have an opportunity for a job about an hour and a half from where I live now. It's a good job for me. It's secure, it involves litigation, and it's public service. I think I would really like this job. That's all well and good. But I don't KNOW that I'll like it. I can't know that. And unlike my present employment, it's a permanent gig. In a remote city. It's a serious commitment. What if I take it, hate it, and can't find anything else? What if I end up stuck in the middle of nowhere with no way out? This FEELS like the kind of place I could stay for the rest of my career. That's awesome in the fullest sense of the word -- as in it is amazing to behold and makes me cower.

It boils down to having to decide whether to take the job based on impressions from my interviews and online research. But I can't know the future or whether my wife will be able to find a job in a new city. I know I'm happy where we live now, but if I take this job, we will have to move sooner or later.

So, to the title of the post: decision-making with limited information. It's like buying a used car (something I may be doing very soon). You can check it out, you can drive it, you can have it inspected by a mechanic. But you can't know whether water damage is eating away at the electrics or the timing belt will snap next week. You can't know that your mechanic did a good inspection. You can't know that you won't wreck the car the day after you buy it. All you can do is put the hours into checking buyers' guides and finding a mechanic with a good reputation and a car and seller that "feel" right. And in the end, that's what makes or breaks it: the feel. Do I trust the guy? Does the car feel good to drive?

This seems unsatisfactory to me. I should come to grips with the uncertainty inherent in all decision-making. I should remember that, just as I make a choice to take a job, I can make a choice to leave a job.

I hemmed and hawed about this a couple years back and took the right job. Can I do it again? Should I just be grateful that I have a choice at all?

1 per day

There's a simplicity movement afoot. Inundated with information and the ceaseless drumbeat of consumerism, a contingent is choosing to live with less and to reject the premise that our status as consumers defines us. For example, there is the 100 thing challenge, which I've seen on various blogs. Here's one example.

There's also this Transition movement, which started in the UK and has spread. From my shallow knowledge, it seems to start from the premise that we are headed for leaner times. It's like a progressive alternative to the survival shelter mindset. Like some more conservative folks, they think the current system of food and energy delivery will collapse and posit that, if we scale back our consumption now and begin to increase "resiliency" in our communities, we may be able to transition more smoothly into the post-oil guzzling world. Local sustainability is the goal. So instead of each person with the resources available building a bunker, members of the community come together to create/encourage initiatives like sustainable agriculture, basic repair and mechanical skill classes, and awareness projects.

In the spirit of living with less, I've determined to do with less myself. I'm going to give/throw away one item per day for an entire year. It will be really easy to start, but I imagine, at 100 or 200, it's going to start to get really tough. Now, I'm going to count things like individual articles of clothing, but I'll have to figure out how to handle books: maybe 5 or 10 books will equal one "thing." Hopefully, by doing this, I will be able to live with a bit less clutter, but also think about my relationship to all the things around me that I think are part of my identity.

Compassion for Prisoners

The accepted attitude toward prisoners seems to be disgust, disdain, even hatred. Compassion for prisoners is seen as contemptible, sinful, an affront to the law abiding and the victims of crimes. But prisoners deserve compassion and respect no less than any other person. I don't mean that a prisoner's crimes deserve respect. Rather, prisoners deserve the respect owed all human beings, the respect owed to siblings whose situation is far worse than ours for reasons impossible to fully grasp. Our compassion is compelled by empathy and the chance of redemption. For the sake of argument, I am assuming that all prisoners are actually guilty of the crimes for which they are imprisoned.

Empathy
There but for the grace of "god" go I.
We all have evil impulses. We all are capable of crime. We all are capable of violence and deception. True, most of us manage to control the more destructive impulses, but, given a different set of circumstances, who can honestly say "I would never steal or rob or intentionally injure another"? I believe no one can. It is impossible to ever know under what set of circumstances a person commits a crime. Social, familial, chemical influences all may lead up to a fateful decision. Who can say that his or her moral high ground is anything but an accident of education, wealth, or opportunity? Also, every one of us has at some point done something regrettably, even criminally stupid. Maybe through inebriation, jealousy, ambition, shame, or recklessness. Many of us who have never been convicted of crimes have driven drunk, thrown a punch, taken a drug, or stolen money or goods. And even the unrepentant criminal is already in a hell of sorts. A person who does evil deeds may be crippled emotionally or mentally. So that guy in solitary serving 20 years for forcible rape is your brother. Do not foresake him because you loathe his crime. Love him and remember that he is lost and that, at his core, he is the same as you.

Redemption
I once was lost . . .
Without compassion, we will treat prisoners as less valuable than we the free; as a debased class of not-quite humans. By doing so, we essentially turn our collective backs on them, and say "you may not be admitted into the fullness of society again." Thus, after serving their sentences, many onetime prisoners find themselves living at the fringes of society. Admittedly, a good number of former prisoners are retuning to high-crime areas and situations that encourage further anti-social behavior. But by treating prisoners as degenerate, useless, lowlife, we encourage anti-social behavior. We set up a good guys v. the convicts dichotomy, and the criminal understands that his family are the fellow lawbreakers. As long as there are laws to control undesirable behavior, there will be lawbreakers and these lawbreakers, by breaking a social contract, are put away from society. But we should not then confirm the criminal's hypothesis that he and society are at odds, that he and society just can't get along. Instead, we should work to redeem them, show them that the societal contract is one worth keeping.

I'm not saying that, with a smile and a handshake, a child molester will become a productive member of society. But unless we continue to reach out to that molester and figure out how to reform/redeem/rehabilitate him, we will be left in fear of evil, as if it is somehow external to us, and we will have lost the chance to redeem the evil within ourselves.

So the next time someone starts complaining about how we "coddle" prisoners by allowing them to exercise and watch television, remember that, even if we must put them out of our societal embrace, we need not deny their humanity or impose cruelty for its own sake. Jesus offered compassion and love to criminals. So did Buddha. You should too.

Two Unrelated Things

Behind drywall and stud reclines the Brahman,
Brown men in knit caps tend the lawn,
Wizened woman in yoga pants guards the lane,
In gleaming black carriage, the scion
discreetly is delivered to the commons.

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I saw this on a church sign today:
"God doesn't believe in atheists. Therefore they don't exist.

I imagine the writer thought this a pretty biting riposte to the atheists, but I disagree with it as logic, rhetoric, and theology.

Seriously

I'm a delinquent poster among delinquent posters. I actually have a post written in long hand that I've been meaning to post for a couple months now. In the mean time, I will simply say: the police state is coming in America. It will be a corporate-consumer model. Debtors' prison will be prominent, as will familial debt (i.e., your sister owes Target $20,000, and she is in jail for failing to pay, making the debt yours). The more we watch, the more we buy, the more we build our own prisons.

Politician as Brand

According to the NY Times, a politician recently said: "The latest episodes 'are indicative of a culture that embraces the politics-as-usual mentality that the American people are sick and tired of.' I love how they try to manipulate our perception of events while acting like they're working as our spokespeople and agents.

Should I Do It?

My present job is a 2-year contract that expires next August. I work for an appellate court, and I like it, but I'm ready for some more trench-level action. I wouldn't have guessed I'd be at this point so soon, but I am considering going solo instead of trying to find a compatible employer.

The plus side is that I get to call all the shots.
The minus side is that I have to call all the shots.

My biggest worry is whether I'll be able to generate enough revenue to make a living. I'm attracted to the legal aspect of being solo, but unenthusiastic about running a small business on which my family's well being depends.

Thoughts? Advice?

UPDATE: I am leaning away from this option now. I am not anxious to do the administrative work that would be a huge part of a solo practice. I would like some trial training. And if I do 8.5 more years of public service work, my federal loans will be forgiven. Of course, if the job market continues this way, I may go solo out of necessity.

Green Vomit Day

I drove into work today and noticed a suspicious number of people wearing green. I then drove by a couple of awnings set up on the side of the road, their occupants standing beside coolers. City Hall is flying the Irish flag. Ah! It must be St. Patrick's Day. That was at 11:30. It's now 1:30, and as I sit in my office, I hear hoots, whistles and screams from drunken semi-adults down the hill where a bunch of crappy bars and the parade route coincide. I don't really understand this holiday. Its sole purpose for non-Hibernians appears to be drinking. I can't imagine the parade is going to be any good (and I wonder if it's anti-gay like the NYC parade). What I want to ask the noontime revelers is:

Is there something stopping you from mainlining beer through a funnel, pounding car bombs, and blasting air horns the other 364 days of the year? On the other hand, what is it, aside from a the drunken Irish stereotype, about this day that makes you think it's okay to spend all weekend painting the town in green bodily fluids?

Of course, many of the dissolute youth out there probably spend every weekend painting the inside of frathouses with bodily fluids, and this is the one day they won't be arrested for doing it in public (though I am sure arrests will be high today). Whatever the reasons, St. Patrick's day, normally a shitshow, is especially shitty in a college town.

Maybe I just don't want to hear all that "whoohoo"ing while I am sitting here at my desk analyzing the law (and writing blog posts).