Congestion Pricing

Once again, finals are bearing down. I take a respite from considering the law of torts to deliver a rare post to my loyal readers. Next Moday is when the nightmare begins again in earnest. That is when I measure my knowledge of contract law against 30-something multiple choice questions and 2 essays. Then torts. Then crim. Then property. My prediction? A, A+, A-, A. I should be so lucky, because it would take a lot of luck as well as knowledge to post such grades. We shall see. All I can do is prepare. I will update as the grades some in in June. I am sure you will await my report with hungry anticipation.

Bloomberg made an earth day speech. A big part of it was his proposal for congestion pricing. London and some other cities already do it. If you travel in Manhattan below a certain street (90-something?) between 6AM and 6PM, you must pay something like eight dollars. They will employ camers that capture plates and use an EZ Pass-like system.

Great. Please do this. I have a car, but anything to encourage mass transit use and decrease congestion is welcome. The city's getting more crowded, and we must reduce auto emissions.

Predictably, the plan has fierce opponents. One borough politician thought it sounded like a secret tax on the poor. Nice try. The poor in NYC don't have cars, and if they do, they already can't afford to drive them into Manhattan to work. Parking is $30/day in midtown. Not many truly poor people can afford $150/week in parking on top of tolls and gas.

I think, rather, the people he's thinking of are his upper-middle class constituents; Those folks who can afford to drive in and pay for parking but for whom the congestion tolls would be a real hardship.

But there are a couple benefits that may make the plan attractive to those who feel they must drive to work: 1. less traffic on their daily commutes. 2. Cheaper parking. If there are fewer cars, parking rates might go down as the garages compete for fewer customers. Thus, the congestion surcharge could conceivable be substantially offset by parking and time savings.

That's all I've got.

A Picture of a Cat: That's All I Got

A cat even a Mouse can love.

Back Again

It seems like forever since I wrote. Beckett moved, and he didn't tell me where he moved. I didn't even use a computer for the whole time. I've been out of work for a few months. That means I'm living at home with my mother. I didn't think I'd be here again.

I was lucky I saw Beckett at Boston Market. Otherwise I'd probably feel like I had no one to talk to. It's good to write, I think.

I asked Beckett what he did. He works at an ad agency. I asked him if I could maybe get a job with him. He said he'd talk to the mailroom for me.

Thanks, if you read this, Beckett.

I have two goals: get a job and get a girlfriend. Then I'll be happy.

Lamest Post Ever

I admit it. This is a very lame post. A rambling update. A placeholder.

First, let me say: there are few things more annoying than other people's cell phone conversations. Their conversations never fail to sound petty, superficial and smallminded. One tough guy nearby just got off his phone, then another chap got right on his. I could sit in the library, but then what oh what would I write about. My cell conversations on the other hand I am confident give pleasure to all lucky enough to overhear them.

I have a Tibetan sounding bowl. Maybe that sentence alone will counter somewhat the tension of the previous paragraph. Just imagine it ringing now.

Ah.

What are the concerns of the day? Well Gonzalez may lose his job over these US Attorney axings, which seems a bit silly, since they are political appointments. The guy who was fired at the behest of a dsigruntled senator: that may have some teeth. Segue warning.

So I got an intenship with the local US Attorney's office for the summer. Odd work for a public defender wannabe, you ask? Well, it's all about the credentials and the experience. They are a top organization, and I'm in school for the education and the connexctions. I also signed up to do a public defense externship for the fall to balance things out.

In other small world news, legal writing is wrapping up for the semester. On track for another A- I think. I'll take it. I'll just add that I pretty much spent 2 weeks busting my ass on a daily basis to earn that A-. That's the world I chose.

The Sean Bell cops were indicted for manslaughter of all things. You would think that one who fires a gun at another is intentionally killing, and thus a murderer if not acting in self defense, but the Queens DA probably thought it would be easier to get manslaughter convictions: for that he must prove that they were trying to inflict serious bodily harm. I bet they get convicted of the even lower Manslaughter-2 reckless killing. I'm not sure what happened when the man was slain, just inetersting to see how politics inevitably shapes the way it plays out.

As I was driving to class yesterday,traffic stopped dead outside the Queens Cty Courthouse. So I looked, and saw none other than Al Sharpton leading a group into the courthouse. I think he had just finished giving a press conference.

That's all I got.

sestina

Almost no one there to help the push,
near sixteen men unholy strong just watch
a tire just ruptures not a villain's chest.
Some horror day and day and again
see why sometime, although, you know, forget.
It stands to see the fitting of your reason.

Big brightness beams for more than reason
tomorrow night when gallants brave and push,
no rather, new bought know now, now forget
that once was will admired. Tonight just watch
again the friend of gallantry and laugh
til booming fills the hollows of your chest.

Resonant full the flouncing of her chest;
we of no care and no why and no reason.
The day must stand be still be smooth again
sometimes, somehow still now, no rush, no push—
old hum electric. The sound is now click watch,
the old always want life the young still know.

Do please be passive you may need not know,
but flick the irritation from your chest.
Here ample sentries keep the keenest watch;
let fallow fall the fields, the folds of reason,
because the moment has been lost to push.
Amore the room abuzzes, more redoubled again.

The difference may be taken out again
and several few be shown the pieces so they know
the flashing button is the one to always push,
regardless of the rattling hollows of your chest;
regardless, wanting necessity or reason,
we never will be found without to watch.

If we perform an act or more you'll watch
and lick your lips and salivate again
without resort to wickedness of reason.
Will you pretend there is no way to know
your sensitivities creep close below your chest?
—undone, unclasped, embarrassedly push

Almost sixteen there, no one was to push;
near holy flattened back, bent, forced to watch
a brand way hot stitched steaming on her chest.
All moments may bear visitors again.
Evading horror's probably honorable. You know
you radiate bliss, you know you are the reason.

Thank You, NeoOffice

Finally!

I am one of those who refuses to buy Word. Having found Open Office several years ago for my PC, I have been unable to justify the expense since. Open Office is an open source, free office suite that has most of the functions of Word, and allows you to read and create word documents, so your unenlightened colleagues can share information with you.

Unfortunately, open office on the mac OS with Intel chips runs off something called X11. As far as I understand, this provides a bridge between the old macs and new, so that a program can. Unfortunately, it was limited: it would not print or find print drivers, so I had to create pdfs every time I wanted to print. It had drawing problems and was crash prone.

Finally, however, I found NeoOffice. Based on Open Office source code, it runs natively in mac OSX aqua. Which means I have the word processing I've dreamed of for my macbook. Glory, glory, all hail NeoOffice.

Silence

I had a few readers. Now they've gone and left me. Because I never update this thing. And when I do, my posts are all about how taxing law school is.

I will speak to the void, if it must be so.

Had a bunch of interviews today and yesterday; even the summer internship scene is competitive.

I'll give a quick rundown of my top picks:
1. Federal Defender for the Eastern District
2. Public Defenders of the District of Columbia
3. Legal Aid
4. Orleans Defender
5. South Brooklyn Legal Services
6. Queens Legal Services
7. NJ Legal Services

I have an interview w/ an Appellate Term judge at the end of the month, but i hope to have an offer by then.

I want to go back to New Orleans and continue the work I started over winter break. The problem is I don't relish spending the summer away from kith and kin, especially in sweatbox Narlins. It would be both incredible and awful. DC is also far away; but not quite so far. The DC Defenders are renowned as the best in the nation.

All the interviews were a result of the Public Interest Law Career Center Job Fair at NYU. Pretty cool. They also had maybe 100 informational tables where you could take a seat, talk to a person from an organization and give em a resume. One of the most interesting I saw was the Southern District Pro Se Office. I didn't even know there was such an office. It makes sense: pro se motions need to be screened. It's the office's job to assist people representing themselves and screen their filings to make sure jurisdiction is proper, etc. Interns reserach and write. Pretty interesting stuff, but not much direct client interaction, if any.

Anyhow, emusic is the best.

Just downloaded the new Bonnie Prince Billy, some Johnny Cash, Decemberists, Beethoven, and Surfjan Stevens.

Anyone on emusic? We can add each other as friends. Not on emusic? If you join, let me know first, so you can say I sent you and I can get free songs!

I enjoy this little game of pretending that there are multiple viewers of this blog.

Hello, World

I have such short windows of free time anymore.

I desire more.
I hope it doesn't stay like this forever.

I'm trying to write a sestina. The structure is crazy:

stanza 1: 1 2 3 4 5 6
stanza 2: 6 1 5 2 4 3
stanza 3: 3 6 4 1 2 5
stanza 4: 5 3 2 6 1 4
stanza 5: 4 5 1 3 6 2
stanza 6: 2 4 6 5 3 1
stanza 7: 1 2 3 4 5 6


Sorry I've been out of touch.

A new

Semester has begun. I only have half my grades. 3.7 so far. Still waiting on 5 credits' worth. The above is my present petty concern. Below is what matters.

Just got back from New Orleans.

It is still an absolute disaster down there. The 9th ward looks like a war zone. 4 PM. Saturday afternoon. Not a person in the streets. House after boarded-up, sagging, crumbling, water-logged house. Every so often, a FEMA trailer parked on a lawn or in a driveway.

There is construction here and there, but even in the center of town, where there was minimal storm damage, the vacancy rate for businesses is staggering. Movie theaters, souvenir stores, sneaker shops, restaurants, hotels, all closed. If you never leave the french quarter, you might guess that the rebuilding is done and the city is back.

And then there's the Louisianna justice system. What a clusterfuck. I'll just list a few of the practices and let you imagine what kind of Kafakaesque situation has resulted: The Sherrif runs the prisons. The sherrif's dept. gets $35 for every person in prison per night. The court does not keep the court records. Those records are kept by the sherrif. A large part of the public defender's budget comes from a per-case stipend. Public defenders get $20 for every conviction. The courts get a cut of bail bonds, thus encouraging high bonds. It is common to look at a court record and see the notation: "Defendant in custody, did not appear." What that means is the sherrif's dep't tasked with delivering the prisoner for his court date, didn't bother. The official court records include months-long gaps in which it's anyone's guess what happened. After Katrina, during which the prisoners were trapped in their cells with water levels rising, the prisoners were moved all over the state and out of state. It has taken until now for the system, and those working doggedly outside the system, to find these people, and where proper, get them released. Orleans parish jails people for misdemeanors. Although this puts a severe burden on the courts and the overwhelmed public defenders, it puts more $$$ in the sherrif's pocket.

The moral: don't get arrested in New Orleans.

A Roundhouse Kick to the Mind

And that's one down, three to go folks. I took the night off tonight, but I have a lot to do over the weekend. Two finals in 4 days. Barely any time in between. It's going to be a long week. The one day off until the grand-pop of them all: torts.

Every time I think about the test today I get nervous. And it's already over. The pressure leading into that thing was nuts.

And the car broke down on the way to the test (luckily it started again). And a fire alarm went off in the middle of the exam. Both were examples of that phenomenon where your brain attempts to deny reality. Where you actually say to yourself: "This can't be happening." I've had that feeling when I've gotten into a car accident or when I broke a window when I was a kid.

My civ pro prof, when asked about how in-depth any discussion should go, is fond of saying: "don't you want to fire every arrow in your quiver?" (Answer: Yes. Into you.)

I fired every arrow; I just hope I was firing at the right target.