Judgment Eve

Fingers crossed everyone. . .

Hamburg: A City of Two Tales

Tale #1 in Present Tense:

My Guardian Angel or: You Only Get One Chance to Make a First Impression

So the first place I seek out when I arrive at the airport is the information booth. I have a general idea where I am going, but would love the reassurance that comes with the input of an official looking person.

The woman at the information desk is very helpful. “You will take bus #110 to Ohlsdorf and then take the U-3 to Feldstrasse,” she says, smiling. “You can either purchase a one ride ticket or an all day ticket.”

I am about to nod and say my thank yous when I hear a man from the other end of the counter. “Or, you can take my ticket,” he says, also smiling.

And then he gives me his ticket. A 5 Euro all day pass for the bus. He has already arrived for his flight so it is not a problem. He strongly resembles Michael Stipe.

“I love Hamburg already,” I say excitedly, punctuating the remark with an American-sized thumbs-up. The two Hamburgers wave me goodbye as I make my way to the bus stop.

What a charitable, friendly city, I think as I walk away, ticket firmly in hand. I am so amazed that I quickly lose my way.

“Over here,” says a man. It is Michael Stipe again (although from this angle he bears a closer resemblance to Moby). He is waving me over. He politely explains my error and then, lest there be any confusion, personally walks me to the bus stop.

In our 45 second walk he explains that he is a student at the University of Hamburg and that I am going to love the city. This kind of thing (helping people) is not at all unordinary in Hamburg, he explains. Then he shakes my hand, says “Have a great life,” and walks back into the throngs of the airport, eventually disappearing into a delicate mist (vaguely resembling gossamer wings) that floats slowly into the sky.

How’s that for a first impression. Hand that man an ambassadorship.

Tale #2 in Past Tense:

My First Foray into Vigilante Justice or: When Things Become Hostel.

On Thursday night I came back to my hostel at around 11:30 after going out to a bar with some of the Bucerius University people. When I arrived, I was delighted to find that I was the only person in the 8-bed room. No people, no bags, nothing. I had the entire room to myself, which was great because I had Orientation early the next morning.

It seemed almost too good to be true. . .

And of course, it was.

At about 3:00 in the morning, 4 loud, drunk Germans came into the room. They immediately turned on the lights, cracked open their beers and began singing (the song had no lyrics just “na na na na” ). They also began to--and I’m not exaggerating-- POUND ON THE WALLS.

Now, I’ve slept in my fair share of hostels. I am aware that a certain amount of partying and noise is unavoidable (details here). That’s part of the risk of staying in a hostel. People talk, people come in at late hours; they trip and fall and swear and, occasionally, hook-up. But this was far beyond the pale of what is acceptable behavior, even for a hippy backpacker hostel. This was a grave breach of hostel etiquette.

I sat up in my bed, looked at them and said “Seriously guys?” The four of them gave me one of those “what’s the problem?” looks. I explained, as I would to a four-year-old, that it’s harder for some people to sleep when there is singing and pounding than when there isn’t.

“Ja Ja Ja,” they replied, “We turn off the light.”

Great. The light.

The light went off, and there was a reduction in the brouhaha, but the singing did not end. And it took about 30 minutes to completely wind down.

Bide your time Gregory, I said to myself. And bide my time I did.

At around 6:30 am, when my alarm went off.

On waking up I saw that the four young men, having sung and drank themselves to sleep, were now snoozing away like babies. It was adorable.

And more importantly, it appeared that the tables had now turned.

Advantage: Gregory.

I savored the process of getting up and packing my bags. I slammed lockers, kicked empty beer bottles, and opened the window so that the human and automobile traffic could be heard at full volume. My fits of coughing were prolonged and intense; I even unnecessarily zipped and unzipped my backpack. Absolutely no action was too trivial to be done noiselessly. I ran around the room like the proverbial bull in the china shop.

“Was?” several of them said, confused and sitting up in their beds.

And that’s when they saw me in my vengeful, noisy glory and hazily began to recollect their offenses from the previous night.

Having apparently recognized the genius of my plan and righteousness of my cause, they were generally good-natured about their premature awakening. Two of them clapped and chuckled. Another simply couldn’t be bothered.

I wish I would’ve said something cool or memorable as I left. Maybe something that some exotic, evil-genius villain would say in a movie (“It appears, my friends, as if zie hunter has become zie hunted”).

But I opted for the significantly more prosaic: “Have a great day friends.” And then I gave everyone a thumbs-up (again, American-sized) and left the room confident that justice had been served.

It was a very exhilarating and inspiring start to my day. Like having two extra cups of coffee.

And now, I leave you to contemplate a relevant quote by Bill Murray in the movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (paraphrase):

Reporter: “If this is the only shark of its kind, what would be the scientific reasons for killing it?”

Bill Murray: “Revenge.”

Michael Jordan Endorses Barack Obama!

First Oprah Winfrey, then Cornell West, and now, finally, Michael "Mike" Jordan from Chicago is officially on board too.

It's true. Insurance agent Mike Jordan from Richton Park, Illinois, has quietly been pounding the pavement every weekend in Cedar Rapids in an effort to drum up support for his friend Barack Obama.

Read about it here in USA Today.

Full Disclosure: The Mike Jordan referred to in the story is the cousin of a faithful reader of Cornucopia, the Horn of Plenty. He is also, now, a friend of this blog. Cornucopia thanks him for all of his selfless efforts in Cedar Rapids and wishes him luck in his future endeavors.

Cornell West is The Man. Old School.

In other news, I got a chance to see Dr. Cornell West speak on Senator Obama's behalf on Saturday morning.

I'd just like to say that, without qualification, this was the best endorsement speech I've ever attended. Cornell West was everything that most stump speakers are not: creative, off-the -cuff, honest, poetic, and even, at times, humorously scandalous. (He mentioned on several occasions how partisan politics make him want to go "runnin' to the crack house").

Throughout his talk, he touched upon critical race theory, Hillary, Edwards, Oprah, John Coltrane, Alicia Keyes, Aretha Franklin, the progressive Vanderbilt, our fear of mortality, courage, prayer, blackness, post-negroism, honesty, and the mainstream media, peppering his speech with quotes from Shakespeare and imitations of stuffy politicians.

A lot of times when you go to these events, you get the feeling that people are just going through the motions and regurgitating the same shit over and over again while trying not to say anything different or unpalatable. This was definitely different.

His basic thesis went something like this: right away he wasn't sold on Obama, but after having spoken to him for around 10 hours on two separate occasions, he's on board. While he concedes that he's an old-school brother, he recognizes that Obama is a new-school brother. Cornell West is Aretha Franklin. Obama is Alicia Keyes.

Here are two of Mr. West's opinions that I found to be funny and/or astute--

On Mike Huckabee's chances-- Cornell thinks that all the other candidates are trying to out-conservative each other and it's going to fail. Huckabee is running as a right-wing populist. He cares about black people and poor people. He's a Neanderthal on a whole host of other issues, but he could make a run. Cornucopia, the Horn of Plenty, shares these thoughts.

On me, telling him thanks for coming-- "Stay strong young man."

On Oprah's typical cowardice-- Cornell loves the sister, but he's also a big critic of her. He loves the charity that she does and the schools that she builds in South Africa, but that's charity. Charity is easy. She's never made a public stand on important domestic issues and never gotten involved politically. He recognizes the fact that she's a entrepreneurial genius. She can't alienate her right-leaning, white, suburban housewives by being overtly political or she'll lose viewership and money. But c'mon, after your first billion dollars you can't start taking a stand for things you believe in can't you?

In conclusion, this is why I love Obama. People who usually don't believe in things believe in him. Call it the Kennedy effect. Oprah Winfrey, long a non-partisan-own-back-watcher, is ready to go on the campaign trail. Cornell West, not known for his support of partisan politics (didn't even vote for Clinton in '96 because of the welfare reform and the banking consolidation bills) is sold.

Here is Dr. West, keeping it real and sharing some of his thoughts on Obama before his endorsement:





But now he's on board. And so am I . And so is Oprah. And so in these last 15 days or so until the caucus, I only have four words for Senator Obama, the youngest, freshest candidate in the field, "Stay strong young man."

Iowa City Speaker Circuit News: Paul Krugman Endorses John Edwards Kind Of

When I was in Cameroon in my tiny, pink-walled bungalow, I was the lucky beneficiary of a library of books left behind by my volunteer predecessors. Among this treasure trove (you find it, you keep it!) of literature was the book “The Great Unraveling: Losing our Way in the New Century" by New York Times columnist and Princeton economist Paul Krugman. Paging through the book --a collection of his columns--was one of the more effective means I've ever discovered of generating a big, heady dose of political righteous indignation. This was particularly effective sometime around Nov. 3 of 2004, when, whenever necessary, I could select a column and be reminded of all of the fascinating ways in which our electorate had seriously fucked up.

Though I was supposed to be glow in the dark bowling tonight with book weary law students, when I learned Krugman was here in Iowa City I had to postpone it. Bowling with me is always pretty predictable anyway: 3 games with an average between 140-160, several strikes, variety of fist pumps, several ball changes, many celebratory dances, and several times where I’m so disgusted with my shot that I walk back to the scoring area without even watching the result. (Note: this is followed by a quick look over my shoulder, EVEN THOUGH I OBVIOUSLY DO NOT CARE, to make sure that the ball that I through down the middle of the lane did not miraculously pick up that 7/10 split).

Those of you who have ever bowled with me are familiar with this routine. I can recreate it any time I want.

What I can’t recreate anytime is a live Q and A at the Englert Theatre with Paul Krugman, one of my favorite columnists of all time. Julie Englander, the regular presenter for the Prarie Lights author sessions, introduced him tonight as the "most important political columnist in America." And then there's bowling.

Krugman was fantastic. He was funny and insightful, and, oddly, despite all of the dire predictions of "The Great Unraveling," extremely optimistic about the direction of the country. People are finally seeming sensible and fed-up, he noted. . .this seems to be the inadvertent gift of George W. Bush.

The talk was basically the distillation of the thesis of his book into about a 40 minute talk, with a special emphasis on the implications of the upcoming presidential race.

His thesis:

America is regressing. We had a gilded age with robber barons and enormous disparities in wealth and privilege and power, then we had the New Deal, then the 40’s, and 50’s gave us a strong middle class with strong labor, and then came movement conservatism that essentially is seeking to put us back into the late 19th century (the return of the barons!).

While countries like Canada, France, and the Scandanavian countries (those same countries that are on the top of every standard of living index in existence) have been tweaking capitalism in an effort to benefit a the common welfare and preserve a strong entrepreneurial spirit, the conservative movement has been attempting to roll back every New Deal program they can get their hands on.

Though NYT policy forbids him from making presidential endorsements, he did speak at length about the kind of president he wanted. He said to be aware of candidates beholden to special interests (read: Hillary Clinton) and beware of overly polite "cross-the-aislers" who are looking for bipartisanship (here's looking at Obama). Since substantive differences between the candidates are negligible, he basically wants someone with some fire in his/her belly who can, above all else, really push through universal health care. Process of elimination, plus the fire in the belly qualification leads me to believe that this was a thinly veiled endorsement of John Edwards.

Interesting. Lately John Edwards has been espousing the most populist message. The other night at Jefferson Jackson he claimed that if congress didn't let him push through a health care plan he would take away government health care for the house, senate, and president. You gotta like that kind of talk.

Krugman then took questions from the audience members, a few of whom were crazy people. He proved himself to be extremely likable and great with his off the cuff analysis.

Fortunately, no one was tased throughout the talk.

Here's a clip of him and Bill O'Reilly having a civil talk with Tim Russert. Sometimes watching Bill O'Reilly makes me sick to my stomach. As Stephen Colbert once noted (paraphrase) "you know Bill, a lot of people criticize you for what you say, but they never give you credit for how loud you say it."

Couldn't agree more. Apparently Bill O'Reilly missed out on that whole "jobless recovery" thing that everyone was talking about when this interview took place.

Gay Marriage and an AWESOME Defensive Line: Why the Hawkeye State is Getting Better Every Year

I found this past weekend in Iowa City to be especially inspiring for exactly two reasons:

Reason number one: The Hawkeye football team manhandled Syracuse.

Remember last year when it took a herculean goal line stand to defeat a bad Syracuse team? This year there was never any doubt. We didn’t dominate ANY team last year the way we dominated Syracuse yesterday. Christensen looked good and the d-line limited the Orangemen to 24 rushing yards on 30 attempts. Brian Mattison expressed disappointment when he learned that Syracuse had accumulated 1 total yard on offense in the first half, apparently finding it to be 1 yard too many.

I like his style.

Reason number two: Iowa might just be the next gay marriage state.

Readers of this blog will have noted that a few days ago, I posted to a link in the Daily Iowan about Judge Robert Hansen’s ruling on the unconstitutionality of the Iowa law banning gay marriages. The ruling was stayed and the case kicked up to the Iowa Supreme Court to dispose of.

A quick sidenote: Iowa actually has a kind of peculiar appellate process. Though an appeal in most states would go to an intermediate appellate court before eventually being appealed to the state’s Supreme Court, in Iowa a case is appealed directly to the Supreme Court. The Court then decides whether to hear the case or send it to the intermediate court of appeals. A slight twist, but noteworthy, and it means that in this case the Iowa Supreme Court gets the next crack at it.

Which got me to wondering: how is the Supreme Court going to handle this case? As of last week, I knew very little about the make-up of our court. Ironically, I was, like many casual followers of public policy, much more familiar with the characters and temperaments that make the U.S. Supreme Court than those that make up my home state’s highest court. Anyone who reads any daily newspaper is vaguely familiar with the narrative: uncompromising textualist Scalia, liberal stalwart Ginsburg, Anthony “the swingman” Kennedy, etc.

I did some quick research and learned that three of the justices—Chief Justice Marsha K. Ternus, Jerry Larson, an Mark Cady—are Republican appointees, and four—Michael Streit, David Wiggins, Daryl Hecht, and Brent Appel, are Democratic appointees.

What does this mean? I have no idea. Even in the Democratic party there is pretty large divide among those who support and those who don’t support gay marriage. This is highlighted by statements from a guy named Chet who runs this state making comments explicitly denouncing gay marriage. Sigh. Politicians will be politicians.

Then there’s the further complication of governors crossing party lines to make appointments. For example, former Chief Justice Luis Lavorato, my new hero, was a lifelong Democrat but was appointed by two Republican governors to get to the highest court. So analysis of this kind is inherently suspect.

We can also look at the kind of treatment that the court has given cases like this in the past. The only time that the court has dealt with anything like this, as far as I can tell, was when they dissolved a gay civil union for a couple who had been united in VT a couple years back. A bunch of right wingers led by the frothy mouthed Steve King appealed and said that the Iowa Supreme court didn’t have jurisdiction to make this kind of decision. At which point the Supreme Court quietly assured him that they did, gave him a pat on the rear, and sent him on his merry way with directions mind his own business.

So, I wanted to get a handle on this situation. I wanted to have at least some kind of thoughtful, informed speculation other than state 29’s brief and dismissive commentary of how these justices are going to handle this case.

Enter Supreme Court day at the University of Iowa. Last Friday 6 of the 7 justices made the two hour trip Iowa City to hear a fake case argued by some of our students. Marsha K. Ternus was unable to attend, but was replaced by the venerable former Chief Justice Luis Lavorato.

Following the arguments, students who were interested were invited to dinner at faculty homes to dine with a justice. The justice that we were assigned? None other than the aforementioned Louis Lavorato.

Who better to give me an idea of how the Supreme Court was going to treat this question than someone who not only had worked with the majority of the justices, but also someone who was no longer ON the court and thus, in theory at least, could speak freely.

Justice Lavorato’s response to my question was both candid and comforting. After a brief discussion of the kind of language used in the Iowa Constitution and the personnel currently sitting on the bench, he made his prediction: he thinks that the Supreme Court is going to uphold Justice Robert Hanson’s ruling.

Let the champagne flow.

Kind of.

Obviously it was just an educated guess, and he made it clear that the issue could revolve around one swing vote. But even assuming that his guess is right, there’s still the question of amending the constitution of Iowa. As far as I can tell, doing this actually isn’t that hard. At least not nearly as hard as amending our federal constitution. First the legislature needs to pass the amendment with a majority vote in two consecutive years. Then the amendment gets put on the ballot and submitted to the general public for another straight majority vote (if I’m wrong about this please feel free to correct me). If that was the case, that would still mean two years of unfettered gay marriage before the constitutional amendment would even be on the ballot.

Even then, I’m not so sure 50% of Iowans would vote for it. Maybe I just have too much faith in Iowans as reasonable humans (crazyman Steve King did get 59% last year), but the idea that 50% of the population would vote in favor of an amendment to restrict the rights of our citizens strikes me as improbable.

But I’m probably getting a bit ahead of myself. First, the Supreme Court needs to uphold the ruling, then we can worry about any kind of campaign to change the constitution. In the meantime, there should be plenty of time to sip on that champagne.

Cheers. . . to a world that, like a defensive line on a college football team, has the potential to get a little better every year. Go Hawks.

One Step for a Judge, One Giant Leap for Human Justice

The Daily Iowan describes why Judge Robert Hanson is my hero. . . link