My honey in front of his favorite eatery (to my dismay): Hooters.  

Good vs. Evil 

Efe and I cruising down LSD in his brother's convertible.  

wtf?

i published those last two posts, including the one where i complain about why my profile stuff is way at the bottom of my blog home page. and then whamo -- all of a sudden the profile stuff is right where it should be. WTF??

runny babbit

in case you are in need of a good laugh, i suggest you run, not walk to your nearest bookstore and pick up the last of shel silverstein's masterpieces, Runny Babbit. published post-humously, this little gem is a collection of poems that silverstein made even sillier by transposing most of the first letters of the words.

i bought it for my 7 yr old niece for her birthday. it ended up being kinda a sick joke. the girl is a fabulous reader, don't get me wrong. but i overestimated her ability to find humor in poems that she has to read twice -- once to get the general gist and then more carefully to go back through to switch letters to figure out what the hell it's saying. more sophisticated (or less, depending on your point of view) readers will enjoy them immensely. i did.

so what are you faiting wor? go buy bat thook! (see?)

amateur!

i'm a fricking blog amateur. i cannot figure out why on my blog my profile info is way on the bottome of the page. i also do not know how to add a cool links section to that profile sidebar ala jen and kat. i also obviously do not know how to add pictures that actually show up as pictures instead of non-working links. failure!! frustration!!

kat+ wine = good times

last saturday efe had a "boy's night in" playing play station with his old-roommate on his new flat screen. so i went out. with kat, who amazingly, i hadn't seen for something like 6 months. it's crazy. we met at a little wine bar that was profiled on metromix. just west of andersonville, on balmoral, called Joie de Vine. really really cute place right next to the Ravenswood train and really right in the middle of a neighborhood street. we shared a bottle of Carignane, a type of wine that neither Kat nor I had heard of of. we both really liked it though, and nibbled on a cheese flight (little cheese nibbles with crackers) that went well with the wine. i had such a good time. thanks kat!

oh, and i highly recommend the wine that we tried. it was full-bodied, and kind of peppery and spicy. if you like rioja or syrah, you'll like carignane. unfortunately, i just found out by googling "carignane" that it's a "workhouse" grape and no "good" wines are ever made out of carignane grapes alone (see http://www.cellarnotes.net/carignane_grape.htm ) oh well, i liked it.

Jail

Ok this is a rant.

On the cover of today's Chicago Tribune, (which some lady on the bus offered to me after she saw me trying to read it sideways over her shoulder) is an article about Guatanamo Bay. A human rights atrocity, for sure. Did you know that President Bush has excluded Guatanamo Bay from the being covered by the laws of the Geneva Convention, saying that none of the prisoners there are "defending a state." So, because they're not actually prisoners of war there are no norms of humane treatment that have to be followed regarding their care and treatment? Cheney and Rumsfield put on their little PR hats and spent a good chunk of time defending the money-draining, Koran-desecrating, human rights abomination that is the jail at Guatanamo Bay. It makes me sick.

Now, a little closer to home. Michael Sheahan, the sheriff for Cook County, has recently decreed that young lawyers from several law firms are no longer allowed to take tours of Cook County Jail as has been the traditions for decades. The firms that were denied access happen to be firms that have sued Sheahan for one reason or another since he was originally elected back in 1991. Hello? Government transparency? This is obviously an example of Sheahan throwing his weight around. Check out this editorial in today's Chi Trib:


-------------------
Mike Sheahan's petulance
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June 15, 2005
Michael Sheahan is the sheriff of Cook County. He's not king. Somebody ought to tell him that.
Sheahan has decreed that the law students who are serving internships with two prestigious Chicago law firms cannot take tours of Cook County Jail. Why? He doesn't like that the firms have filed lawsuits against the sheriff's office in the past.
The tours, a tradition at some firms, serve as an educational excursion for aspiring attorneys. Summer associates get to see an important piece of the criminal justice system. The tours help to motivate young attorneys in private firms to take on pro bono work on behalf of indigent clients.
That's exactly what Sheahan doesn't like.
As if the jail were some kind of private family business, or his personal fiefdom, Sheahan has decided these particular firms may no longer enter his gates unless they sign waivers promising they will never again bring a lawsuit against the sheriff's office.
These aren't some storefront-shingle law offices getting the bully treatment from the sheriff. We're talking about Winston & Strawn and Jenner & Block. And they hardly decided to make the sheriff a target. Winston & Strawn represented one jail inmate, Stanley Jones, in a lawsuit alleging that he was beaten by gang members while in custody awaiting trial. A federal judge appointed a representative of the firm to represent Jones. The case eventually was settled out of court for $250,000.
Sheahan does have a problem with costly court settlements stemming from jail brutality complaints. He has nagging administrative issues to contend with, ranging from bumbling employees to strong-arming consiglieres who get overzealous.
But he's not going to make those troubles go away by acting in imperious fashion against two of the city's most prominent law firms. He's just going to look like a petulant, imperious bully.
Sheriff, the jail belongs to taxpayers. And so does your job.

Copyright (c) 2005, Chicago Tribune

Wow. Ok, a lot has happened since my hellacious experience at the oral surgeon. My face is back to its normal size and I'm no longer in constant pain. Like a total wuss I didn't end up sending that crabby letter to my oral surgeon. Once I wasn't in such pain my anger kinda ebbed. But I am holding off paying them in a lump sum. The sadistic bastards can watch as my money trickles in...slowly.

Been focusing on school and work. The plaintiffs in the Fields case (4 inmates suing Cook County for being beaten up by jail guards while they were handcuffed and shackled) lost. That was a disappointment because the plaintiffs in OUR case, were the star witnesses in that case (they testified that the beating did happen.) Poor litigating on the part of the plaintiffs attorneys, bad preparation, etc. The sheriff is not a nice man, gloated in the papers that justice prevailed. Justice my rear.

Got to work on a new case involving racial gerrymandering of a high school athletic conference in the suburbs. You think it's just congressmen who haggle over racial divides? Nope, it's high school athletic directors, too.