Why Laughter (and Forgetting) Wins

Pay attention to the wrong things, and this seemed to be a week when the great ship of state was seizing up, perhaps for good. Brown wins in Massachusetts. Edwards admits to his love child. Haiti aid distribution gets worse. Rumsfeld's name shows up in the client list of DC's leading madam. Obama expresses frustration that banks need more than spanks. Everyone lines up to oust Bernanke. The Supreme Court says that corporations matter more than you. There is nothing good, there is no "crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."

And yet, and yet.... I went to Thursday night's Studio Bee sessions and saw a band of 17-year-olds from Cheyenne Mountain High School operating under the nom de guerre of Dance Over Anaheim, who played some of the most perfect pop music I ever heard. This never fails to happen, because of tiny miracles everywhere. Even in the depths of the early Medieval period, we got the Venerable Bede. As Pynchon said in some of his most graphic WW2 concentration camp writings, the sky can show us a star. It can, and does.

Scott Moss Riffs on Barack Obama and the Supremes

Scott Moss, who teaches constitutional law at CU, was the guest speaker at the Colorado state ACLU annual meeting Feb. 21. I captured most of his speech in three segments: the one above, followed by Part 2 and Part 3. I ran out of memory for the last couple minutes of his speech, where he adds the final two elements of his Top Five Rights Issues:

4. Civil Rights Enforcement: will be aggressive, but could be severely limited by budget constraints.

5. Legislation on issues such as gay rights, union rights (Employee Free Choice Act) and the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act may be supported, but a lower priority due to the crisis in the economy.

Moss ended with a discussion of whether the glass is half-empty or half-full on state secrets. Obama's poor position on the fight with the British High Court over Binyam Mohamed has been followed up by disturbing signs on extraordinary rendition, secret bombing in Pakistan, and restrictions on National Security Agency information.

"When the information relates directly to a war being waged, secrets will be kept, though Obama will not adopt the kind of broad definitions we saw on the War On Terror," Moss said. "Remember, Obama was never part of the pacifist wing of the party. There will be interceptions, there will be detentions, but there will be limits on what is considered state secrets during time of war."

The ACLU meeting also heard from State Board Chairman Lino Lipinsky, who reminded attendees that without ACLU cases, the Denver police would have continued their common trend in 2005-2008 of locking up the wrong people in outstanding warrants (occasionally even mixing up race and legal status in the mistaken identity), and leaving innocent people in jail for days or weeks.

Cathy Hazouri, executive director of the state office, said that some members may have not liked the actions the ACLU took to defend demonstrators during the Democratic National Convention, but that the ACLU needs to be inherently contrarian with everyone, even its loyal members.

"We are the permanent loyal opposition," she said. "Sometimes, even we don't agree with what we do."

Ultrasound and Ultra-Human Chauvinists

The worst part of the Nov. 12 US Supreme Court ruling on the Navy's use of high-powered sonar is not just that marine mammals face a real and immediate threat as soon as the tests resume. The worst aspect of the 5-4 ruling is that Chief Justice John Roberts said that real harm does not have to be proved. If the Navy needs a specific technology for realistic testing, then the "public interest" outweighs the survival of a specific species, and requires the tests proceed.

I'm sure the sentient beings that live underwater would argue that a Supreme Court stacked 9-0 in favor of humans does not give them a jury of their peers. I am a firm believer, in opposition to Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, that the Constitution is indeed a suicide pact - if the needs of the state override the Bill of Rights, override international rules against torture, override the Endangered Species Act, then the state should fall, since its principles are more important than its mere existence. But the U.S. government doesn't appear ready to fall on its own sword any time soon. More's the pity for all you whales out there.