Up Late and Rambling

Thanksgiving is coming up (as well as my birthday) and though I'm not prone to introspective moments I am inspired to review the things I'm thankful for outside of the obvious. Hopefully the obvious, wife and child, know that I'm appreciative daily, not just in November.
I am thankful for television. Though I enjoy reading (am currently reading John Irving's latest and enjoying it), playing with my son, and speaking with my wife; there is something wonderful about the lack of effort necessary to watch television. This has been an especially good season with The Office and 30 Rock at the height of their powers, an excellent episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm on this past week, and continuously satisfying episodes of The Amazing Race.

Recently on The Amazing Race, Super Christian Couple had a moment at the top of a water slide that was must-see TV. Jerky guy practically throws her down the slide.



Classy guy. This episode led to more of the aforementioned enjoyable discussion with my wife where she accused me of trying to throw her down the slide in the fictional world where we are contestants on TAR. I told her that she would never wear that silly looking bathing suit and floaties. The wife has actually sabotaged videotaped applications for the show and I am looking for a new potential teammate. My favorite part was the trash talking exhibited by the Globetrotters when they arrived.

After the fact, jerky guy thought he wasn't abusive. I guess attempting to throw your girlfriend off a six story platform isn't abusive, it's just competition. Don't you love America, trying to win a million dollars is an excuse for anything.

How to Eat a Chicken Wing

I've been preaching the split and suck method for years. Let's go get some wings.

Big Brass Balls

Missouri, really, please tell me this is not happening. But it is. A high school band, long the refuge of the socially advanced, had a clever idea for a shirt that matched with their theme: Brass Evolutions. It reeks of Mingus and Davis and had those band kids on the road to respectability, at least until the wackos got wind of it.

The shirts had the ever so recognizable, though scientifically inaccurate, image of ape transforming slowly to man. Band parent, Sherry Melby, who also happens to be a teacher in the district (kids in this district are totally screwed), was offended by the t-shirt.

"I was disappointed with the image on the shirt.” Melby said. “I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school."

I wonder what class Ms. Melby teaches, "Science is for Wizards," or perhaps, "How I Can Damage Today's Youth and Send Them Off to College to be Mocked," or even, "Why God Put the Fossils Here to Trick Us."

And shame on you Brad Politt, Assistant Superintendent of the district with idiotic parents. You are supposed to be a beacon of learning, a pillar of the educational system. And yet, you compare the clever reference to Darwin's theory on a t-shirt to an image of Jesus on the cross.

"I made the decision to have the band members turn the shirts in after several concerned parents brought the shirts to my attention,” Pollitt said. Pollitt said the district is required by law to remain neutral where religion is concerned.“If the shirts had said ‘Brass Resurrections’ and had a picture of Jesus on the cross, we would have done the same thing,” he said.

No wonder Ms. Melby has a job. How many times does a Federal Court need to say it before someone blasting evangelical rock in a mega church hears it: Evolution is science, religion is religion. The fact that Mr. Pollitt would equate an understanding and acceptance of evolution with any religion is something that should make us all concerned. Even worse is the unnamed booster/asshole who refused to pay for half the shirts when he saw the evolution motif.

If you didn't already know, Kirk Cameron is also an anti-evolution loon and here's his plan to defeat Darwin in the afterlife followed by an exasperated response in a heavy accent.

Not Enough Money

One of the issues bad faith attorneys have encountered over the years is a particular problem in Florida, the multiple claimant/short limit, ("MC/SL"), dillema. MC/SL issues arise whenever there are insufficient proceeds to resolve all of the claims arising from an incident and the number claimants exceeds the the number which results from the division of the aggregate limit of insurance by the per person limit of insurance. It sounds more complex than it is. If you have an insurance policy with per person limits of 100 and an aggregate limit of 300, you would need to have more than 3 claims to have an MC/SL situation (the total value of all the claims would also need to exceed 300).

Some jurisdictions have adopted a first come, first serve rule which protects carriers from bad faith allegations. This allows an insurer to settle a third party claim against its insured without regard for other potential claims arising from the same loss. In those states (Texas is one), the insurer has no duty to try and resolve as many claims as possible against the insured thereby preserving the maximum available coverage for the insured. Rather, third party insurers in First Come/First Serve states are free to resolve claims as they are presented without regard to protecting the insured's assets or obtaining the greatest value for the contracted liability limits. The insured is left to deal with any judgment in excess of their contracted limit because the insurer can pay claims as they arrive without concern for limiting the overall value of claims against their insured.

Why should it be that someone purchasing insurance in Texas should get less benefit from the same policy as a purchaser in identical circumstances in Florida. In what other industry does state regulation substantially diminish a product being purchased, let alone a product so necessary and regulated.

A man walks into a bar...

Joke from my colleague:
A man says to his wife, "Can you tell me something which will make me happy and sad at the same time?" She thinks for a few minutes and then tells him, " You have a bigger dick then all of your friends."








The video above qualifies: so funny, so so sad. I'm frequently surprised at the absence of plain simple logic and truth telling that has become a part of our political system and which is so clearly protected by our First Amendment protections. Lying has so many ramifications in the real world, I threaten a defamation suit on behalf of clients weekly. But lie about a politician or his policies and you are protected. Seemingly ridiculous when you consider the damage misinformation in the political realm does, i.e., we elect the wrong people. I know it's not original of me to point out but people eat up this Glenn Beck bullshit regardless of how it's spelled. This reminds me of another joke that more aptly summarizes the relationship of Glenn Beck to his fans.

A bear and a rabbit are sitting next to each other in the woods shitting. The bear looks down at the rabbit and says, "Hey rabbit, you ever have trouble with shit sticking to your fur?" The rabbit says no, so the bear wipes his ass with the rabbit.

P.S. Regardless of his hilarious spelling error (which I have to believe was meant for me personally), someone should tell Glenn Beck what an oligarchy is.

Barney Frank Confronts Woman At Townhall Comparing Obama To Hitler

A tribute to the 1st Amendment.

Science is Kool and Why My Niece is so Advanced

My Son and his Cousin (my niece) love each other. It's really very sweet. They love each other in the way only a three and a half year old and a four year old can love each other. They run to each other, they embrace freely and chase each other into a frenzy. They keep up with each other throughout the day at a pace that exhausts any witness to their reunions. Throughout the day some differences become apparent: princesses and baseball. Though my niece is game and enjoys her time at bat and my son will push a doll around the house in a stroller, their minds quickly wander to their own areas of interest.

It's at the end of the day where my niece enjoys a competitive advantage in the game to see who can play longer. As they get ready for bed and get tucked into the upper and lower levels of the trundle bed my son is justifiably exhausted; my niece, who should be tired, has a gleam in her eye and through the intercom we hear her whispering for my son to wake up and play at 11:00 PM. She wakes him at 6. She is invincible and my son is exhausted. Why the difference, I had no idea until the Times laid it out for me. My niece is the next rung on the evolutionary ladder. Or a mutant, but she's such a cute kid I'd hate to use that label. Can you imagine if this mutation becomes more prevalent, a small group of people (led by my niece) may take over the world because they are awake and feeling refreshed at 4:30 in the morning while the rest of are still asleep. In a pre-dawn offensive the world could change because of these new less fantastic X-Men.

Just think of their advantages. They can stare at you while you sleep and examine your numerous flaws, the chinks in your armor. They can read the morning paper before you and redact the portions they don't want you to know about. They can eat breakfast while you sleep and be ready for lunch when you are eating breakfast, they may always be a meal ahead. So maybe the advantages of this mutation are not as far reaching. But what if the mutation becomes more prevalent. If one third of the world was awake and ready for work at 5 in the morning what else would change. It's too horrible to think about.

I know that technically the mutation may not be an evolutionary development but how incredible would it be if it was. A mutation influenced by the amount of time needed to accomplish a day's work would be an incredible development. It would almost be a little sad if we discovered the mutation only affected Americans. Other organisms have made adaptations which make the sleep thing look like a lame card trick. Several months ago a friend posted this link to his facebook page. I read it, thought it was cool, then forgot about it. Then I watched "The Happening." It is not a good movie but it was not so horrible that it has been denied full rotation on the HBO networks. For those who have not seen it, the premise is that foliage develops a neurotoxin that it releases into the wind which affects human brains in such a way that anyone exposed to the toxin commits suicide. Pretty cool. Well it was cool when it was a joke of a movie. Not so funny when you find out that fungus already does this to insects. That's right, there is mind control fungus which forces ants to die facing certain directions and at certain heights. All of my sister's theories about sharks taking over the world now pale in comparison to the threat posed by Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. For now, they only threaten ants but it can only be a matter of time until we are laying face down, biting a leaf on the north side of a tree. Who will protect us from the fungus among us? (Picture is property of The American Naturalist/University of Chicago Press)

Deposition in St. Petersburg and Mutiny

Unfortunately this seems to be a pattern. I don't post for a long time and then find myself with a private moment where I can jot something down. Current Facebook Status: sitting in a court reporter's office in St. Petersburg, Florida with some time to myself. I just got back from a short walk up and down Central Avenue. There are a lot of closed storefronts, a lot of homeless folks, some new trendy restaurants and plenty of parking. There are some older coffee shops and restaurants on the street that I wish I had time to try, but I didn't. There are also a ton of music venues I can remember going to with friends when I was in college. I listened to my iPod throughout my stroll and was pleased to hear "Wanna be Startin Something" by MJ (so glad I put Thriller on this contraption). After MJ was a version of "Rawhide" by Ricky Skaggs, then Shlomo Artzi.

I really couldn't prepare anymore for the witness. The room I was in was vintage shared corporate office space. There was a painting of a tree done in three colors, red white and black that was reminiscent of every garage sale ever conducted, 4 glass jars of candy (I have had two caramels, not Kraft), 1 Costco sized container of UTZ holiday shaped pretzels (the holiday was clearly Christmas with pretzels in the shape of Christmas trees). There were also the obligatory colored drawings of St. Pete/Tampa landmarks of which I recognized none, though one may have been the Stetson Law School campus in Gulfport. My iPod then switched to "Last Date" by Floyd Cramer and I wondered if all the oohs and ahs in the song mean it's not an instrumental piece. There is a TV in the corner with a mounted apparatus for video conferencing which we won't need today. The receptionist just told me I can't park where I parked so I move my car wondering how she knew where I parked.


The deposition lasted too long and without revealing any details let me just say that the witness is a horrible person. I actually think he is a sociopath and who has been taking advantage of weaker people his whole life with impunity. In fact, this case, this current deposition is not being taken about those issues, he is a mere fact witness and my questioning is no deterrence to his future activities. Worst of all, he is not alone. Though I cannot mention details I only say that this man's behavior is part of a larger conspiracy and I am immediately reminded of the men of the Pitcairn Islands.


The Pitcairn Islands are where the descendants of Fletcher Christian (leader of the mutineers of the HMS Bounty) settled after setting Captain William Bligh adrift on rowboat. It's an incredible true story, as documented by numerous websites, that far surpasses the romanticized versions of the films. I have never seen the 1962 version but we can all picture the later incarnation with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins. The movie also has Daniel-Day Lewis, Liam Neeson and an aged Lawrence Olivier as the admiral. I've digressed. The thing about the movie and its predecessors is that they are bullshit. There was no falling in love with Tahitian women, there was the kidnapping of Tahitian women. The mutineers kidnapped as many women as they could and settled on Pitcairn Island establishing their own society.



The settlers were left alone for their part without the judgment of the world to affect their habits and until relatively recently they sexually abused all the young girls who had the unfortunate fate of being born to a Pitcairn family. I suggest listening to the interview at the link with Kathy Marks who wrote "Lost Paradise" about the trial of the Pitcairn men. In summary, these islands with a population which hovers around 50 have created a tradition out of having sex with with the islands' young women against their will. Nobody says anything and the practice has continued for as long as the residents remember. I should mention that the Pitcairn Islands are a British Overseas Territory. They are part of the British Empire, but they are also so far from anything and everything that their connection to the world around them has been for most of the society's existence, tenuous at best. Just read Ms. Mark's telling of how to reach the island:

"Ms. MARKS: Pitcairn, in 2009, still has no airstrip, not even a safe harbor. I traveled there from Australia. It took about a week to get there.
DAVIES: A week.
Ms. MARKS: A series of flights from Australia, followed by a very rough, 30-hour boat voyage from a distant corner of French Polynesia. Now, having made that rather grueling journey, you then anchor about a mile off Pitcairn and wait for the island's men to bring out the longboat. That's the only way of getting on and off the island still - is the traditional boats that the men steer.
What I found curious when I first arrived in 2004 to report on the first trials of Pitcairn men, the islanders brought out their longboat - it drew up alongside us and I was quite astonished. I looked out and saw that the two men who were driving the longboat were two of the men who were about to go on trial for very serious child sex offenses. And I thought gosh, this is going to be quite an unusual assignment, and this is quite an unusual place."

If you familiarize yourself with the story you'll learn that ultimately several of the men were ultimately punished for their crime despite the punishments being woefully inadequate. But the men were only found out because a British policewoman was stationed on the island who was confided in by a 15 year old girl. What's more shocking about the story is that women who had left Pitcairn did not speak up until after the case of the 15 year old was being investigated. ( I assume, not trying to blame the victims here). Pitcairn was a place dominated by men because of its rugged and harsh existence and the confluence of isolation and dominance led to a tragic outcome. But there is no remorse on Pitcairn because they don't believe they've done anything wrong. One can imagine the pleas of Pitcairn men not to be saddled with the judgment of the outside world. The lesson we should all take away form this story is that isolation leads to bad things. Cruel things. And a compromised set of values unhindered by a watchful eye.

We can see it in smaller ways in our own society when we consider isolation by economic means, by race, religion and political persuasion. It may be many people's dream to have that large piece of property with no neighbor in sight but in my opinion it does more harm than we imagine. Let's all live in one giant condo, they are really cheap right now.