Site Presented By
Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
Published Letters: 364 Editor's Choice: 27
"I should have advised her to plead no contest. Instead I said she should get a lawyer, which means she'll now wait for the court to appoint someone and come back here -- if she makes it -- to the courthouse a second time to file a plea."
But then, you would have been giving her legal advice, which as a non-lawyer you are neither qualified nor permitted by law to do. Of course with indigent, marginalized persons like Taeja this sort of thing is largely tolerated and goes on all the time. But you did the right thing. The consequences if she failed to show up would hardly be worse than pleading no contest, and court-appointed attorneys deal with flaky clients all the time. Even in a simple shoplifting case, she needs to have an attorney to represent her.
To the person who said she would do well in a 12-step program, how do you know? What are the chances her abusive boyfriend would let her attend 12-step if he won't even let her call her mentor? What she needs is to take some initiative and ditch the guy and genuinely seek out any kind of legitimate help, which is going to take some initiative on her part. Otherwise there's a good chance that the only intervention she's going to get is in an institution.
I think just skimming this article made me dumber.
Small businesses, their proprietors, and their loyal customers in small towns across America have long opposed Walmart, big boxes, and national chains, regardless of their politics.
Tyler, this situation is nothing like the Natalie Holloway case. New Jersey is not a sovereign foreign nation, and Laurel Hester is a citizen of the state that is screwing her over.
You shift the blame to Hester by asking why she didn't make the contingencies, buy insurance, get a new job. As if it's her fault that the system is unjust, and it's her fault she came down with cancer.
No, you do not change the system based on individual cases or emotional appeals. But when the system is unjust and wrong, sometimes it takes the vividness of an individual victim of that system to drive home the injustice and to get people to act.
I'm sure people like you would have been equally dismissive of Rosa Parks (just move to the back of the friggin bus already, you know the law!) and Ruby Bridges (you have your own school, you know the law!).
Dave Chapelle is a funny, smart, conscientious, and probably mentally ill man. It is disappointing that he's no longer making shows, but perhaps he made the right decision for himself. But it does appear that he may have mental health issues and I hope he is able to overcome any stigma he sees in them and get whatever help he needs.
Anonymous writes:
This sentence reads as if the animals were under some kind of local anesthesia, like you get when you go to the dentist for a filling.
This is never done, as it would be illegal. In the few experiments that require vivisection, animals are always under full general anesthesia. They are fully asleep and experience nothing. They are almost always given pain relief (analgesia) as well, even though it's redundant because they can't feel anything. Their anesthesia level is monitored with the same equipment used during human surgeries.
While I have zero sympathy for extremists of any stripe who use actual or threatened violence, if you believe this you are extremely naive. First of all, there's not a single law in America which protects mice, birds, and amphibians that make up the great majority of animals experimented on in this country. If you think that every mouse is put under general anaesthesia before it is dissected alive or otherwise painfully experimented on, you have never probably never been inside a research lab. And animal welfare laws give wide latitude toward researchers. They can do anything to animals they want that they can get past the review board, and which may or may not supervise them closely. For that matter, many experiments actually depend on the animal being responsive.
Here's an entire book on the subject which I have put online. It's from a different era, but unfortunately most of it still applies today. http://hcoop.net/~ntk/ethical.txt
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The Maine fight was supposed to be the dress rehearsal for repealing California's Prop. 8 -- but gay marriage lost
Once one obtains Seriousness credentials in the Washington media, they are irrevocable no matter one's conduct.
Salon headlines in your mailbox
