It has been a while since I’ve posted anything on my blog.  Law school continues along on and I’m looking forward to winter break; Kimi and I are heading to Los Angeles for break and the trip should be a good opportunity for the two of us to reconnect with my in-laws.

The big news however is the purchase of my first car. For a long time I thought that car buying was just a basic activity.  You go into  to a dealer, put down some money, and they were happy to help you, thrilled that you were buying from them.  My experience, however, reveals the fallacious character of that view.  Not only has purchasing a car been a source of unending frustration, it’s amazing how readily and easily car dealers lie to your face to get your business.  They sit there, look you in the eye as they promise you the world.  When that doesn’t work out, they’ll come up with some new reason why they can’t help while in the same breadth promising something new.  It’s an endless cycle of “bolshevik” and it causes the negotiation process to drag on forever. Why can’t auto manufacturers make it easy? What about selling cars is so difficult?  No wonder they need a bailout

I’ve begun training for the Tecumesh Trail Marathon.  The race is set for December 5, 2009 in Bloomington, Indiana.  I am hoping to beat 3:45 minutes.  It will be my first “official” marathon.  Here’s today’s training run:
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For those of you following along on Twitter or Facebook, my guest and I have spent the morning in the “New” Indianapolis Airpot.  After wandering around the place and listening to a surprising number of dogs bark at each other, we decided to eat at Wolfgang Puck’s “Express.”

Puck grew up cooking with his mother, a part-time pastry chef. After training as an apprentice to Raymond Thuilier at L’Oustau de Baumaniere in Provence, he moved onto the Hotel de Paris in Monaco and then to Maxim’s Paris. Puck came to the United States in 1973. After two years at La Tour in Indianapolis, Puck moved to Los Angeles to become chef and part owner at Ma Maison restaurant.

In 1981 Puck shot to fame following the publication of his first cookbook, Modern French Cooking for the American Kitchen. Puck then opened his signature restaurant, Spago, in Los Angeles. His success with Spago allowed him to launch the Wolfgang Puck Companies, including Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group, Wolfgang Puck Worldwide, Inc. and Wolfgang Puck Catering. The Wolfgang Puck Companies include 15 fine dining restaurants, premium catering services, more than 80 Wolfgang Puck Express operations, and kitchen and food merchandise, including cookbooks and canned foods.

My guest and I ate at one of Puck’s Express establishments. The décor is fairly modern: bamboo tables; recessed white lighting; a gas-fired, fake-wood pizza oven; and soft, earthy paint on the walls. The service was decent for an airport, no one yelled at us for daring to seek out food. However, we quickly came to regret the food we ordered.

Both my guest and I fell jumped for the turkey avocado club sandwich. The name suggested the right amount of good-cholesterol (avocado) and protein (turkey) in a hard to screw-up package. However, the sandwich should have been named Mayo and Turkey on Bread.  The turkey looked as though it had been freshly delivered from Costco.  The rest of the sandwich dripped with mayonnaise and oozed with salt. The copious bread, made soggy with the generous surviving of mayonnaise, did nothing to offset the dish’s salty character. The avocado was so drenched in mayonnaise that I am almost certain it had more trans-fat than a Big-Mac.

While dinning, I asked my guest why would an accomplished chef like Wolfgang Puck dilute his reputation by attaching their name to a bunch of inferior lunch counters. Her response summed up our lunch, “He’s probably making so much money he doesn’t care what people think.”

Normal Score 2.5 out of 5, Special Airport Score: 4 out of 5.

Are you a member of Pete’s PGA Group?  That must suck.  Anyhow,  you need to get some culture, so please complete the online poll below.  The activity with the highest score goes first.

If you have suggestions for activities, fill them in on the survey or post a comment.

Chef Daniel Orr’s Farm Restaurant in Bloomington, Indiana offers diners an eclectic mix of locally produced foods.  Drawing inspiration from “traditional Hoosier cuisine” (whatever that is), the food is good but pricey.  The restaurant’s decor features pieces of antiqued farm equipment on the walls, with slighly loud music from the 70s rounding out the atmosphere.   Another odd feature of the place is that everything begins with the prefix “FARM.”

For our first course, my guest and I had  hummus with warm pitas and two beers.  Though not terribly unique, the hummus was tasty (Trojan Horse’s is better and cheaper).  The best part of the first course was the beer.  Farm’s bar boasts an extensive collection of fantastic beers.

For our main course we ordered the “Farm Burger” and “Farm Catfish Fry.”  The burger was perfect.  Cooked exactly as ordered and well paired with generous cuts of organic bacon and  blue cheese.   Unlike most burgers that I’ve eaten, this patty comes in a slightly oval shape.  The meat was fantastic — juicy and savory — and there was just enough bread.

My guest enjoyed her catfish.  The fish was lightly battered and tender, but she found it a bit too greasy for her tastes.  The fish probably should have been tapped dry with a towel prior to platting to remove excess grease.

Dessert at the Farm was a major disappointment.  Our server suggested the bread pudding and apple crisp.  Neither were very good.  The pudding simply tasted like mashed up sandwich bread with syrup poured on top.  Unlike good bread puddings that have a savory character and rich notes of cinnamon and hazelnut, this just tasted like sugar and bread.

The apple crisp resembled an uncooked wonton with undersweetened apples stuffed inside.  It was not well paired with Wharton’s Bourbon; the bourbon’s oak and tobacco notes drowned out the underwhelming apples.

Our evening at the Farm was pleasant.  The service was fantastic, the main courses were solid — and well above Bloomington’s average — and the bar is superb.   Next time I eat there, I think I’ll opt for just a few beers and a burger though.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

Just finished watching Will Smith’s “anti-super hero movie,” Hancock. The film’s premise–that a drunk, lonely super-hero finds redemption through relationships–is attractive.  The thought of a dark hero with good motives but bad execution is interesting because it goes against the dominant super-hero archetype: the morally upright hero.  However, the psychology of the piece pales in comparison to Batman Begins.  In Batman, the hero’s origins are connected to Bruce Wayne’s efforts to overcome his psychological wounds, whereas Hancock’s troubles are never convincingly linked to either alcoholism or despair.   The narrative’s failure to make that connection makes the film more of a comedy than a piece challenging social notions of heroic goodness.  In other words, were the film’s premise suggests an interesting critique of society’s veneration of heros, it ends as a simplistic, feel-good comedy with fancy special effects.

The film’s special effects make it worth watching; especially if you’ve spent any amount of time in traffic on the 105 freeway in Los Angeles.  Its carthartic to watch Hancock tear up asphalt you’ve spent hours waiting around on.

“Review these and let me know what you think,” the Investigating Officer said as he tossed a brown folder onto my desk. The folder opened to a typed inventory of its contents: “living room shot facing north,” “living room shot facing south,” “bedroom photographs 1-22,” and “close up of door frame, note absence of force.” The inventory gave way to a series of photographs taken at the scene of an unsolved homicide from 1991. After reviewing the folder’s inventory, I flipped through the glossy photos until I reached the images of the victim. Her body was in an advanced state of rigor mortis and lay face down on a bed. She had a series of ligature marks on her neck and wrists and an agonized expression on her face. A comment attached to one of the photographs indicated that a nearby telephone wire had probably strangled the victim. These gruesome images shocked me, and quickly disabused me of the notion that my work would be clinical or detached.

My first week with the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office Homicide team was surprising. From the gravity of the prosecutions the team handled to the consistently friendly demeanor of the lawyers and support staff; my first week was also thrilling. One instance was particularly striking: watching a veteran Deputy District Attorney and talented Defense attorney examine a witness.

Jeff, a Deputy District Attorney assigned to the Homicide team, popped his head into my office and asked if I could help him out for two days on a rape trial he had worked on before he joined the Homicide team. I accepted, grabbed my jacket, and walked with Jeff to the Santa Clara County Superior Court house across the street from our offices. As we walked, Jeff filled me in on the case’s disposition, it had been tried twice before, but appellate courts had reversed both decisions and ordered new trials. This would be the third time Jeff and the Defendant’s attorney had tried this same case. Although, Jeff expressed frustration at having to try the defendant for a third time, he also expressed his respect for the appellate process and his determination to “get this one right.”

Jeff and I arrived in the courtroom, I performed some preliminary administrative tasks, and then Jeff called the State’s first witness: the victim of the alleged rape. For about two hours Jeff asked the victim a series of foundational questions establishing how the victim had come to know the Defendant. After a short morning recess, Jeff began to walk the victim through the alleged rape. At first, Jeff’s questions about the alleged rape appeared somewhat clinical. For instance,

“What were you wearing on the evening of July 17, 2002?”

The witness answered, “[a]n orange blouse and white pants.”

However, as Jeff’s direct examination progressed, his questions grew more probing and the witness appeared increasingly uncomfortable on the stand. At one point, Jeff asked the witness, “What did the defendant say to you when he told you to put a condom on his erect penis?”

The witness answered, “I am not going to catch AIDS behind some bitch.”

After giving her answer, the witness began to sob on the stand. Seeing this, the Defendant’s attorney jumped to his feet and asked the judge for a recess to allow the witness to compose herself. The judge refused the defense’s request, but ordered both Jeff and the defense attorney to approach the bench. I watched as the witness continued to softly sob on the stand in front of the jurors, a small crowd in the gallery, and the Defendant. After two or three minutes, the judge concluded her side bar with counsel and Jeff resumed his questioning. Though it was difficult to watch the witness answer questions through her sobs, I could not help but think that her display of emotion was pure gold for the State’s case.

After a lunch recess, the Defense began its cross-examination of the alleged victim. As I watched the defense attorney walk towards the witness, I tried to imagine myself in his shoes. We had all just witnessed an emotionally powerful direct examination. I thought, if nothing else, the alleged victim’s tears earned the jury’s sympathy, and I could not imagine having to systematically challenge this witness’s credibility. Apparently, the defense attorney did not share my concerns because he immediately began to attack the witness’s direct testimony. Although I do not believe the defense attorney’s cross was effective at discrediting the witness, his ability to represent his client with zeal in an emotionally charged situation was impressive.

Watching Jeff examine a witness was fascinating. He methodically asked foundational question after foundational question, all the while laying a clear factual groundwork for the jury. When he ultimately turned to the events surrounding the actual rape, he appeared to deliberately use disturbing questions to illicit an emotional response from his witness. However, I was also impressed with the defense attorney’s dogged cross-examination. Wading into an emotionally charged situation to ensure that his client had an opportunity to confront the evidence against him, the defense attorney ignored the emotional aspects of the testimony, focusing instead on the task before him: defending his client. Though I have often heard it discussed in law school, watching an emotionally charged trial drove home the wisdom of our adversarial system of justice.

Traveling back to California is always restful for me.  It is good to be home and it is good to take a break from Indiana’s dodgy weather.  I spent a good deal of time during my trip reflecting on my aspirations and goals for the coming semester at IU.  Chief among those goals is to spend more time reflecting on my life, my weaknesses, and my interactions with others.   My reflections left me with the firm conviction that my tendency to restlessly seek after the next adventure or challenge tends to diminish all my adventures and challenges.  I should be less quick to let the events of each day fade into the background of my memory and savor that day’s events for just a few, extra moments.

Yesterday, Speaker Pelosi agreed in principle to the Bush Administration’s proposal to allow Detroit’s ailing automakers to draw on a previously approved $25 billion  green technology loan to cover their operating costs through March.

It’s pretty clear that both Bush and Pelosi punted on this problem.  There is certainly some wisdom in doing that — as the “lamest” presidential duck in a long time– Bush has no political capital.  Pelosi — who is deeply committed to green issues — wants to preserve her freedom of action and calculates that President-elect Obama will more sympathetic to accessing TARP or TARP 2 funds* for Detroit.  As the New York Times put it:

The short-term plan is intended to help the automakers survive until the new administration takes over in January and can craft a longer-term solution to the industry’s troubles.

Yet this political punt – if it goes forward – also exposes a fundamental misconception on the part of policy makers.  Why is it up to Washington to craft a “long-term solution to the industry’s troubles”?  Why do American tax-payers have to fund government attempts to regulate an industry choked by high over-head and mismanagement?

Consider the British Government’s experience with Leyland.  During the 1970s and 1980s, Leyland – a large, union-heavy British car-maker, requested and got the equivalent of $16.5 Billion in government bail-outs.  The company dithered on this lifeline for years, ultimately going out of business.  In the end, all Leyland’s employees (and they numbered in the 10 of thousands at the end) lost their jobs despite a series of bail-outs.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the only viable solution to “restructuring” these corporations is Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  Sure, some people will lose their jobs and that is tragic; but every worker employed by the Big-Three could loose their job if this misguided attempt by the American government goes forward.  The problems these companies face are structural, and the only instrument that I am aware of to cure such defects (labor contracts, health care obligations, & entrenched mismanagement) is bankruptcy.  Even Rick Wagoner (whose  mia culpa before the House Finance Committee on Friday can be found here) recognizes that Detroit’s problems are its self-inflicted wounds.  Sympathy and infrastructure jobs for troubled Michiganders: YES; bailing out their delinquent bosses: NO.

Chime in with your comments, I’m  interested in getting some different perspectives.

*Last week, Obama threw his support behind a new fiscal stimulus package.  This will likely include a modified version of TARP aimed toward helping consumers handle debt.