A song to drive out the earworm from Zandar’s post downstairs (don’t know if it was intentional or not, but enough with the cats and cradles already!).
God, that’s a bad video. Good song, though. Takes me back. Way, way back.
What are y’all up to tonight? I’m resting up for the annual drunken cookie baking marathon, which takes place tomorrow. I’m reading “The Bone Clocks,” which is pretty interesting so far, but I’m still on the fence about it.
kdaug
Breaking Bad remix.
Been stuck in my head since Wednesday (I’m a fan).
Not Adding Much to the Community
“Good song, though” Auggh. No, no it is not. Away with the whining, Motels!
ETA: That Breaking Bad remix is pretty sweet.
Iowa Old Lady
I finished reading Paolo Bacigalupi’s YA book, THE DOUBT FACTORY, which is about a girl who discovers her father’s PR firm specializes in defending companies whose products are suspected of harming people (tobacco, drugs, etc). Her father is a loving, and even wise, father, but he works evil. It’s pretty depressing actually.
Iowa Old Lady
Also, I see Scalia says torture isn’t prohibited by the Constitution. Surely by definition, torture is cruel and unusual punishment. I’m increasingly convinced Scalia is losing his marbles and going from conservative to crazy.
janeform
It was our turn today to say goodbye to our beloved Sheltie, Ramsey. He was 16 years 8 months old. Among the many accolades he got were “He’s an advertisement for a dog!” “He’s the Cary Grant of dogs.” “He’s just the best dog.” He was front-paged on Balloon Juice a few years ago, one of the proudest moments of his life. Thanks to all of you for being a great pet community, and to Beth for putting together the calendar, which he graces this year for the last time.
JPL
@Iowa Old Lady: Did Scalia ever have marbles to lose? He’s been on the court for decades and I have not heard him issue anything that can be considered as a wise statement.
JPL
@janeform: It’s never easy to say goodbye. I still miss all my dogs that have gone to heaven. I’m not convinced that heaven is real for us but I’m convinced that dogs have a special place filled with treats and tennis balls.
Iowa Old Lady
@JPL: You could be right. I don’t know enough about the history of his decisions to be a good judge. But some of his more recent comments feel really out of touch with reality.
Mike E
On a mission to cook up a batch of red beans AND an attempt at a crock pot version of my granma’s paprika chicken stew. The aroma ain’t bad!
JPL
@Iowa Old Lady: His older rulings had more to do with Caesar. I wish I were kidding.
skerry
@Iowa Old Lady: As I understand Scalia’s “logic”, punishment, by definition, is given once one is convicted. Torture was used on persons unconnected of any crime. Therefore, the CIA torture was not punishment. And the 8th Amendment doesn’t apply.
Dee Loralei
@janeform: so sorry for your loss. What an awesome dog.
elmo
@Iowa Old Lady:
You’re not parsing the language enough. The Constitution prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments.” In order for a practice to be prohibited by the Eighth Amendment, it has to be a punishment. If it’s just something you do for teh lulz, or to placate the Sky Gods, or to get information, it doesn’t fall within the category of punishment and you can shove pureed chickpeas as far up the guy’s ass as you like.
Snarkworth
Bookwise, I’m reading The Amazing Harvey by Don Passman. It’s about a magician who solves crimes. I lurves mysteries.
JPL
@skerry: You call that logic or Scalia’s logic is a term unto itself.
skerry
@janeform: I’m so sorry for your loss.
Omnes Omnibus
@skerry: That is the logic, and IIRC Scalia has been taking this line for a long time.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady:
It isn’t the Eighth Amendment the would prohibit torture in these circumstances. It’s the due process clause, if anything.
srv
@Iowa Old Lady: Anyway, that’s my view, and it happens to be correct.
You people need to pay attention to what words mean.
Wag
WWJT? Anybody that Scalia wants him to!
Baud
@Baud:
The underlying seizure that would be required to engage in torture may or may not violate the Fourth Amendment.
Betty Cracker
@janeform: So sorry. He was beautiful.
SFAW
Might not be the worst song The Motels ever recorded, but it’s in the running. “People, Places, Things” “Tragic Surf” “Hungry Wolf” have “Suddenly Wah Wah Wah” beat by a large margin.
Well, that is unless the metric is “Is it as insipid as Natalie Merchant?”
Wag
Torture could fall under unlawful search and seizure.
Pogonip
The cop who shot the 12-year-old in Cleveland will be charged with murder.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
We’ve been trying to think of something fun to do pre-holiday and finally decided to drive up to Solvang for the day tomorrow. Cats are still being kept separated, but I got a second Feliway plug-in today, so we’re hoping to start some re-introduction activities this weekend.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
IIRC, Thomas has taken the position that the Eighth Amendment only applies to sentencing, but not to prison conditions. The Court has said that the Eighth Amendment applies to prison conditions after criminal sentencing To my knowledge, the Court has not said that the Eighth Amendment applies to prison conditions unconnected with criminal sentencing.
Baud
@Pogonip:
Wow.
ETA: I’m sad that I’m surprised.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
I’m reading The Goldfinch and it’s simultaneously educational and really, really frustrating. Keep in mind, this novel won the Pulitzer Prize. The thing is that it’s a gigantic trainwreck and by “gigantic” I mean that the hardcover version is 775 pages long.
The first problem is that it’s too fucking long. I’ve read books that long that I thought were fantastic but this isn’t one of them. There is a lot of meandering, repetition, pointless details that go on forever, and scenes that really do nothing. Some editor needed to take a chainsaw to this thing.
Additionally, the (first person) protagonist’s actions consistently have no consequences whatsoever. He was a lousy student who then spent the ages of 13-15 in a constant drug and alcohol fueled haze but then spends three weeks studying really hard and successfully gets into an elite early college program. He takes heroic amounts of drugs for about eight more years and then decides to just quit; he has horrible withdrawal symptoms for a week and then seems to be over it. He commits multiple instances of fraud and finally confesses it to his very honest business partner, who just shrugs and says that he needs to buy back the antiques he sold dishonestly but other than that, hey, no problem.
I’m about 2/3 through and I’m continuing mostly out of some sort of dumb fascination with whether or not any of this catches up with him. It’s both educational and frustrating because these are pretty much the problems I’m trying to fix in my own novel which is currently just under 150,000 words (i.e. already considerably shorter than The Goldfinch) and with a second half in which the protagonist is far too passive. So, educational in that it illustrates why I need to fix these problems.
It’s frustrating because this novel, which has a worse case of all of the problems I need to fix, won the fucking Pulitzer anyway. The Hobbit is now three movies long. And I need to edit my story down.
Elizabelle
@janeform:
Here’s a pic of the gorgeous Ramsey. Beautiful dog. JCole titled it “smiley.”
Very sorry for your loss. What a great dog and long happy life. Know you’re missing him intensely.
Tipping a glass of red wine to you later tonight.
Baud
@janeform:
I’m very sorry.
Pogonip
@JPL: As of 1990, it became the official position of the Roman Church that pets do indeed go to heaven. Of course everyone had already known that for the previous 1,989 years, but Pope JP II finally got around to making it official. Not sure about the world’s many other religions.
Elizabelle
@janeform:
PS: Pope Francis informs that Ramsey is wherever heaven is, waiting for you.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Iowa Old Lady: Has Bacigalupi ever written anything that wasn’t:
a) brilliant; and
b) really goddamned depressing?
JPL
@Pogonip: All I can find is that the coroner said it was a homicide. Although Garner was ruled a homicide, the grand jury chose not to indict.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Pogonip:
I suspected he was going to get thrown under the bus because of the things the deputy chief of the department was saying right after the shooting. You can sell a jury on the idea that a 17-year-old or an 18-year-old is a physical threat, but I suspect it’s going to be harder to sell them on the idea that a 12-year-old was such a threat that the cop could barely wait for the patrol car to roll to a stop before shooting.
Baud
@JPL:
That would be more in line with my expectation. Too bad.
skerry
@Pogonip: Do you have a link? I don’t see anything saying that. I know the ME did say cause of death was homicide, but haven’t seen anything about charges.
Elizabelle
@Pogonip:
I thought “limbo” was a useful concept, because many souls belong there, maybe forever. Sorry to see that go. (Comforting to think of some of the not dearly departed locked in a perpetual waiting room. Where the lighting’s bad and the temperature is just a little off. And they’re slightly thirsty. And nothing but time to think about what one could have done better, that was in one’s power, to attain heavenly peace…. am quite the judgmental type, sadly.)
No limbo for dogs, I hope.
I want to go to dog heaven.
Pogonip
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): It has been my experience that Pulitzer-winning fiction is generally terrible. If a novel wins a Pulitzer I rarely even read the jacket blurb because I know it’s likely to be a dud. Contrariwise, Newberry-award winners are almost always good.
elmo
@Pogonip: Pogonip, I really, really want you to be right, but I am not seeing anything on CNN or Cleveland.com. Cleveland.com actually has a story up about the grand jury, so I can’t imagine the grand jury has already made its decision.
Roger Moore
@Iowa Old Lady:
IIRC, in this case he’s just showing that he’s a sophist. I’ve seen the argument before that the 8th Amendment only prohibits cruel and unusual punishments, meaning a punishment as a consequence of being convicted. Meanwhile, the 5th Amendment only prohibits being forced to testify against one’s self. That mean’s it’s hunky dory with the Constitution if you torture somebody who hasn’t yet been put on trial and don’t use his coerced testimony against him in court. I suggest we torture Scalia until he gives us evidence we can use to put Roberts away for life.
SFAW
@Pogonip:
No, he won’t. JPL has already noted that ruling something a homicide and indicting the killer for murder are not always cause-and-effect. Plus, once they find out that Tamir Rice once played hooky, and was therefore “no angel” – well, he must’ve been asking for it.
I really hope I can stop expecting shit like this before I die.
debbie
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Sorry you’re not liking Goldfinch. I read it, liked it, and didn’t find it at all ponderous. Try reading A.S. Byatt if you want to feel weighed down by the length.
Pogonip
@Baud: I’m sorry, I did not read the article far enough. The ME ruled the death a homicide. The next step in Ohio is grand jury (which is what I mistakenly thought the article referred to). The ME’s ruling just means Tamir Rice was killed by another person, as opposed to accident or disease or whatever. The grand jury will now decide whether the cop committed a crime. (Having seen the video, I myself would want to charge him.)
Just One More Canuck
Daughter’s soccer game, then reading The Innocents Abroad for the.?th time.
@janeform: sorry for your loss. We lost our wonderful cat Scully about a year ago and I was a mess – she was 17
Now we have Elsa the knucklehead – all white – all goofy (yes she was named after the princess)
Davis X. Machina
@Pogonip: It’s logical.
Happiness requires pets.
Heaven is the apex of happiness.
Pets in heaven, QED.
I mean, come on people… Thomism. It’s what’s for breakfast.
Pogonip
@elmo: You’re right, I didn’t read far enough. Mea culpa.
Iowa Old Lady
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): I could not read The Goldfinch. I’m an impatient reader and it made me homicidal.
Pogonip
@Elizabelle: Me too.
I always think of Purgatory as a bus station filled with radios all tuned to Rush Limbaugh 24/7. In Hell you are seated before a TV endlessly playing The View and The Five with your eyes held open, like Malcolm McDowell in Clockwork Orange.
Betty Cracker
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): I accidently mislaid “Goldfinch” when I was halfway through it, and when it turned up again, I realized I didn’t give a shit about any character in the novel nor was I curious about how it all came out, so I tossed it aside permanently. Glad I’m not the only one who thinks it sucks. Several people whose opinions on books generally match my own just raved about it though.
Elizabelle
@Snarkworth:
Oh good. Glad someone else is doing lighter reading, with mysteries.
Working through Sarah Paretsky’s “Critical Mass”, and it’s quite good. I’ve found some of her recent novels uneven and one or two ready for parody. This one’s interesting, about generational family ties in the wake of the Holocaust, and about war-era German and US scientists racing to figure out how to split the atom. One WWII-period character is a brilliant researcher; also a young woman and a Jew.
Read the latest Harry Bosch by Michael Connelly — “The Burning Room” — and highly recommend it. Really terrific, and he introduces a new character (since Bosch is so close to forced retirement).
I think Michael Connelly — and the late great PD James (sob!) never wrote a bad book.
Long series can be disastrous for other writers. (Patricia Cornwell is the most cautionary tale there. I assume she is now paid by the word and gimmick introduced. Kathy Reichs’ latest — which I picked up only to see if she’d improved, having fled earlier — was the most preposterous book I have ever finished. She’s got a few good scenes, but I’d withdraw the thing and rewrite it entirely if I were her. As it is, she’s just pocketing the money.)
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@janeform: I’m sorry for your loss. They leave such big paw prints on our hearts.
JerryN
Stick with The Bone Clocks, Betty. It’s a fairly twisty ride, but I thought it was pretty good.
Helen
Just got back from my work Christmas party. I work at the second largest non-profit in NYC, (I think Columbia U is the first). We have 12,000 employees and close to 30,000 students here. My dept has 28 people. I said to them tonight “Who is an immigrant”? 16 people raised their hands. Then I said “Who is first generation? 3 people raised their hands. So of 28 people,19 are brand spanking new. Oh and they have JOBS. They are not on welfare. Why is that confusing to the right?
Exhausted, I am.
Iowa Old Lady
@Roger Moore: An excellent suggestion.
Elizabelle
@Pogonip:
OK, but maybe the Rush Limbaugh radios aren’t quite audible — you know it’s him, and you’re stuck with the channel.
Having to actually listen would be hell, and that’s not limbo/purgatory’s purpose. Also, Limbaugh robs one of critical thinking ability — or is tailored to those who lack it outright. Need some critical thinking to atone and make it up to the next level.
Where maybe your dog wants to see you, and maybe not …
JPL
@Pogonip: Wishful thinking! It might still happen, although at this point, it’d be viewed as xmas miracle.
janeform
Thanks everyone for your condolences and praise of Ramsey, who was indeed awesome and beautiful. It helps a lot.
Iowa Old Lady
@Elizabelle: I’m listening to a Lee Child book in my car. I’ve never read one of these before. It’s engaging.
MomSense
@janeform:
I’m so sorry, Janeform. I hope your memories of Ramsey will be a comfort to you.
Tree With Water
This is my first winter in my new house, located in the Russian River area of Sonoma County. After three years of drought, since this morning the road getting to my place has flooded in spots, and I’m now waiting for it to recede. Blessed be the rain, amen.
Elizabelle
@Iowa Old Lady:
I read one of the early Lee Childs, and it kept my attention. Enjoy!
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Iowa Old Lady: They are pretty engaging. We read them all as they come out. And I like that one of the most bad ass women in the books shares my first name. Child auctions character names for charitable donations.
Mike J
@Elizabelle:
When I was a talk radio producer one of my jobs was to board op while Limbaugh was on. Play the local commercials, cut in for news/wx, etc. The studio monitors were at the lowest possible audible level until 90 seconds before a scheduled break. Sadly, you have to turn them up to hit it right.
Pogonip
@Mike J: How do talk radio shows pick whom to put on the air? Or are they all shills?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@debbie: How many times does he pull out that picture, look at it, feel guilty, and put it away without anything happening? Ninety? A hundred? We get it already.
Iowa Old Lady
@Mike J: Holy shit. Now that’s what I call cruel and unusual punishment.
Elizabelle
@Mike J:
Combat pay!
Phylllis
Drinking Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro and fixing to watch Carnal Knowledge.
Pogonip
Speaking of books, how far along is the Game of Thrones TV show? I would think that once the show moves ahead of the books, The Wind of Winter or whatever it’ll be called will be about as marketable as expired lunchmeat, so if George Martin wants the gravy train to keep rolling, he may actually have to start typing.
debbie
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
It also connected him to his mom. That’s how kids are.
I lived in NYC near the Met and I love looking through thrift shops and antique stores. Maybe there was more for me to relate to than for you. But I’ve read a few books this past year a quarter of the size of Goldfinch that were (for me, at least) much tougher slogs.
elmo
@janeform:
I’m coming late to the Ramsey appreciation, but I just clicked over to look at the pic, and MY GOD. What a face. What an amazing, thoughtful, cheerful, intelligent, warm and beautiful face. May the memory be a blessing, and may the hole in your heart heal quickly and well.
Mike J
@Pogonip:
For the locally produced shows, I had a book of experts. It was full of people who were willing to go on the air at the drop of a hat and talk about their subject matter. A fair number of people in that book were shills.
I supplemented it with my personal list. I often started with profs at the local uni. Some of them were really good, some not so much. The bigger problem was they were less likely to appreciate a call at 6:30 in the morning saying we had 8 minutes to fill at 7:20 and could they talk on the radio about this story they haven’t really even heard yet. That’s why you wind up with so many flacks and shills on the air. They are always ready to go on the air.
JPL
Brian Williams is now talking about dogs and the Pope’s statement. He’s showing a clip from All Dogs Go to Heavens.
Before that though, they mentioned that Cheney is going on Meet the Press. I guess it’s related because we all know that Cheney won’t be in Heaven.
Denali
I just finished Tha Confabulist by Steven Galloway, a mystery involving Houdini and the vageries of memory. Good read. Same author wrote The
CelIst of Sarajevo, which I haven’t gotten hold of yet. Another good read – The Round House by Louise Erdlich.
jeffreyw
Mrs J made some awesome brownies, recipe inspired by the Girl Scout Samoa cookies.
Elizabelle
Comedy Central’s got three Chris Rock shows tonight: Kill the Messenger, Bring the Pain and … I forget the third. But check it out.
Recording ’em all. Haven’t seen any of them, but think Bring the Pain is famous? (I mean, I’ve heard of it …)
burnspbesq
I am a huge Motels fan, but the videos are ARRRRGGGGHHH. Especially “Only the Lonely.”
janeform
@elmo: Thank you. That’s just so lovely, brings tears to our eyes. As do all Ramsey comments on this thread. And, we hadn’t seen Pope Francis’ statement. So fitting he said it today.
burnspbesq
@Iowa Old Lady:
He’s right, but so what? It is prohibited by statute, and by a treaty to which the United States is a signatory. The statute is Constitutional, and the treaty is a binding obligation of the United States.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: I think Scalia reads the Eighth Amendment too narrowly. Torture is designed to punish “bad” people; It may have other purposes, but one of them is definitely punitive. Nevertheless, I agree with the rest of your comment.
burnspbesq
@Tree With Water:
A-MEN! More, please. Lots more.
TaMara (BHF)
@janeform: Sending you big hugs. He was truly a handsome boy.
janeform
One more comment. Ramsey always brought joy to people, such as when he would chase cars or run in circles when a car went by slowly, and the people in the car would laugh and laugh watching him. I’m glad he’s brought some joy to you all.
Cacti
Packing up more stuff.
I got a transfer from my employer and I’ll be leaving sand land for the Pacific northwest to start the new year.
My handle won’t make much geographic sense anymore, but I’ll keep it, because I like the sound of it better than “Trees” or “Clouds”.
Tommy
@Cacti: I wish you well in the Pacific northwest. I have lived or visited most places in the nation. The Pacific northwest outside of reading about I have no experence. People tell me it is amazing.
Helen
@Omnes Omnibus: Speaking of the constitution. IANAL but I have actually read the constitution. So what about the 9th amendment. Doesn’t that pretty much say “This document here is not the end all be all. Y’all want a right? Pass a law.”
And also the Right screams about states rights in the 10th, but I read that as “Kay OK, States, if we at the federal level do not tell you not to do something or we are silent on it – GO FOR IT, But if not, you are our biotch.” Seems like that has nothing to do with States rights and it’s the fed calling first dibs. But like I said IANAL.
Right?
Omnes Omnibus
@Cacti: Buy a couple of cacti as house plants and claim that your ‘nym stems from your fondness for them.
Cacti
@Tommy:
I wish you well in the Pacific northwest. I have lived or visited most places in the nation. The Pacific northwest outside of reading about I have no experence.
Same here. That’s one of the things that interested me in going there. I’ve always had a restless spirit. I get the 7-year itch in terms of where I live, and I’m on my 8th year in Arizona. I’m ready for a change of scenery.
Omnes Omnibus
@Helen: Yeah, the Bill of Rights is like the Spanish Inquisition’s list of weapons (“Amongst our rights are such things as …) due to the Ninth. The Tenth is more along the lines of “Some things are exclusively Federal, other thing ares are exclusively State. OTOH, the Commerce Clause gives the federal government a lot of license to do things that might seem to be reserved to the states.
ETA: As usual with a short paragraph about subjects on which books are written, this is a cursory take on the issue.
Mike J
@Cacti: The other side of the mountains is desert, just not the Arizona kind.
skerry
Bernie Sanders was appointed as new ranking member of Senate Budget Committee. This could be interesting.
Pogonip
@Mike J: What about the people who call in? Real, or shills? If there are lots of callers, how do you decide which one gets on the air?
Tommy
@Cacti:
I don’t know what other way to say it then that is fucking cool. I did the math the other day I thought about this.
These are the states I have lived in. Louisiana, Illinois, Texas, Kansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia, DC, back to Illinois.
I do not think I am perfect. But living a lot of places, makes you see the world in another way.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Pogonip: Have you read Sa[r]tre’s No Exit? If not, you’d probably enjoy it. I did. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Tenar Darell
I’m at Panera eating dinner. A stop for dinner between workout and Barnes & Noble browsing. (Those coupons won’t spend themselves!)
@janeform:
It is always sad to hear of a beloved pet’s passing. May he live forever in your memory, smiling.
Mike J
@Pogonip:
Absolutely real.
Choosing who goes on the air was a function of how coherent they were and if they could make their point to me quickly, preferably in less than one sentence. Had to feel as if we wouldn’t have to use the 7 second delay on them too. It’s a pain in the ass to use it because then you have to kill time with no callers while the delay builds back up. Although I have seen a host use it just so he could call a caller a stupid cocksucker.
Lightfoot
David Dayen on “All in with Chris Hayes”, you come a long way baby.
Deservedly.
Violet
@janeform: I just clicked over too and my goodness, Ramsey was a gorgeous dog. Such a happy, eager, smart look on his face. Beautiful. So sorry for your loss. May your happy memories of him be some comfort.
Snarkworth
@Elizabelle: Oh! I have The Burning Room waiting on my Kindle. I generally don’t like Hollywood settings for fiction, but Connelly overrides that. You’re right: never a bad book.
Anne Laurie
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Donna Tartt’s idea of the Manic Pixie Dream Boy? The guy she could’ve been, barring all that real-life ickiness like consequences and other people?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Anne Laurie: No. He is in no way a pixie. He isn’t cheerful. He doesn’t have a positive effect on anyone except by sheer chance and authorial assertion. (There are a couple of characters who claim to have been positively affected by him but it all happens completely off-screen during the ten years he was avoiding them.)
I do have a feeling that he just became engaged to a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, though.
Edit: I also agree with whoever it was that said that none of the characters are at all sympathetic or worse, more than mildly interesting.
Anne Laurie
@janeform: Oh, what a gorgeous fella — inside as well as out, it seems. We never get to share their lives long enough, do we?
As Joe Biden says: May the day soon come when his memory brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Well, it was past time for Zooey Deschanel to get over that guy from Death Cab for Cutie.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I realized while watching “Elf” the other night that Will Ferrell plays the Manic Pixie Dream Girl and Zooey Deschanel plays the cynic whose life is fixed by the MPDG. Makes it even funnier to me.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): It’s probably a trope that’s less annoying if the character in question really is one of the fey, or at least was raised as one.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Despite the elf costume, I have trouble conceiving of Will Ferrell as any kind of pixie (even an allegorical one).
Bobby Thomson
I see and match you. Happy Noel, everyone.
+4
Omnes Omnibus
@Bobby Thomson: One has to love Aimee Mann. At the last concert of hers that I saw, her encore began with her explaining that she could sing Take Me Out to the Ballpark” with the lyrics starting one note later in the music. And then she did it. It was so cool. Then she said, “Yeah, it feels weird to follow that up by saying here is a song a co-wrote with Elvis Costello..”
Matt McIrvin
Hmmm…. Classic medieval-style torture, with racks and thumbscrews and such, generally wasn’t officially considered a punishment either; it was an inducement to confess, just like what the CIA was doing to people they thought were terrorists.
The situation was in some ways similar: apparently in much of medieval Europe the standard of proof required to simply convict someone of a crime was so high that most criminals couldn’t be convicted at all without a confession, so torture was a way of getting people who the authorities figured were probably guilty to provide the confession. It was an odd case of an excessively high standard for due process creating a workaround that was completely barbaric.
(I was just reading a paper from the 1970s arguing that our plea-bargaining system is a similar malfunction, and it may well be. But, hey, now we’ve got actual torture as another example!)
Matt McIrvin
@Helen: I think that, historically, the various rights listed in the Bill of Rights really were not understood as restricting state laws until the Incorporation Cases (starting in the 1920s) held that the 14th Amendment implied they did. Before then, they purely restricted what the federal government could do, though many states did have bills of rights that said similar things.
A few stipulations still aren’t incorporated, such as (to name a case of current interest) the right to grand jury indictment, which only applies federally.
Mike J
@efgoldman:
I only turned down the monitors, not the mix.
Mike J
@efgoldman: Oh duh, right channel. Sorry. Catch me before the third scotch.