I don’t have the official result yet, but we finished the Shamrock Run. I don’t have the official results yet, but I think I finished 10 5 miles in something like 51 minutes. My wife, Amy, and I went down to Indy where we ran in the race with her sister Suzie and her friend Leslie. Amy & I’s first race. Fun.

Some of you might recall the short-lived show Armed & Famous. It was the show featuring celebrities trained as police officers then filmed as they went on patrol in Muncie. I frequently represent my county’s Sheriff’s Department against various claims and, therefore, couldn’t help but cringe on behalf of the attorney for the Muncie Police Department when this show aired.

The Muncie Star Press has an article on the filing of a tort claim notice in relation to one of the Armed & Famous raids. Apparently the Muncie Police searched the wrong apartment. The subject of that mistaken search, by her attorney Michael Sutherlin, has filed a tort claim notice claiming the Muncie P.D. “committed an illegal search and seizure, used excessive force and battered Clements, which are violations of rights guaranteed by the constitutions of the United States and Indiana.”

When my wife & I were watching this, I commented that if I were in Muncie, it’d almost be worth getting shot by one of those people. The basis for a lawsuit is almost the premise of the show — inexperienced cops set loose on the city. And everybody involved has fairly deep pockets.

For those not familiar with the process, filing a notice of tort claim is the necessary prerequisite for filing a lawsuit against a political subdivision. It’s not the same as filing a lawsuit, but it must be done to preserve the person’s right to sue. My understanding is that the claimant’s attorney, Michael Sutherlin, has something of a specialty in these cases. Could be interesting.

I’ve been seeing a lot of references to the Greeks these days. It wouldn’t really qualify for Plate O’ Shrimp status if it were all about Thermopylae. That would just be evidence of marketing for the movie. But what I’ve seen is evidence of how deeply the Ancient Greeks are embedded in our culture. Like Christianity, the Greek memes took advantage of the Roman organism for dissemination.

Anyway, here is what I saw within a 24 hour period. The History Channel put on a documentary about Thermopylae tied into the new movie, The 300. The documentary contains commentary suggesting that the stand-off at Thermopylae and a similarly daring naval encounter at the Battle of Salamis was critical for the continued existence of Western Civilization. If the Greeks lose those battles, Persia conquers Greece, and *poof* there goes the idea of democracy and self-governance. It’s all imperial rule from there on out.

Doghouse Riley had a post questioning the veracity of Frank Miller when he grouses about being taught by ex-hippies and Viet Nam vets. Miller is the comic book author who apparently wrote 300 upon which the new movie is based. (The number “300” is significant because that’s the number of Spartans who defended the pass of Thermopylae. They were initially supported by several thousand other Greeks. When the battle was lost, about 1,000 other Greeks remained behind with the Spartans to fight to the death and give the other soldiers a chance to escape. But, it’s the 300 Spartans who get the bulk of the glory.)

I saw a discussion in Howard Bloom’s book, The Global Brain where he compares populations under stress to Spartans and populations in good times as Athenians. The short version is that Spartans tend to unify and penalize deviation during times of stress. In human populations, one technique to make this happen is a culture that glorifies conformity through appeals to religion, ancestors, and a mythological Golden Past. During more prosperous times, populations tend to act more like the Athenians, glorifying innovation and tolerating deviations from the norm.

There is a similar discussion in Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon where he talks about ongoing cultural battles between followers of Athena and followers of Ares. Some of that is available online here. The short version is that, though both are nominally gods of war, they go about it in very different ways. Ares’ main tools are fear, terror, and strife; and he’s generally incompetent. Athena, on the other hand, is very competent, and her tools tend to be along the lines of cunning and technology.

Let’s face it, Randy, we’ve all known guys like Ares. The pattern of human behavior that caused the internal mental representation known as Ares to appear in the minds of the ancient Greeks is very much with us today, in the form of terrorists, serial killers, riots, pogroms, and agressive tinhorn dictators who turn out to be military incompetents. And yet for all their stupidity and incompetence, people like that can conquer and control large chunks of the world if they are not resisted….

Who is going to fight them off, Randy?

Sometimes it might be other Ares-worshippers, as when Iran and Iraq went to war and no one cared who won. But if Ares-worshippers aren’t going to end up running the whole world, someone needs to do violence to them. This isn’t very nice, but it’s a fact: civilization requires an Aegis. And the only way to fight the bastards off in the end is through intelligence. Cunning. Metis.

It’s just a bit amazing to me how influenced we still are by a rather small population of Athenians and Spartans. How big were these cities? A couple hundred thousand? Can you imagine if every city of a couple hundred thousand were contributing as much to the culture as those two cities did? Part of it is simply lack of opportunity — the Athenians, generally, got there first and have occupied the field. A Plato operating today would have a tougher time being heard above the din. New inventions are tougher to come by because most of the easier stuff has already been taken care of.

Anyway, I can go weeks without hearing anything about the Greeks, so it caught my attention when a bunch of references cropped up within the past day or so.

Abdul Hakim-Shabazz, contributor to the Indiana Barrister, made an appearance on The O’Reilly Factor (link is to the YouTube video of the appearance.) The Indiana Barrister’s post is here. The topic of discussion was the Warren Township middle school students (6th graders, apparently) having sex in the class room while a couple of other students watched them and the teacher was distracted.

Funny how perspectives change. When I was in middle school, I would have been jealous. Just before I had kids, I probably would have been indifferent or mildly amused at the story. Now that I have a couple of little kids, I’m pretty much horrified.

I just stumbled across a Then and Now site about Richmond. For example, here are then & now pictures of the Wayne County Court House.

Also, Kemplog has a post about an upcoming documentary film 1:47 on the subject of the explosion in downtown Richmond at 1:47 p.m. April 6, 1968. Morrison-Reeves has posted page images of the book Death in a Sunny Street by Esther Kellner that documents the explosion. A gas leak coupled with the gun powder in the Marting Arms sporting goods store caused the blast. Vigran’s Department store and Holthouse Furniture were leveled. MacRaven recounts his near miss at being the 42nd person killed that day. Apparently the blast blew out my Dad’s office window (this was about 3 years before I was born). Luckily he’d taken a long lunch or something that day and was not at work. I asked my Dad (also a lawyer) about it a year or so ago. Mostly he just remembered who got the legal work that resulted.

Update: I edited the title to reflect what has become the main subject of the post. My Mom just e-mailed me with her recollections of that day, and I thought she gave a good description of what she had been doing:

I remember it well. It was a Saturday. Your dad and I had gone to Civic Theatre with Dick and Cathy Brantner the night before and then out for some beer. It was a beautiful warm Sat., the day before Palm Sunday. We had lived in Richmond for 8 days and your dad went into the office for a short time on Sat. morning and then came home for lunch. Since we had been out late the night before your dad, Cindy and I all took a nap. We were still unpacking and getting settled and had dinner at home still unaware of what had happened.

Bert Keller called around 9:30 that night and told us what had happened, we were stunned. I still can’t believe that we didn’t see smoke from the down town and didn’t hear the sirens, etc.

We did see the horrible result of the explosion the next day and lived with the reconstruction of the downtown as well as meeting many people whose lives were effected by this tragedy.

. . .

[T]he window in your dad’s office blew in and as I recall glass was on his desk where he had been sitting not too long before the explosion. He was fortunate that he came home when he did.

Seems to me that’s a big thing to have happen to a fairly small town.

Rebecca Neal, writing for the Indianapolis Star has an article entitled Richmond bidding to host national debates in 2008. Apparently Richmond’s mayor, Sally Hutton, sees this as an economic development tool. The price tag for a debate is cited at $1.4 million. A host site is also required to have about 3,000 hotel rooms within a 30 minute drive of the debate site. Dayton, Ohio is probably close enough to fit that bill. (In fact, I once knew some girls in high school who drove from Richmond to Dayton, picked up some lunch, and got back during our lunch our. Though, I’m fairly certain they seriously exceeded some posted speed limits.)

I’d be tickled if Richmond landed a debate. I was born there, and I think the city has some great history. (But, I repeat myself!) I doubt having a Presidential debate is much of an economic development tool. The article cites the little town of Danville, Kentucky, a town of about 17,000 that hosted a 2000 vice-presidential debate. I’m a political junkie, and I didn’t recall there having been a debate there. In fact, I’m usually all but oblivious as to where the debates are taking place. That could just be me, of course.

From reading the Star article, you’d almost get the idea that Richmond was some sort of far-flung province, foreign and mysterious to its readers.

“We want people in Indianapolis to know where Richmond is,” [Mayor Hutton] said.

The article goes on to provide a “Richmond at a Glance” sidebar:

RICHMOND AT A GLANCE
(U.S. figures in parenthesis)
• Population: 39,124.
• Median household income: $30,210 ($41,994).
• Median home value: $73,000 ($119,600).
• High school graduate or higher: 74.6% (80.4%).
• Bachelor’s degree or higher: 13.8% (24.4%).
• White: 86.8% (75.1%).
• Black: 8.9% (12.3%).
• American Indian or Alaska native: 0.3% (0.9%).
• Asian: 0.8% (3.6%).
• Native Hawaiian: 0.1% (0.1%).
• Some other race: 1.1% (5.5%).
• Hispanic, of any race: 2% (12.5%).

Ah, but what sort of language to they speak in Rich . . . mond (stumbling over the word)? Do they have any arcane rituals of which I should be aware? Are their people perhaps inverted, having their head at their feet and their feet at their head?

Richmondites?

Mary Beth Schneider has an article entitled It’s Dems’ party, but GOP left crying. A better headline, in my mind, would have been “Haggling over the price.” (Which is, of course, why I used it myself.) Apparently House Speaker Pat Bauer (D-South Bend) spoke at a function of some sort which cost $500 per person, the proceeds of which went to the State Democratic party for use in mayoral races and on general Democratic Party expenses. According to the article, Republicans are “outraged.” Not because it’s illegal — House Minority Leader Brian Bosma (R-Indianapolis) concedes that it is not. Not because it was conducted during the legislative session — Bosma himself was a speaker at a February 2 GOP dinner. No, the source of the “outrage” is apparently that the Democrats were charging $500 per head at Bauer’s function whereas the Republicans were charging $25 per head at Bosma’s function.

Which brings to mind the quote attributed to George Bernard Shaw:

“We’ve established what you are, madam. We are now merely haggling over the price.”

I don’t know if these mid-session fundraisers are bad public policy or merely unseemly. But, I have to roll my eyes when a politician purports to be “outraged” by something like this.

Because Kenn and Branden were talking about it, and I stumbled across an entertaining YouTube post on Creationism, Neanderthals, and mtDNA:

and, of course, I was looking for an excuse to post the picture of the kitten being threatened with a gun.

Senate Bill 192 School Safety. Sen. Lubbers. Rep. Porter.

This is a bill that passed the Senate in an innocuous form:

Requires school corporations to abate certain school building safety violations that are not immediate safety hazards before the earlier of: (1) one year after the state fire marshal’s determination; or (2) the start of the school corporation’s next budget year. Requires at least one: (1) tornado preparedness drill; and (2) manmade occurrence disaster drill; during each semester of school.

But, over in the House, it picked up a provision about which I have serious reservations: school corporation police departments. In the latest printing, a school corporation may establish a school corporation police department.

A school corporation police officer has general police powers, including the power to arrest, without process, all persons who within the view of the school corporation police officer commit any offense. School corporation police officers have the same common law and statutory powers, privileges, and immunities as sheriffs and constables.

At this point, I don’t have any well articulated reasons for my opposition. I just have a general feeling that we are over-regimenting our schools. Kids conditioned from a very early age to metal detectors and a prominent police presence probably won’t grow into the sorts of citizens envisioned by our Founding Fathers as they fought for liberty and railed against tyranny. Furthermore, I guess I’m not sure I like the idea of entrusting a police force to our local school boards. However, the provision passed the House Education committee unanimously, so maybe my concerns are not well founded.

[tags]SB192-2007, law enforcement[/tags]

DSC_0022.JPG

Originally uploaded by amasson.

Let me know when you’re getting bored of me posting family pics here, but this picture has a bunch of elements I like. The boy has his “Give Peas a Chance” t-shirt on along with what I believe are dog tags of our family friend. The boy is also using his charm and devastating good looks to pick up the daughter of our military friend. (And, might I add, she’s quite the looker, herself.) Finally, despite demonstrating his masculinity and complexity, he demonstrates his tender side by holding on to his good friend, Wolf. (Apparently there was a great deal of sadness yesterday as Wolf had to go through the X-ray machine at the airport. )