Masson's Blog
I took a break from posting because I took a long weekend to Innsbrook, Missouri. A buddy of mine has a house on the golf course out there. I got to meet a few of his college friends, play some golf, drink some beer, eat some good food, and generally have a very pleasant time. It was fun, but I’m glad to be back.
I see Indiana (somehow) held together in my absence.
I argued in front of the Supreme Court today. (“In Washington, D.C.?” says Cole this morning when I tell him what I’m up to. No, buddy, Indiana.) The case was J.M. v. Review Board – that link takes you to the oral argument page. Here is the Court of Appeals decision that was vacated when the Supreme Court granted transfer.
I don’t want to go into much detail as to the substance of the case because it’s still under review, and, generally speaking, I don’t talk about specific cases I’m handling too much on this blog. But, basically, it had to do with whether an employee was discharged for just cause or not. If so, the employee is not entitled to unemployment benefits. If not, the employee is. The primary wrinkle for the Supreme Court had to do with the fact that IC 22-4-15-1(d) has a number of examples of ‘just cause’ for termination. The Court of Appeals felt like the example selected by the Review Board was not well supported. I made the argument that even if that particular example wasn’t well supported, some of the others were. The Court of Appeals said they couldn’t look to any other example other than the one chosen by the Review Board. I said they could and asked the Supreme Court to say so as well.
The process itself is a little like a dog chasing a car. You get an opinion from the Court of Appeals you don’t think much of and the only recourse is to go above their heads to the Supreme Court. But, grants of transfer by the Supreme Court are discretionary – most petitions get denied. But, you file your petition, and then mostly forget about it. Then one day, you get your order from the Supreme Court, jog your memory about the case, and then scan for the denial of your petition. Only, this time, the petition is granted. The Court of Appeals decision is vacated, and your case is live again.
And, as in this case, if oral argument is ordered, you have to re-learn the case again. So, that’s what I did. I went through the briefs. But, I had to do more. The difference between writing a brief and doing oral argument is that when you cite a case for a proposition in front of the judge, he can ask follow up questions. To answer them, you have to know, not just a snippet of language, but probably the factual background. Then that case has probably relied on other cases, and the whole thing just snowballs on you. It doesn’t matter how simple your legal issue is, once you start running the argument in your head, it can lead down any number of rabbit holes that you have to feel prepared for.
And you can get well prepared for the central parts of the argument. But, the body of law is vast and interrelated. You just can’t know it all. So, it’s never entirely clear when you’re “finished” preparing. You just run out of time. At least that was my experience. I’d gone through the cases and the transcripts and the briefs as much as I could and, last night, mostly threw out my oral argument outline and wrote a new one. Much better than my last. I rehearsed it, and it seemed to hold together fairly well.
But, with me, working that hard for a few days starts making it hard to sleep. If I don’t allow for enough down time before bed, my mind keeps running, and I have a tough time nodding off. That was my experience last night. I drifted off at about 1:00 a.m., woke up periodically, afraid I’d oversleep, and woke up at about 6:30 a.m. Upon waking, I realized I couldn’t remember my entire outline and there were cases I felt like I ought to know, but I could remember only their names and not their facts or why they mattered. Not surprising immediately after 5-6 hours of sleep; but not entirely reassuring either.
On the drive down to Indianapolis, there were a number of news reports about the ongoing oral arguments over Obamacare before the U.S. Supreme Court. I was just happy I wasn’t those guys. That’s an enormous amount of pressure. Downtown, I first looked at the state parking garage. If memory serves, when I was working down there, one or both of the garages offered parking to the public. But, not the case now. But, things were slow downtown at 8:45, and parking was no problem. Mostly when I walked into the State House, I was soaking in old memories from my days at LSA. But, I couldn’t help noticing a couple of things: first, there are were a lot of low number license plates in the surface lot adjacent to the building. Second, the first floor of the State House where the hearing rooms are looks really shabby. Even a fresh coat of paint would do wonders.
Anyway, I wandered up to the second floor and checked in – signing in with the Sheriff in front of the court room doors. Then, I went into the law library next door. Spending 15 minutes looking over my outline and the cases I’d highlighted calmed me down quite a bit. Then, I was able to talk for a few minutes with counsel for co-appellees to make sure we were on the same page. Since we were on the same side, there was only 20 minutes allotted for oral argument for the side, and it was up to us to coordinate its division. Since I’d filed the petition, I got the lion’s share – taking 15 minutes and leaving 5. (Which turned into about 18 and 2 in practice since the 15 minute mark came just as a longish question was forthcoming from one of the Justices.)
Then we went into the court room where the court staff was very helpful in assisting us with the mechanics. Pro-tip: Just shut up and listen to these people. They’re unfailingly polite, but I have to think they get tired of exchanging niceties with a bunch of big-ego lawyers all jacked up in anticipation of a big argument. A couple of unexpected bits of logistics – the lectern is a lot closer to the Justices than I had anticipated; and there is not a lot of room to set down many papers if you were hoping to be able to refer to them during the argument.
One helpful thing in calming me down was getting to observe the other lawyers involved in the case. It’s helpful to see that they are in the same boat as you; have the same struggles with nerves and preparation. In my case, the other side went first. Then, I was up. I always have the hardest time just delivering a presentation.
I hear that football players in a big game struggle a bit until the first hit, then it’s just football. I guess maybe that’s how I am until the first question. Once the first question came, I started enjoying myself. There’s something I really like about the mental exercise of answering a question but doing so in a way that advances one of the points you’re trying to make. Incidentally, once the questions started coming, that outline I was sweating over went right out the window. And I only managed to blurt out a couple of case names. I don’t know that the Court asked about any of them in particular. Mostly they posed hypotheticals or asked how the law did or should apply to particular scenarios.
And, then it was over. It felt like the argument went fairly well. But, even though I hadn’t been in front of this body before, I’ve been at this long enough to know not to try to guess about the decision based on the oral argument.
I don’t know about anyone else, but when I was figuring out what I wanted to do with my life and was envisioning being a lawyer, this is the type of thing I envisioned. (Even as I understood it was rare.) It’s just a privilege to have the kind of practice and clients that allow me to do such things.
I’m on Spring Break with the family. Vacations are always a bit of an act of faith that the increased productivity of a rested brain will outweigh the pile of work that builds up over the course of your time off. I tend to be reluctant to take a lot of time off for that purpose, but almost always when I do, I end up on the positive side of the ledger.
And, more importantly, spending time with the family. Much gets made over quality time, but quantity time is important. A lot of bonding takes place over the course of a million minor interactions you’d never schedule for but which are crucial nonetheless.
This year, we’re once again paying tribute to the Florida theme parks; Universal versus last year’s Disney. I’m a bigger fan of Universal, turns out. The organization is a little more haphazard and the employees a little rougher around the edges; but the themes of Universal – Harry Potter, Marvel Comics, etc. – are more appealing to me.
We got down here by driving again. For me, the best way to travel is to drive through the night. I know that’s not for everyone; but, podcasts have revolutionized the game. Whereas in years past the graveyard hours were characterized by a struggle to stay awake during the frequent commercial breaks on AM radio – during the Art Bell show if I was lucky; now, I can just load up on Nerdist podcasts and Dan Carlin’s Hardcore history: stuff that engages me with no commercial breaks. Suddenly, once the family has dozed off, we’re 600 miles down the road before the sun comes up. Leave at 4 p.m., arrive in Kissimme at 10 a.m. with a couple of meal stops in between.
The weather was a little rainy on Saturday and Sunday, but since then, bright and sunny. Beach day at St. Pete today.
Anyway, talk about your own family vacation adventures/nightmares or, open thread!
Rachel Sheeley, writing for the Richmond Palladium-Item has a story entitled Woman leaps to her death; victim identified. The victim was Julie Nobbe, who I knew from high school as Julie Lammott. Not someone I knew more than in passing, but, using Facebook as a metric (we had 50 mutual friends), there was some overlap in our social circles. I feel awfully bad for her family and wish them the best. I have no idea what that must be like, but have to feel like suicide (assuming that suspicion is confirmed) raises even tougher emotions for a family member than other forms of death. It’s tough to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and really feel what was going on that brought the path of their lives to that place. Hopefully her family and friends can come to peace with their loss sooner rather than later.
I went to a big high school, so statistically speaking, it’s probably not that unusual, but at age 40, it feels like too many kids I grew up with have died already. In the 7 years I’ve been blogging, I’ve had occasion to mention:
Nina Combopiano (2005) – pulmonary embolism.
Liz Thompson (2007) – Cancer.
Tony Feller (2009) – Cancer
Carrie Spitz (2009) – Cancer.
And those are just the ones I know about since I started blogging. I’m sure there have been some I’ve missed or who were outside of my social circles and I never knew.
You look ahead and, a guy my age, plans to have another 30 or 40 years. Just as a matter of prudence, it’s wise to take a long view of things; but, don’t forget to enjoy today as well. Hug your families, people.
(The title is a bit of an inside joke, coming from a former boss who was having a little fun when telling me what the editor’s mark “stet” meant.) In any event, I very much appreciated at recent post of Tipsy’s entitled, “The Fool, Revisited.”
He was offering some thoughts on Christopher Hitchens and the interaction of non-believers with believers of various kinds. Not to suggest I have Hitchens’ level of learning or writing chops, but I did recognize more than a little of myself in Tipsy’s description:
[Hitchens’] many Christian friends tell of how delighted he was to discuss religion with a true believer, but he rejected humbuggery.
I used to describe my particular brand of non-belief as agnosticism rather than atheism; possibly more as a reflexive aversion to the label “atheist” than anything else. These days, I’ll accept either label. I am agnostic in the sense that I don’t pretend certain knowledge that divinity does not exist. But, I suppose I’m atheist int he sense that I don’t think it’s a 50/50 proposition. In areas in which the divine seems necessary — e.g. “where did all the stuff come from” — I think the more likely explanation is some natural phenomenon we don’t yet understand. Replacing the question of “where did all the stuff come from” with “where did God come from” hardly seems like an advance in our understanding of the beginning of the universe.
As to the rest of it, most people in the world disbelieve in the legions of gods believed in at one time or another by others; I – to paraphrase Dawkins – just happen to disbelieve in one God more. That said, I sincerely enjoy discussing the matter with those who sincerely believe and through which belief they are able improve the world; either because they are inspired to be better people, create more, get up every day, raise wonderful families, or however it is their belief helps improve them. But, at the same time, I’m not above skewering the beliefs of those who use their religion as an excuse to make worse the lives of others.
Toward his close, Tipsy observes that, [a]ll fools are not equal.” Very true. I’ve often found the fool to be an interesting historical and literary figure. In my mind, the fool is a notable character when he uses his power to speak truth to power when others dare not. Hitchens sometimes played that role.
Update: Today seems to be my day to think about and discuss religion. Gary Varvel, of the Indy Star, put out a Tweet that tripped a wire with me:
It didn’t take long for the Tebow mocking to begin. He is in good company. Jesus was mocked too.
So, here is the exchange that followed:
Me: The NFL is thick with devout Christians loved by fans. @varvel should consider why Tebow is mocked, and they aren’t.
Him: Please educate me, why Tebow gets mocked, Doug.
Me: For starters, he engages in the sort of ostentatious display of piety Jesus derides in Matthew 6.
Me: It’s also backlash against favorable media attention beyond his qualities as a quarterback because of his ostentatious displays.
Me: He has also become a proxy in the culture wars – another excuse for the sides to hate on each other.
Him (in response to #1): I just thought he was letting his light shine before man as commanded in Matt 5.
Him (in response to #2): I guess Sports Center should tone down the 4 OT wins with the odds being 1 in 320,000.
Him (in response to #3): He’s not the one hating. He is kind to those who are rude to his face – like Shannon Sharpe.
Me: O.k. So what is your explanation? God cares about football games but everyone hates Tebow because he loves Jesus?
Him: I’m wise enough to know that I’m not wise enough to know.
I’m not going to go at Mr. Varvel directly. He was polite enough, and I engaged him. But, this Tebow stuff is part of why I have a hard time taking a lot of mainstream Christianity seriously. The Tebow phenomenon seems equal parts culture war and superstition from where I’m sitting.
I just flew in from Las Vegas, and boy are my arms tired. We left on Saturday morning and stayed out there until Tuesday. Amy & I ran in the Las Vegas half marathon. Caught up with a few friends, as well.
The race was novel, and I’m glad to have done it, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to anyone, and I don’t think I’d be eager to run it again. It was too crowded, and the organization was somewhat lacking. Part of it has to do with what I think is an intentional lack of transportation infrastructure. I don’t know Las Vegas politics or anything else, so maybe I’m completely off base. But, that city has a huge number of people moving to and from a limited set of destination points — primarily from the airport to casinos along the strip. A train from the airport to a few stops along the strip would alleviate all kinds of congestion. But, cabs are huge money; so if I had to guess, the cab interests are probably standing in the way of this.
Anyway, the lack of transportation infrastructure factored into a lot of problems with people getting to and from the start and finish lines. Indianapolis seems to manage this with their comparably sized mini-marathon (probably having to do with more participants having their own cars and lots of parking garages in downtown Indy); but this event was deficient on both ends. The Mandalay Bay was closest to the finish line. I heard the lobby described as looking like a refugee camp after the race; people looking for shuttles which weren’t, apparently, clearly marked or sufficient in capacity.
In addition, the corrals weren’t well managed – a lot of slower people ended up starting in front of a lot of faster people. The plan was to start the corrals in 2 minute waves, but for whatever reason, they started all of the back half of the corrals all it once, leading to a lot of congestion. I guess they started running out of water, medals, the post-race “space blankets” (or whatever they’re called.)
That said, the trip was not all unrelenting misery. Running under the lights was fun. A band in the downtown area was playing a countrified version of Gin N’ Juice when I ran by. And, I got to hear Cheap Trick playing “Dream Police” before the race. (We walked 2 miles to get to the starting line, so I missed most of Cheap Trick’s performance.) More importantly, we got to spend some time with friends out in Las Vegas before and after the race. It’s nice to get away from time to time, but I have to say, it’s awfully nice to be back home and with the kids.
IC 1-2-3 provides that a new Indiana flag is to be displayed at the Indiana capitol. Not more than twice per 300 day period, each member of the general assembly is allowed to request that one of these flags be given to an individual, group, or organization. I would deeply love to have an Indiana flag that had flown in the Indiana capitol building. I know that members of the General Assembly read this blog from time to time. If one of you happens to see this and is willing to sponsor me for one of those flags, I would sure appreciate an e-mail at “blog@masson.us”
Normally I don’t go asking for favors like this, but such a flag would really be a treasure for me.
Well, the first thing I noticed about turning 40 is that the sleep is apparently a lot better. I slept 11 hours last night. That continues throughout the decade, right? (I drove through the night from Rapid City the night before, so I guess I was a little tired). Because of the sleep – unless it’s old age — my mental faculties seem a little cloudy; so I don’t foresee anything profound coming out of this post. But, it seemed worth marking the occasion for when I browse this blog in my dotage.
It was a pretty good decade, personally, all things considered; even if it was a pretty horrible decade for the country. I turned 30 in August 2001. Five weeks later, al Qaeda would attack, the country would go ape shit in response, and the economy would tank and never fully recover. Right in that general time period were the primary seeds for current struggles – war, insufficient tax revenues, and unrealistic budgeting to account for either of those things. As I look right now, the Dow Jones has fallen over 1,000 points in the past week (something like 10%), and I can trace the current financial turbulence a decade back.
But this is about me! In my personal life, things have gone rather well. First and foremost, I became a Dad. My son was born in 2003 and my daughter was born in 2005. I became the owner of a small business, becoming partner in the law firm in 2002. My one year old marriage turned into an eleven year old marriage. Physically, aside from a good deal less hair, I think I’m in better shape now than I was at thirty. In 2003, I was able to backpack in Yosemite, and that was about the extent of my stamina. In 2007, I was able to climb a 14,000 foot mountain. And, in 2008, 2009, and 2010, I was able to run half-marathons.
I know some folks get a pretty keen sense of their own mortality around 40. Maybe that will come later, but I’m not feeling a sense of lost youth or, particularly, doubt about my life choices. I suppose some days I’d rather be doing something else for a job; but “choose something you love passionately!” recommendations aside, I get the sense that, for most people, work comes with good days and bad. Certainly, I’m delighted with my family and my choice of communities. About the greatest wisdom I suppose I can offer (and will attempt to practice more than I do) is to live in today as much as you can without sacrificing too many prospects for tomorrow. Tomorrow isn’t promised and comes with so many worrisome possibilities that you’ll destroy yourself if you try to worry about them all. And, the past is fun to remember, but it’s gone and likely wasn’t anywhere near as cool as your memory suggests.
That said, I’m off to enjoy today!
The Rapid City vacation was a success. Day 4, we went to a little tourist place called Bear Country where they have a bunch of wildlife in a park of sorts; then my buddy and I took the older kids fishing. (I caught 4 crappy.)
Day 5, we all climbed Harney Peak; a 6 mile round trip hike with about 1,500 feet of elevation gain. The peak itself is 7,244 feet and is the highest point in the U.S. east of the Rockies. For a little extra exercise, I carried Harper most of the way up the mountain.
Then we packed up and hit the road. I’m pretty sure the recommended climbing recovery process is a sleep-deprived 17 hour car ride. At least in my old age I seem to be gaining in endurance if not wisdom.
Day 3 in Rapid City was an active one. We went to the Crazy Horse Memorial; Flintstones Bedrock City; Sitting Bull Crystal Caverns; attempted to go to Jewel Cave; and ended the day at a street festival in downtown Rapid City.
I say, “attempted” to go to Jewel Cave because the tours had been sold out by the time we got there. Harper was devastated; she’d been asking to go to a cave ever since she found out we were coming out here. So, that’s why we ended up going to Sitting Bull Crystal Caverns — a smaller affair to be sure, but it really fit the bill. The kids were troopers, going up and down the 180 some odd steps into the cave. We saw the tour before us coming out and, to hear them huff & puff, you would’ve thought it was 1,800 steps. Cave tours inevitably involve some appalling story of how they were discovered in the 1800s and some maniac wormed into a tiny hole, not knowing where it went; then there would be stories about people taking tours with candles in decidedly unsafe conditions. Altogether, stories about 19th century cave tours give me the creeps.
Crazy Horse seems to be one of those places where mileage varies quite a bit. My wife and her friend liked it quite a bit, as do a lot of other people I know, but I did not care for that site. I haven’t exactly put my finger on what I didn’t like; but at least part of it was a sense that it seemed to be a tribute to being aggrieved. I’m not sure that I learned much about Crazy Horse except that what he considered to be his lands were taken from him. There was not much at all about his biography, his leadership, his accomplishments, or anything else. I get that the Lakota, along with other Native Americans, were not treated well by the Europeans. And I’m not at all opposed to acknowledging that fact and even highlighting it. But, there has to be more. And I’m not sure I saw much more highlighted about the Lakota and their ways. Korczak Ziolkowski was a fairly impressive story – even if he seemed a little offbeat to me – but, with the story since his death, I have a hard time figuring out where “family tradition” stops and “nepotistic gravy train” begins on this project. The face itself is pretty cool. But, the full project seems hyper-ambitious. I get the sense that this is due in no small part to a desire to “out do” Mt. Rushmore – that makes sense if this is mainly intended as an Airing of Grievances. I probably shouldn’t spend so much time slagging the site; it has positive qualities. Just, for me, there wasn’t a good energy to the place.
“Flintstones Bedrock City” was definitely cheesy, but surprisingly entertaining even so. Probably I just liked the Flintstones enough as a kid that it was a childhood throwback. The kids only had a vague notion who the Flintstones were. There was a little walking tour with Flintstones style houses and the characters here and there. I thought they’d just pretend away the Great Gazoo entirely. But, they even stuck a picture of him up . . . in the back of a little theater where almost everyone would miss seeing him. Which, I assume was the intent, since he was a remarkably bad idea for the show. Anyway, we had a little picnic there, did the walking tour, and let the kids go nuts on the playground – a real throwback kind of facility with exposed metal and plenty of danger. Then, we took a train ride around the park, and headed out.
We probably could have called it a day with all of those activities, but we capped it off with dinner at a festival in downtown Rapid City. One of the neat features of downtown Rapid City are statues of the U.S. Presidents spread out on corners throughout downtown. My friends seemed impressed (and Amy mildly exasperated) by the non-stop stream of history and Presidential trivia I make my kids listen to each time we ran across a President (Madison: He was the primary creator of the Constitution; Ford: He was the only President not elected to any position; etc. etc.)
Today, we went to Bear Country – a sort of driving zoo/nature preserve which might have some objectionable practices; but does let you see some wildlife up close. This afternoon, I think we’re going to try to take out the boat and do some fishing with the older kids.