http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/updates/16354707-55/story.csp
At 8:30 a.m. on June 30, 2009 in Courtroom 304 in the Lane County Courthouse (125 East Oak Street, Eugene, OR), Lane County Circus Court Judge Jack A[ss]. Billings sentenced Matthew Ellmers to 20 years in prison after Mr. Ellmers changed the pleas that he’d previously entered to the court regarding 2009-01803 and pled guilty to four counts of first degree manslaughter, one count of second degree assault, reckless driving and driving under the influence of intoxicants.
As a result of Ballot Measure 11 which was approved by Oregon voters in 1994, the minimum sentence for each of the four first degree manslaughter convictions is 10 years (or “120 months,” as Judge Billings put it). The minimum sentence for the second degree assault conviction is about five years. Lane County District Attorney David Vill requested a 45 year sentence. Defense attorney Brad Cascagnette requested 10 and noted that a person convicted of murder would be eligible for parole in 25 years.
Judge Billings, who almost always appears to have poured just a little too much Shlitz in his Cocoa Puffs prior to doling out justice in Room 304 decided 20 years was the appropriate compromise, 55% less than the 45 years requested by Deputy LCDA Vill. He gave no reason for why he sentenced Mr. Ellmers to 48 months apiece for causing the deaths of Heather Mulgrave (age 36), Nima Gibba (age 11), Connie Vermilyea (age 34 ) and Jaziah Vermilyea (age 10) jand causing permanent brain and other injuries to Jakobi Mulgrave (age 10) on January 21, 2009 at 9:06 p.m. at the corner of West Eleventh Avenue and Bertelsen Avenue in west Eugene.
Judge Billings noted that if Mr. Ellmers hadn’t changed his not guilty pleas, his lawyer Mr. Cascagnette would have requested a change in venue due to the extraordinary publicity given to the case. Judge Billings alleged that in his 36 years in the business, he had never seen this much media coverage of a trial (I guess he was too drunk during the trials of Diane Downs in 1984 and Roger Magana in 2004 to have noticed they received much more coverage than this one, for example, national media coverage, not just local coverage). Judge Billings repeatedly noted that he has not had a television in 20 years and did not hear about the t-boning of the Toyota Highlander by the Isuzu Trooper until the morning of January 22, 2009 when he read about it in the Eugene Register Guard.
Judge Billings admitted that his first thought when he read about Mr. Ellmers who had caused the death of four people was “There is no defense for this. The cars were smashed beyond recognition meaning he had to be going way over the speed limit. Someone had to have gone through a red light and it’s a very, very good bet it was him.” That is, Judge Billings repeatedly admitted that he judged Mr. Ellmers to be guilty on or about January 22, 2009.
Judge Billings noted that even if they interviewed 500 jurors, they’d be hard pressed to find six who would swear that they could be unbiased about the case. That is, Judge Billings repeatedly provided evidence suggesting that he was not fit to preside over this case and that it was unlikely that Mr. Ellmers could receive a fair trial in Lane County. Then he proceeded to dole out justice.
Jack Ass Billings sentenced Mr. Ellmers to 55% less than what Deputy LCDA Vill requested after listening to over an hour of testimony from the surviving family members of the four people killed and the father of the sole survivor, Jakobi Mulgrave. Judge Billings listened to Hogan Mulgrave describe the day in the hospital that Jakobi asked “Where’s mom?” and Mr. Mulgrave went into the bathroom, got down on his knees and prayed for the strength to answer the question and then went back, held Jakobi on his lap and told him what had happened. Mr. Mulgrave described how Jakobi shook on his lap when he heard. He said he would not wish the experience on anyone on the planet. Mr. Mulgrave described that as a result of Jakobi’s head injury, he would forget what he’d been told. Mr. Mulgrave and others described how they had to repeatedly explain to Jakobi what happened, because he would forget from day to day.
But Judge Billings was not as moved by the testimony of Mr. Mulgrave and Connie Vermilyea’s father, step-mother and grandmother as he was by the behavior of Mr. Ellmers. When Mr. Ellmers gave his passionate, heart-felt, heart-wrenching prepared speech to the victims’ families, he asked if he could turn and face them.
Judge Billings noted that in 36 years in “the business” no one had ever made this request. http://www.kval.com/news/local/49521292.html
Clearly, Judge Billings was deeply moved by the decision by Mr. Ellmers to face the victims’ families for the 3 minutes he spoke. As a result, he went extraordinarily easy on the drunk driver (perhaps thinking “there but for the grace of God go I”) and sentenced Mr. Ellmers to 48 months for every life he destroyed directly and I don’t know, maybe 12-20 months for every life he damaged indirectly.
In 2001, Judge Vile Lyle Velure sentenced Jeff Luers to more than 20 years in prison for politically motivated arson that destroyed three SUVs at Romania dealership in Eugene. The Oregon Court of Appeals overturned the sentence in February, 2007 and in February, 2008, Judge Billings resentenced Mr. Luers to 10 years. That is, Judge Billings sentenced a man who caused about $40,000 in property damage (that was covered by insurance) to 10 years and he sentenced a man who killed four people, physically harmed a fifth and emotionally damaged dozens more to 20 years. Killing four people is about twice as bad as causing $40,000 in property damage, according to Judge Billings.
Mr. Mulgrave has filed a civil suit in Lane County Circuit Court against the bowling alley and the Nile strip club for serving a visibly drunk Mr. Ellmers. He has not yet named the City of Eugene for the decision by EPD officer Jeremy Sullivan to purchase a slurpee at the 7-11 at Eleventh and Bertelsen instead of responding to the 911 call from the Nile about Mr. Ellmers. (For some reason, Mr. Vill showed the video of the crash taken by the camera in Officer Sullivan’s empty, stationary patrol car in the Seven Eleven parking lot while Officer Sullivan was inside the Seven Eleven instead of responding to the 911 call.)
The Eugene City Council could be sued for its September, 2007 decision to amend the Eugene City Code to make it encourage drunk driving even more than it did before. The Lane County District Attorney and Circuit Court repeatedly underprosecute and undersentence drunk drivers. They should be sued also.
I hope that Mr. Mulgrave submits a tort notice to the city of Eugene and Lane County within 180 days of January 21, 2009 announcing his intention to sue them in United States District Court for their deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights of Jakobi and Heather Mulgrave, Connie and Jaziah Vermilyea and Nima Gabba.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
coffin's reMorse
Karen McCowan
Eugene Register Guard
June 25, 2009
An all-white federal jury deliberated a little more than an hour Wednesday before rejecting a young black man’s claims that a Eugene police officer violated his [Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment] civil rights by singling him out for questioning and a brief “pat-down” search as he left a local nightclub with [four] white friends [one of whom, Matthew Ruiz, was falling-down-drunk and had a warrant out for his arrest] five years ago.
The mostly middle-aged jury of four men and four women rejected all of Cortez Jordan’s claims in the $1 million civil lawsuit against officer Wayne Dorman and the city. Jordan claimed Dorman’s actions in the early morning hours of Sept. 4[5], 2004, violated his rights under the U.S. Constitution to equal protection under the law and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.
Dorman denied stopping Jordan, now 30, because he was black. He said he decided to stop and search Jordan because he thought he might be carrying a concealed weapon.
Dorman and an off-duty corrections officer [Lane County Sheriff's Office "Deputy" Ryan Lane, a childhood friend of Mr. Dorman who was also named in the original lawsuit (05-cv-06164-TC) but who, along with Lane County, settled with the plaintiff for a currently unknown amount of money on February 13, 2006] riding with him that night both testified that they saw Jordan clutching his right hand to the waistband of his sweatsuit as he and four friends left the Tsunami nightclub. Both officers said they had been trained [in Boy Scouts, the "Explorer" program and in their training to be reserve (i.e., unpaid) Lane County Sheriff's Deputies] that such a mannerism could signal someone concealing a gun under baggy clothing.
Coffin’s ReMorse
THOMAS M. COFFIN, MAGISTRATE JUDGE
CHRISTY WEILER, COURTROOM DEPUTY
KRISTIE ANDERSON, COURTROOM RECORDER
CORTEZ JORDAN, PLAINTIFF
WAYNE DORMAN, DEFENDANT
CITY OF EUGENE, DEFENDANT
KEVIN LAFKY, COUNSEL for PLAINTIFF
JENS SCHMIDT, COUNSEL for DEFENDANTS
RYAN LANE, WITNESS for DEFENSE
CHRISTOPHER HENRY(?), CITY OF EUGENE EMPLOYEE/JUROR
COURT JESTER
Wayne Lyman Morse United States Courthouse
405 East Eighth Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97401
Courtroom 4
June 23-24, 2009
Prologue
JESTER:
A play, a play.
A way to greet the day.
First thing we must do is
Go outside and play.
[GO OUTSIDE.]
The play, today
Pertains to yesterday
Our city won a trial
Woohoo hiphip hooray.
The city was on trial
Amendments were discussed
In Four and in Fourteen
Can we the people trust?
Eugene Register Guard
June 25, 2009
An all-white federal jury deliberated a little more than an hour Wednesday before rejecting a young black man’s claims that a Eugene police officer violated his [Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment] civil rights by singling him out for questioning and a brief “pat-down” search as he left a local nightclub with [four] white friends [one of whom, Matthew Ruiz, was falling-down-drunk and had a warrant out for his arrest] five years ago.
The mostly middle-aged jury of four men and four women rejected all of Cortez Jordan’s claims in the $1 million civil lawsuit against officer Wayne Dorman and the city. Jordan claimed Dorman’s actions in the early morning hours of Sept. 4[5], 2004, violated his rights under the U.S. Constitution to equal protection under the law and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.
Dorman denied stopping Jordan, now 30, because he was black. He said he decided to stop and search Jordan because he thought he might be carrying a concealed weapon.
Dorman and an off-duty corrections officer [Lane County Sheriff's Office "Deputy" Ryan Lane, a childhood friend of Mr. Dorman who was also named in the original lawsuit (05-cv-06164-TC) but who, along with Lane County, settled with the plaintiff for a currently unknown amount of money on February 13, 2006] riding with him that night both testified that they saw Jordan clutching his right hand to the waistband of his sweatsuit as he and four friends left the Tsunami nightclub. Both officers said they had been trained [in Boy Scouts, the "Explorer" program and in their training to be reserve (i.e., unpaid) Lane County Sheriff's Deputies] that such a mannerism could signal someone concealing a gun under baggy clothing.
Coffin’s ReMorse
THOMAS M. COFFIN, MAGISTRATE JUDGE
CHRISTY WEILER, COURTROOM DEPUTY
KRISTIE ANDERSON, COURTROOM RECORDER
CORTEZ JORDAN, PLAINTIFF
WAYNE DORMAN, DEFENDANT
CITY OF EUGENE, DEFENDANT
KEVIN LAFKY, COUNSEL for PLAINTIFF
JENS SCHMIDT, COUNSEL for DEFENDANTS
RYAN LANE, WITNESS for DEFENSE
CHRISTOPHER HENRY(?), CITY OF EUGENE EMPLOYEE/JUROR
COURT JESTER
Wayne Lyman Morse United States Courthouse
405 East Eighth Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97401
Courtroom 4
June 23-24, 2009
Prologue
JESTER:
A play, a play.
A way to greet the day.
First thing we must do is
Go outside and play.
[GO OUTSIDE.]
The play, today
Pertains to yesterday
Our city won a trial
Woohoo hiphip hooray.
The city was on trial
Amendments were discussed
In Four and in Fourteen
Can we the people trust?
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
judge coffin
The trial of Cortez Jordan vs. Wayne Dorman and City of Eugene (05-cv-06164-TC) began at 9 a.m. today in Courtroom 4 in the Wayne L. Morse United States Courthouse today. Mr. Jordan is represented by Kevin Lafky, of Lafky & Lafky of Salem.
Mr. Dorman and the City of Eugene are represented by Jens Schmidt, of Harrang, Long, Gary and Rudnick, the firm that has represented the City of Eugene for the last twenty years.
Although this is not the first lawsuit filed in USDC-OR alleging civil-rights-violating behavior by the Eugene Police Department, as far as I know it is the first that’s gone to trial. Between 2003 and 2005, 14 people filed suits against the City of Eugene in USDC-OR. The suits were filed by people (mostly and maybe all women) who were the victims of former EPD Officers Juan Lara and Roger Magana.
Lara and Magana were convicted of multiple felony counts (rape, sodomy, kidnapping, coercion) in Lane County Circuit Court. The civil suits in USDC-OR alleged that the reason Lara and Magana were able to repeatedly felonize many women over a period of many years is because of the Eugene Police Department’s:
a. culture of tolerance of sexual harassment and sexual assault
b. substandard internal affairs policies and
c. custom of hiring asleep-at-the-wheel chiefs
Not a single one of the 14 suits filed by prominent lawyers in Portland (Michelle Burrows, Elden Rosenthal) and Eugene (Greg Veralrud) went to trial. Miraculously, the total cost of the settlements ($3.7 million to 14 victims and their lawyers; $1.3 million to the city of Eugene’s legal firm, Harrang et al) was exactly equal to the city’s insurance coverage. The settlements ranged from about $35,000 (estate of Tomme Lea Allen who died under mysterious circumstances shortly after Magana was convicted) to $900,000 (04-cv-01021-TC Dunn vs. Magana, City of Eugene) to one of the women represented by Michelle Burrows.
On May 1, 2009 another civil suit against the city of Eugene for civil-rights-violating behavior by an EPD officer was settled. Roy Levi Smith suffered a broken pelvis and other physical injuries after EPD Officer Jimmie McBride tackled him in the process of arresting him without probable cause. Smith vs. McBride and the City of Eugene (08-cv-06176-HO) was settled for $70,000.
I hypothesized that I would not enjoy being in the same room as Federal Magistrate Thomas Coffin, who was a Federal investigator in 1983 charged with the task of investigating former Lane County District Attorney J. Patrick Horton and former Lane County Sheriff David Burks because cocaine kept going missing from the evidence room. Mr. Coffin has almost surely known for 25 years that former LCDA Horton hired James Claire Haynes to murder Cheryl Downs, paralyze Danny Downs, brain-damage Christy Downs and frame Diane Downs on May 19, 1983. While Mr. Coffin has enjoyed all of the perks associated with being a University of Oregon law professor and United States Magistrate Judge for the last two decades, Ms. Downs has been locked in a cell. Thomas Coffin has as much honor as Tonya Harding.
But even though I knew it would be unpleasant to be in a room with Federal Magistrate Thomas “I know who really put Cheryl Downs in a” Coffin, I didn’t realize how unpleasant it would be. He did not take the time to explain to the jury the meaning of crucial concepts in the case such as “fourth amendment rights regarding search and seizure” or “fourteenth amendment rights to equal protection” or “battery” or “probable cause.” He did give a fascinating teensy-weensy lecture on rules of evidence that went something like this.
“There are two types of evidence. You got your direct evidence and your circumstantial evidence. You are instructed to consider both types. The law makes no distinction between these two types of evidence and you are instructed to give equal weight to both types.”
Wow. First of all, even if we make the extraordinarily dubious assumption that everything Mr. Coffin said is true, then what Mr. Coffin did was call the jury’s attention to one of a hundred distinctions he could make and then tell them to ignore it. It’s pathologically cost-ineffective to bring something up just to say IGNORE IT.
Of course, the assumption that what Mr. Coffin said is true is almost certainly false. Surely implicit in the United States legal code is the requirement that direct evidence such as sworn testimony by law enforcement agents under oath or videotape of interaction between plaintiff and defendant should be given more weight than circumstantial evidence.
So Magistrate Coffin’s lecture on Evidence 101 almost certainly contains blatantly false allegations and even if it doesn’t, it’s pathologically cost-ineffective and vaguely perverse (I am calling your attention to this distinction in order to instruct you to ignore it. Ugh.)
Of course, US Magistrate Judge/UO law prof Coffin’s lecture on Juror Bias 101 was equally excruciating to listen to. I swear I am not making this up. Here’s what he said.
Let me start with an analogy. I am a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals. Would you want a rabid Cardinals fan like me to be the umpire of a Cardinals game? No. You want someone who’s gonna call a ball a ball, a strike a strike and an out an out. Similarly, if you are the brother-in-law of the plaintiff, ex-wife of the defendant or cousin of the defense lawyer, we don’t want you on the jury.
Of course, it is ironic he said this and then did not eliminate Juror 9, Christopher Henry, who is a civil engineer for the city of Eugene who is the defendant.
Of course, the lectures on Evidence 101 and Juror Bias 101 were not as bad as the lecture on the rules for juror behavior when they go home at night. Here’s what he said.
You are not to talk to anyone about the case. If you walk by one of the lawyers in the hallway and he ignores you, he’s not being rude, he’s following the rules of this court. If ANYONE approaches you and MENTIONS this case, call me IMMEDIATELY. Here’s my cell phone number. Feel free to text me at ANY TIME if anyone MENTIONS this case to you.
You are not to use internet explorer and/or mozilla firefox and/or any other so-called “internet browser” to research anything related to this case on the internet. You are not to use google to try to learn more about anything related to this case.
You are not to use a dictionary to do research on this case. (I swear I am not making this up.)
I don’t know if the newspaper will report on these proceedings (he says, looking directly at Karen McGowan from the Eugene Register Guard) but if they do, you can’t read it. You need to ask your spouse or someone else to read the newspaper first and cut out any articles about this trial. (I swear he said you had to have your significant other mutilate the register guard before you could read it. I am not lying.)
Wow. No dictionaries. That’s harsh.
Anyway, like I said, being in a room with Thomas Coffin for 120 minutes was much more irritating than I predicted. I plan to go back tomorrow though and try to catch some of the testimony by EPD Lieutenant Bills and Fellman and former Chief Lehner.
The most disgusting thing Judge Coffin did was right after he dismissed the jury for a short recess. After the jury left the room, the lawyer for the plaintiff (Kevin Lafky), the lawyer for the defendant (Jens Schmidt) and the judge (Tom Coffin) held an informal hearing on a motion by the plaintiff to introduce a certain material fact as evidence into the trial.
I think that the lawyer for the defense brought it up.
Jens Schmidt: Your honor, I believe that Mr. Lafky plans to introduce as material evidence the fact that there was a warrant out for the arrest of Mr. Ruiz the night of the incident. I want you to tell him he can’t.
Thomas Coffin: Mr. Lafky, is this true? Do you plan to introduce as material evidence the fact that there was a warrant out for the arrest of Mr. Ruiz the night that Mr. Jordan’s civil rights were allegedly violated by Officer Dorman? What could possibly be the significance of the arrest warrant for Mr. Ruiz?
Kevin Lafky: Well, your honor, witnesses will testify that Mr. Ruiz was obviously drunk. The fact that Officer Dorman failed to interact with a falling-down-drunk white guy with an outstanding arrest warrant is evidence that he did not do a good job of evaluating the dangerousness of all five parties and instead, was fixated on Mr. Jordan because he’s African-American.
Thomas Coffin: I can see why it is okay to bring up the fact that Mr. Ruiz was drunk but I see absolutely no relevance of the fact that there was an outstanding warrant for Mr. Ruiz’s arrest that Mr. Dorman would have discovered if he’d asked to see the ID of Mr. Ruiz.
Kevin Lafky: Your honor, it’s a sign of the shoddiness of the investigation – you grope a black guy’s boxers because you falsely believe he’s packing a Glock but you fail to notice that a white guy you've detained is a wanted perp.
Thomas Coffin: I agree with Mr. Schmidt. The warrant for the arrest of Mr. Ruiz is completely irrelevant and I prohibit you from mentioning it to the jury.
Kevin Lafky: Yes, your honor.
Jens Schmidt: Thanks, Tom.
Mr. Dorman and the City of Eugene are represented by Jens Schmidt, of Harrang, Long, Gary and Rudnick, the firm that has represented the City of Eugene for the last twenty years.
Although this is not the first lawsuit filed in USDC-OR alleging civil-rights-violating behavior by the Eugene Police Department, as far as I know it is the first that’s gone to trial. Between 2003 and 2005, 14 people filed suits against the City of Eugene in USDC-OR. The suits were filed by people (mostly and maybe all women) who were the victims of former EPD Officers Juan Lara and Roger Magana.
Lara and Magana were convicted of multiple felony counts (rape, sodomy, kidnapping, coercion) in Lane County Circuit Court. The civil suits in USDC-OR alleged that the reason Lara and Magana were able to repeatedly felonize many women over a period of many years is because of the Eugene Police Department’s:
a. culture of tolerance of sexual harassment and sexual assault
b. substandard internal affairs policies and
c. custom of hiring asleep-at-the-wheel chiefs
Not a single one of the 14 suits filed by prominent lawyers in Portland (Michelle Burrows, Elden Rosenthal) and Eugene (Greg Veralrud) went to trial. Miraculously, the total cost of the settlements ($3.7 million to 14 victims and their lawyers; $1.3 million to the city of Eugene’s legal firm, Harrang et al) was exactly equal to the city’s insurance coverage. The settlements ranged from about $35,000 (estate of Tomme Lea Allen who died under mysterious circumstances shortly after Magana was convicted) to $900,000 (04-cv-01021-TC Dunn vs. Magana, City of Eugene) to one of the women represented by Michelle Burrows.
On May 1, 2009 another civil suit against the city of Eugene for civil-rights-violating behavior by an EPD officer was settled. Roy Levi Smith suffered a broken pelvis and other physical injuries after EPD Officer Jimmie McBride tackled him in the process of arresting him without probable cause. Smith vs. McBride and the City of Eugene (08-cv-06176-HO) was settled for $70,000.
I hypothesized that I would not enjoy being in the same room as Federal Magistrate Thomas Coffin, who was a Federal investigator in 1983 charged with the task of investigating former Lane County District Attorney J. Patrick Horton and former Lane County Sheriff David Burks because cocaine kept going missing from the evidence room. Mr. Coffin has almost surely known for 25 years that former LCDA Horton hired James Claire Haynes to murder Cheryl Downs, paralyze Danny Downs, brain-damage Christy Downs and frame Diane Downs on May 19, 1983. While Mr. Coffin has enjoyed all of the perks associated with being a University of Oregon law professor and United States Magistrate Judge for the last two decades, Ms. Downs has been locked in a cell. Thomas Coffin has as much honor as Tonya Harding.
But even though I knew it would be unpleasant to be in a room with Federal Magistrate Thomas “I know who really put Cheryl Downs in a” Coffin, I didn’t realize how unpleasant it would be. He did not take the time to explain to the jury the meaning of crucial concepts in the case such as “fourth amendment rights regarding search and seizure” or “fourteenth amendment rights to equal protection” or “battery” or “probable cause.” He did give a fascinating teensy-weensy lecture on rules of evidence that went something like this.
“There are two types of evidence. You got your direct evidence and your circumstantial evidence. You are instructed to consider both types. The law makes no distinction between these two types of evidence and you are instructed to give equal weight to both types.”
Wow. First of all, even if we make the extraordinarily dubious assumption that everything Mr. Coffin said is true, then what Mr. Coffin did was call the jury’s attention to one of a hundred distinctions he could make and then tell them to ignore it. It’s pathologically cost-ineffective to bring something up just to say IGNORE IT.
Of course, the assumption that what Mr. Coffin said is true is almost certainly false. Surely implicit in the United States legal code is the requirement that direct evidence such as sworn testimony by law enforcement agents under oath or videotape of interaction between plaintiff and defendant should be given more weight than circumstantial evidence.
So Magistrate Coffin’s lecture on Evidence 101 almost certainly contains blatantly false allegations and even if it doesn’t, it’s pathologically cost-ineffective and vaguely perverse (I am calling your attention to this distinction in order to instruct you to ignore it. Ugh.)
Of course, US Magistrate Judge/UO law prof Coffin’s lecture on Juror Bias 101 was equally excruciating to listen to. I swear I am not making this up. Here’s what he said.
Let me start with an analogy. I am a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals. Would you want a rabid Cardinals fan like me to be the umpire of a Cardinals game? No. You want someone who’s gonna call a ball a ball, a strike a strike and an out an out. Similarly, if you are the brother-in-law of the plaintiff, ex-wife of the defendant or cousin of the defense lawyer, we don’t want you on the jury.
Of course, it is ironic he said this and then did not eliminate Juror 9, Christopher Henry, who is a civil engineer for the city of Eugene who is the defendant.
Of course, the lectures on Evidence 101 and Juror Bias 101 were not as bad as the lecture on the rules for juror behavior when they go home at night. Here’s what he said.
You are not to talk to anyone about the case. If you walk by one of the lawyers in the hallway and he ignores you, he’s not being rude, he’s following the rules of this court. If ANYONE approaches you and MENTIONS this case, call me IMMEDIATELY. Here’s my cell phone number. Feel free to text me at ANY TIME if anyone MENTIONS this case to you.
You are not to use internet explorer and/or mozilla firefox and/or any other so-called “internet browser” to research anything related to this case on the internet. You are not to use google to try to learn more about anything related to this case.
You are not to use a dictionary to do research on this case. (I swear I am not making this up.)
I don’t know if the newspaper will report on these proceedings (he says, looking directly at Karen McGowan from the Eugene Register Guard) but if they do, you can’t read it. You need to ask your spouse or someone else to read the newspaper first and cut out any articles about this trial. (I swear he said you had to have your significant other mutilate the register guard before you could read it. I am not lying.)
Wow. No dictionaries. That’s harsh.
Anyway, like I said, being in a room with Thomas Coffin for 120 minutes was much more irritating than I predicted. I plan to go back tomorrow though and try to catch some of the testimony by EPD Lieutenant Bills and Fellman and former Chief Lehner.
The most disgusting thing Judge Coffin did was right after he dismissed the jury for a short recess. After the jury left the room, the lawyer for the plaintiff (Kevin Lafky), the lawyer for the defendant (Jens Schmidt) and the judge (Tom Coffin) held an informal hearing on a motion by the plaintiff to introduce a certain material fact as evidence into the trial.
I think that the lawyer for the defense brought it up.
Jens Schmidt: Your honor, I believe that Mr. Lafky plans to introduce as material evidence the fact that there was a warrant out for the arrest of Mr. Ruiz the night of the incident. I want you to tell him he can’t.
Thomas Coffin: Mr. Lafky, is this true? Do you plan to introduce as material evidence the fact that there was a warrant out for the arrest of Mr. Ruiz the night that Mr. Jordan’s civil rights were allegedly violated by Officer Dorman? What could possibly be the significance of the arrest warrant for Mr. Ruiz?
Kevin Lafky: Well, your honor, witnesses will testify that Mr. Ruiz was obviously drunk. The fact that Officer Dorman failed to interact with a falling-down-drunk white guy with an outstanding arrest warrant is evidence that he did not do a good job of evaluating the dangerousness of all five parties and instead, was fixated on Mr. Jordan because he’s African-American.
Thomas Coffin: I can see why it is okay to bring up the fact that Mr. Ruiz was drunk but I see absolutely no relevance of the fact that there was an outstanding warrant for Mr. Ruiz’s arrest that Mr. Dorman would have discovered if he’d asked to see the ID of Mr. Ruiz.
Kevin Lafky: Your honor, it’s a sign of the shoddiness of the investigation – you grope a black guy’s boxers because you falsely believe he’s packing a Glock but you fail to notice that a white guy you've detained is a wanted perp.
Thomas Coffin: I agree with Mr. Schmidt. The warrant for the arrest of Mr. Ruiz is completely irrelevant and I prohibit you from mentioning it to the jury.
Kevin Lafky: Yes, your honor.
Jens Schmidt: Thanks, Tom.
eugene on trial (05-cv-06164-TC)
On December 5, 2008 Judges Thompson, Tashima and M. Smith of the 9th United States Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed their rejection of an appeal from the City of Eugene (represented by Jens Schmidt of Harrang, Long, Gary and Rudnick) requesting a dismissal of a civil suit filed in United States District Court by Cortez Jordan against Eugene Police Department Officer Wayne Dorman and the City of Eugene (05-cv-06164-TC).
The entire incident that motivated the 2005 lawsuit in USDC-OR by Kevin Lafky on behalf of Cortez Jordan and the 2008 appeal by Jens Schmidt transpired from about 1:00 –1:15 a.m. on September 4 (5?), 2004 outside of a bar near Autzen Stadium.
The material facts are simple and undisputed. At about 1:00 a.m., Mr. Jordan, an African-American, was walking with four Caucasian friends (Sonja Kissinger, Amber Klarfeld, Amy Patterson and Matthew Ruiz). They were walking from a bar called Tsumani’s to Mr. Jordan’s motor vehicle. Mr. Jordan was the designated driver that night and had not consumed any alcohol. Most (all?) of the four Caucasians that were accompanying Mr. Jordan to his car had consumed alcohol and one was visibly impaired (Mr. Ruiz).
Mr. Jordan and Mr. Ruiz were walking slighting ahead of the three women (or “girls” as Mr. Lafky calls them). The women were imitating the gait of Mr. Jordan. For example, their arms were swinging in a way that imitated his arms, not in a way that would have been natural for them. The point is, it was very clear that the group of five was consensually walking together.
A Eugene Police Department car drove by the group of five peaceful, law-abiding citizens then did a U-turn and turned on its lights. The car was driven by EPD Officer Wayne Dorman. In the passenger seat was Lane County Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Lane who had just finished his shift at the jail, where Officer Dorman picked him up.
Mr. Dorman and Mr. Lane had worked together at the Lane County Jail. They had been friends for a long time and indeed refer to each other as “best friends.” The justification for the presence of off-duty Lane County Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Lane in the EPD vehicle driven by on-duty EPD Officer Dorman was that it was a “ride-along” – a practice by which certain civilians at certain times under certain conditions are given permission to accompany an EPD officer on patrol.
I think Mr. Lafky stated that the reason EPD Officer Dorman made the U-turn in the first place is that Mr. Lane suggested that he do so. Mr. Schmidt stated that when Officer Dorman went on duty that evening, Sergeant Scott Fellman had noted the high crime rate at Tsunami’s Bar including an intentional and injury-causing assault of a pedestrian by someone operating a motor vehicle. Allegedly, Sergeant Fellman said to be on the lookout for concealed weapons on persons near Tsunami's.
According to Mr. Schmidt, the reason Officer Dorman singled out Mr. Jordan is that he appeared at first glance to have a concealed weapon. According to Mr. Schmidt, the reason Officer Dorman chose to inspect Mr. Jordan but none of the four Caucasians with him is that there was probable cause to suspect Mr. Jordan had a concealed weapon but no probable cause to suspect any of the other four did. However, according to Mr. Latsky, Mr. Jordan was wearing baggy sweatpants and a baggy sweatshirt which would make it extremely difficult to detect a concealed weapon by a police officer driving by.
When the vehicle with its flashing lights stops, EPD Officer Dorman gets out of the car. Mr. Lane remains in the car. Mr. Dorman approaches Mr. Jordan.
Dorman: Can I talk to you for a minute?
Jordan: What about?
Dorman: I think you have a weapon.
I’m not sure Dorman asked Jordan if he could physically examine him. I’m not sure if Jordan responded, if Dorman asked. I do know that Officer Dorman patted down the waistband of Mr. Jordan’s baggy sweatpants.
Mr. Jordan’s initial shock has warn off and he accuses Officer Dorman of racial discrimination. Mr. Lane, who now is sitting with one foot in and one foot out of the car yells “Don’t play that card.”
Of course, this rightfully causes Mr. Jordan to get more upset. He takes off his sweatshirt and demands that Officer Dorman frisk him to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt he doesn’t have any weapons.
Mr. Jordan contacted EPD after the incident and was ignored. Eventually he filed a civil suit in USDC-OR about the 15 minutes of civil-rights-violating harassment by EPD Officer Dorman and his cheerleading sidekick, Mr. Lane and now, five years later, the trial has begun.
The question is whether Officer Dorman singled out Mr. Jordan from his four friends (one of whom, Matthew Ruiz, was visibly drunk and had a warrant for his arrest at the time. Officer Dorman failed to notice that one of the people he detained had a warrant out for his arrest because he never asked anyone for ID.) because Mr. Jordan is black and the four friends are white or because of some other way that Mr. Jordan differed from his four friends.
Mr. Schmidt must prove that something other than race differentiated Mr. Jordan from the staggeringly-drunk/wanted-by-the-law Mr. Ruiz, Ms. Kissinger, Ms. Klarfield and Ms. Patterson in Officer Dorman’s mind. Mr. Schmidt must prove that it wasn’t race that caused Officer Dorman to single out Mr. Jordan, it was something else.
During jury selection, Federal Magistrate Thomas Coffin revealed himself to be sexist, hostile to education and biased in favor of the defense (Dorman and City of Eugene).
Three people requested that they be excused. A woman said she was worried she would be overcome with morning sickness and not have time to make it to the bathroom. She was dismissed. A man said he was planning to leave on a family vacation on Thursday. Since Judge Coffin had estimated the trial would go through Friday and as he said “I wouldn’t want to interfere with vacation plans” the man was dismissed. A woman said she worked at OSU and was scheduled to help freshman register on Friday. Judge Coffin rejected the request. A man is excused because of vacation. A woman is not excused because she wants to do her job and help college freshman. This is sexist and hostile to education. [Note: I have other evidence in support of both allegations about Judge Coffin which I will not go into now.]
Evidence in support of the allegation that Judge Coffin is biased in favor of the defense comes from the fact that when a juror stated that he was an employee of the City of Eugene (the defendant), Judge Coffin did not dismiss him. When the guy said I WORK FOR THE CITY OF EUGENE he said I WORK FOR THE DEFENDANT and Judge Coffin should have said adios as quickly as he said adieu to the pregnant woman. But he did not. I actually am not sure if Mr. Lafky had the sense to dismiss the juror (Christopher Henry) who WORKS FOR THE CITY OF EUGENE.
Anyway, luckily Karen McGowan from the R-G is there and I’m sure she’ll fill you in on the rest.
The entire incident that motivated the 2005 lawsuit in USDC-OR by Kevin Lafky on behalf of Cortez Jordan and the 2008 appeal by Jens Schmidt transpired from about 1:00 –1:15 a.m. on September 4 (5?), 2004 outside of a bar near Autzen Stadium.
The material facts are simple and undisputed. At about 1:00 a.m., Mr. Jordan, an African-American, was walking with four Caucasian friends (Sonja Kissinger, Amber Klarfeld, Amy Patterson and Matthew Ruiz). They were walking from a bar called Tsumani’s to Mr. Jordan’s motor vehicle. Mr. Jordan was the designated driver that night and had not consumed any alcohol. Most (all?) of the four Caucasians that were accompanying Mr. Jordan to his car had consumed alcohol and one was visibly impaired (Mr. Ruiz).
Mr. Jordan and Mr. Ruiz were walking slighting ahead of the three women (or “girls” as Mr. Lafky calls them). The women were imitating the gait of Mr. Jordan. For example, their arms were swinging in a way that imitated his arms, not in a way that would have been natural for them. The point is, it was very clear that the group of five was consensually walking together.
A Eugene Police Department car drove by the group of five peaceful, law-abiding citizens then did a U-turn and turned on its lights. The car was driven by EPD Officer Wayne Dorman. In the passenger seat was Lane County Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Lane who had just finished his shift at the jail, where Officer Dorman picked him up.
Mr. Dorman and Mr. Lane had worked together at the Lane County Jail. They had been friends for a long time and indeed refer to each other as “best friends.” The justification for the presence of off-duty Lane County Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Lane in the EPD vehicle driven by on-duty EPD Officer Dorman was that it was a “ride-along” – a practice by which certain civilians at certain times under certain conditions are given permission to accompany an EPD officer on patrol.
I think Mr. Lafky stated that the reason EPD Officer Dorman made the U-turn in the first place is that Mr. Lane suggested that he do so. Mr. Schmidt stated that when Officer Dorman went on duty that evening, Sergeant Scott Fellman had noted the high crime rate at Tsunami’s Bar including an intentional and injury-causing assault of a pedestrian by someone operating a motor vehicle. Allegedly, Sergeant Fellman said to be on the lookout for concealed weapons on persons near Tsunami's.
According to Mr. Schmidt, the reason Officer Dorman singled out Mr. Jordan is that he appeared at first glance to have a concealed weapon. According to Mr. Schmidt, the reason Officer Dorman chose to inspect Mr. Jordan but none of the four Caucasians with him is that there was probable cause to suspect Mr. Jordan had a concealed weapon but no probable cause to suspect any of the other four did. However, according to Mr. Latsky, Mr. Jordan was wearing baggy sweatpants and a baggy sweatshirt which would make it extremely difficult to detect a concealed weapon by a police officer driving by.
When the vehicle with its flashing lights stops, EPD Officer Dorman gets out of the car. Mr. Lane remains in the car. Mr. Dorman approaches Mr. Jordan.
Dorman: Can I talk to you for a minute?
Jordan: What about?
Dorman: I think you have a weapon.
I’m not sure Dorman asked Jordan if he could physically examine him. I’m not sure if Jordan responded, if Dorman asked. I do know that Officer Dorman patted down the waistband of Mr. Jordan’s baggy sweatpants.
Mr. Jordan’s initial shock has warn off and he accuses Officer Dorman of racial discrimination. Mr. Lane, who now is sitting with one foot in and one foot out of the car yells “Don’t play that card.”
Of course, this rightfully causes Mr. Jordan to get more upset. He takes off his sweatshirt and demands that Officer Dorman frisk him to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt he doesn’t have any weapons.
Mr. Jordan contacted EPD after the incident and was ignored. Eventually he filed a civil suit in USDC-OR about the 15 minutes of civil-rights-violating harassment by EPD Officer Dorman and his cheerleading sidekick, Mr. Lane and now, five years later, the trial has begun.
The question is whether Officer Dorman singled out Mr. Jordan from his four friends (one of whom, Matthew Ruiz, was visibly drunk and had a warrant for his arrest at the time. Officer Dorman failed to notice that one of the people he detained had a warrant out for his arrest because he never asked anyone for ID.) because Mr. Jordan is black and the four friends are white or because of some other way that Mr. Jordan differed from his four friends.
Mr. Schmidt must prove that something other than race differentiated Mr. Jordan from the staggeringly-drunk/wanted-by-the-law Mr. Ruiz, Ms. Kissinger, Ms. Klarfield and Ms. Patterson in Officer Dorman’s mind. Mr. Schmidt must prove that it wasn’t race that caused Officer Dorman to single out Mr. Jordan, it was something else.
During jury selection, Federal Magistrate Thomas Coffin revealed himself to be sexist, hostile to education and biased in favor of the defense (Dorman and City of Eugene).
Three people requested that they be excused. A woman said she was worried she would be overcome with morning sickness and not have time to make it to the bathroom. She was dismissed. A man said he was planning to leave on a family vacation on Thursday. Since Judge Coffin had estimated the trial would go through Friday and as he said “I wouldn’t want to interfere with vacation plans” the man was dismissed. A woman said she worked at OSU and was scheduled to help freshman register on Friday. Judge Coffin rejected the request. A man is excused because of vacation. A woman is not excused because she wants to do her job and help college freshman. This is sexist and hostile to education. [Note: I have other evidence in support of both allegations about Judge Coffin which I will not go into now.]
Evidence in support of the allegation that Judge Coffin is biased in favor of the defense comes from the fact that when a juror stated that he was an employee of the City of Eugene (the defendant), Judge Coffin did not dismiss him. When the guy said I WORK FOR THE CITY OF EUGENE he said I WORK FOR THE DEFENDANT and Judge Coffin should have said adios as quickly as he said adieu to the pregnant woman. But he did not. I actually am not sure if Mr. Lafky had the sense to dismiss the juror (Christopher Henry) who WORKS FOR THE CITY OF EUGENE.
Anyway, luckily Karen McGowan from the R-G is there and I’m sure she’ll fill you in on the rest.
lynn miller
Monday, June 22, 2009
mad about magana
brain-dead ed russo, ewegene inbredgister guard, june 22, 2009: When he starts work on June 29, Eugene’s new police auditor, Mark Gissiner, may have to deal with more than complaints just against police officers. Within the past four months, police officers have filed two complaints against Dawn Reynolds, who will be Gissiner’s deputy. Reynolds has been interim auditor since August.
SteveO: If you are mad about Magana take it out on the City of Eugene Human Resources Office since they hired him despite the red flags
Mad about Magana. Nice, SteveO, very nice.
Actually, if you are mad about Magana, take it out on the Lane County District Attorney's Office that is allergic to prosecuting felonious pigs. Take it out on the United States District Court that spelled out in clear detail the root cause of the Magana tragedy (asleep at the wheel chief + substandard Internal Affairs procedures) but has allowed those root causes to remain in effect to this day. On May 1, 2009 Roy Levi Smith settled his lawsuit against Jimmie McBride and the City of Eugene (08-cv-06176-HO) for a measly $70,000. Lisa Dunn vs. Roger Magana and the City of Eugene (04-cv-01021-TC) settled for $900,000.
If you're mad about Magana, blame the Eugene City Council that pretends that wasting $500,000++++++ a year for Cris Beamud, Dawn Reynolds, Elizabeth Southworth and Mark Gissiner decreases the risk of another Magana-esque scandal.
EPD Officer Jimmie McBride's the new Roger Magana. Wait. You'll see.
SteveO: If you are mad about Magana take it out on the City of Eugene Human Resources Office since they hired him despite the red flags
Mad about Magana. Nice, SteveO, very nice.
Actually, if you are mad about Magana, take it out on the Lane County District Attorney's Office that is allergic to prosecuting felonious pigs. Take it out on the United States District Court that spelled out in clear detail the root cause of the Magana tragedy (asleep at the wheel chief + substandard Internal Affairs procedures) but has allowed those root causes to remain in effect to this day. On May 1, 2009 Roy Levi Smith settled his lawsuit against Jimmie McBride and the City of Eugene (08-cv-06176-HO) for a measly $70,000. Lisa Dunn vs. Roger Magana and the City of Eugene (04-cv-01021-TC) settled for $900,000.
If you're mad about Magana, blame the Eugene City Council that pretends that wasting $500,000++++++ a year for Cris Beamud, Dawn Reynolds, Elizabeth Southworth and Mark Gissiner decreases the risk of another Magana-esque scandal.
EPD Officer Jimmie McBride's the new Roger Magana. Wait. You'll see.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
thwart that will
In an abrupt shift, the Lane County commissioners voted unanimously Wednesday to budget for reopening 84 beds in the Lane County Jail in the coming fiscal year, citing positive revenue signs and passionate community demand that more offenders be kept behind bars.
My brain still starts hurting if I try to understand the process by which the 3-2 majority (Bill Fleenor/Pete Sorenson/Rob Handy vs. Faye Stewart/Bill Dwyer) on the all-male Lane County Board of Commissioners (LCBoC) that preferred to enact the will of the majority of the mostly-male (7-3) Lane County Budget Committee (LCBC) on June 16, 2009 devolved into a unanimous 5-0 decision to thwart that will on June 17, 2009.
The devolution from the 3-2 vote to respect the democratic process to the 5-0 vote to mock it occurred between the 10 a.m. LCBoC meeting in Harris Hall on Tuesday, June 16, 2009 and the 9 a.m. LCBoC vote in Harris Hall on Wednesday, June 17, 2009. On June 17, 2009 the five men on the LCBoC reversed the decision by the 7 men and 3 women on the LCBC not to dip in to the dwindling reserves to withdraw $3.4 million in order to re-open 84 jail beds that were closed during the Spring, 2008 Lane County budget drama.
Understanding the process by which sixteen democratically elected fascists (Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner, Lane County Circuit Court Presiding Judge Mary Ann Bearden, LCCC Judge Greg Foote and the thirteen other LCCC judges) bullied Commissioners Fleenor, Sorenson and Handy into making a mockery of the Lane County government requires thinking about the public hearing that began at 6:00 p.m. in Harris Hall on Tuesday night. That’s when my head really starts hurting.
Fascist Lane County activists Bob Avery [Republican activist], [Eugene City Councilor] Mike Clark and [Eugene Register-Guard editor] Tony Baker collaborated to force a “showdown” – a first ever public hearing on the eve of the Lane County Board of Commissioners’ decision about whether or not to approve the recommendations of the Lane County Budget Committee.
Busloads of inbrednecks from the subsets of Lane County represented by Commissioners Dwyer and Stewart and Councilor Clark (many of whom appeared to share many genes with Bill, Faye and Mike!) swarmed the Lane County Courthouse on Tuesday night. The overflowing (beyond legal capacity, I hypothesize) Harris Hall was stuffed even more to the gills because Commissioner Dwyer invited two dozen Boys State participants (an American Legion funded pseudo-civic organization) and their geriatric mentors (Dan Warden, a Civil War veteran whose name I did not catch and a few others) to participate in the fish dance.
The fish dance is a Lane County Board of Commissioners custom of which I was previously unaware. When a room is packed with mindless and/or obese and/or uneducated citizens, there is the temptation to clap when one of the mindless and/or obese and/or uneducated commissioners says something that is pleasing to the ears of the inbrednecks imported from the outback of Lane County. But clapping slows things down and as Chair Sorenson noted, there were seven pages of names of people wanting to testify. Indeed, speakers were only given two minutes instead of the promised and typical three because of the busloads of microphone-hungry inbrednecks imported by Bill Dwyer, Faye Stewart, Mike Clark, Bob Avery and Tony Baker. Instead of clapping like Rush Limbaugh’s dittoheads might, the Lane County inbrednecks put their hands up and silently shake and imitate a dead fish. The logic, I conjecture, is that a dead fish has a comparable cognitive capacity to the Dwyer/Stewart/Clark inbrednecks.
Bill Dwyer did the fish dance in response to my statement that he and the mental/physical defective commonly known as Lane County Commissioner Faye Stewart should resign, along with LCDA Alex “I got a perfect 100 on my IQ test “ Gardner.
On Tuesday morning, I said that sixteen lawyers (DA Gardner and Judges Bearden, Foote, Jagger-Holland, Carlsons, Blotto Billings, Crap (oops, I mean Carp), et cetera ad ephing nauseum) had declared war on democracy in Lane County and I meant it. At the time, 2/5 members of the LCBoC was collaborating with the sixteen fascist shysters. Now, 5/5 members of the LCBoC are in bed with the sixteen democracy-hating, democratically-elected, publicly funded lawyers.
Like I said Mr. Gardner, Ms. Bearden, Ms. Jagger-Holland, Mr. Foote, Ms. Stewart, Mr. Dwyer and Ms. Sorenson:
Touche, to shea – let the games begin!
Can we come up then?
Of course not. You are English.
Well what are you then?
I am French. Why do you think I have this outrageous accent, you silly king?
What are you doing in England?
Mind your own business!
Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries! Now go away or I will taunt you a second time!
My brain still starts hurting if I try to understand the process by which the 3-2 majority (Bill Fleenor/Pete Sorenson/Rob Handy vs. Faye Stewart/Bill Dwyer) on the all-male Lane County Board of Commissioners (LCBoC) that preferred to enact the will of the majority of the mostly-male (7-3) Lane County Budget Committee (LCBC) on June 16, 2009 devolved into a unanimous 5-0 decision to thwart that will on June 17, 2009.
The devolution from the 3-2 vote to respect the democratic process to the 5-0 vote to mock it occurred between the 10 a.m. LCBoC meeting in Harris Hall on Tuesday, June 16, 2009 and the 9 a.m. LCBoC vote in Harris Hall on Wednesday, June 17, 2009. On June 17, 2009 the five men on the LCBoC reversed the decision by the 7 men and 3 women on the LCBC not to dip in to the dwindling reserves to withdraw $3.4 million in order to re-open 84 jail beds that were closed during the Spring, 2008 Lane County budget drama.
Understanding the process by which sixteen democratically elected fascists (Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner, Lane County Circuit Court Presiding Judge Mary Ann Bearden, LCCC Judge Greg Foote and the thirteen other LCCC judges) bullied Commissioners Fleenor, Sorenson and Handy into making a mockery of the Lane County government requires thinking about the public hearing that began at 6:00 p.m. in Harris Hall on Tuesday night. That’s when my head really starts hurting.
Fascist Lane County activists Bob Avery [Republican activist], [Eugene City Councilor] Mike Clark and [Eugene Register-Guard editor] Tony Baker collaborated to force a “showdown” – a first ever public hearing on the eve of the Lane County Board of Commissioners’ decision about whether or not to approve the recommendations of the Lane County Budget Committee.
Busloads of inbrednecks from the subsets of Lane County represented by Commissioners Dwyer and Stewart and Councilor Clark (many of whom appeared to share many genes with Bill, Faye and Mike!) swarmed the Lane County Courthouse on Tuesday night. The overflowing (beyond legal capacity, I hypothesize) Harris Hall was stuffed even more to the gills because Commissioner Dwyer invited two dozen Boys State participants (an American Legion funded pseudo-civic organization) and their geriatric mentors (Dan Warden, a Civil War veteran whose name I did not catch and a few others) to participate in the fish dance.
The fish dance is a Lane County Board of Commissioners custom of which I was previously unaware. When a room is packed with mindless and/or obese and/or uneducated citizens, there is the temptation to clap when one of the mindless and/or obese and/or uneducated commissioners says something that is pleasing to the ears of the inbrednecks imported from the outback of Lane County. But clapping slows things down and as Chair Sorenson noted, there were seven pages of names of people wanting to testify. Indeed, speakers were only given two minutes instead of the promised and typical three because of the busloads of microphone-hungry inbrednecks imported by Bill Dwyer, Faye Stewart, Mike Clark, Bob Avery and Tony Baker. Instead of clapping like Rush Limbaugh’s dittoheads might, the Lane County inbrednecks put their hands up and silently shake and imitate a dead fish. The logic, I conjecture, is that a dead fish has a comparable cognitive capacity to the Dwyer/Stewart/Clark inbrednecks.
Bill Dwyer did the fish dance in response to my statement that he and the mental/physical defective commonly known as Lane County Commissioner Faye Stewart should resign, along with LCDA Alex “I got a perfect 100 on my IQ test “ Gardner.
On Tuesday morning, I said that sixteen lawyers (DA Gardner and Judges Bearden, Foote, Jagger-Holland, Carlsons, Blotto Billings, Crap (oops, I mean Carp), et cetera ad ephing nauseum) had declared war on democracy in Lane County and I meant it. At the time, 2/5 members of the LCBoC was collaborating with the sixteen fascist shysters. Now, 5/5 members of the LCBoC are in bed with the sixteen democracy-hating, democratically-elected, publicly funded lawyers.
Like I said Mr. Gardner, Ms. Bearden, Ms. Jagger-Holland, Mr. Foote, Ms. Stewart, Mr. Dwyer and Ms. Sorenson:
Touche, to shea – let the games begin!
Can we come up then?
Of course not. You are English.
Well what are you then?
I am French. Why do you think I have this outrageous accent, you silly king?
What are you doing in England?
Mind your own business!
Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries! Now go away or I will taunt you a second time!
Friday, June 19, 2009
kahnemanandtversky
The first time I met Princeton University (former UC-Berkeley, former University of British Columbia) psychology professor Danny Kahneman and the only time I met the late Stanford University psychology professor Amos Tversky was at a decision making conference in Chicago in June, 1988. I was finishing up my dissertation on “ambiguity and rationality” at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and getting ready to move to Eugene to work as an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Oregon. I was 26.5 years old.
I had been arguing with “kahnemanandtversky” (as Columbia University marketing professor Eric Johnson aptly puts it – it’s one meme, ergo it should be one word) in my mind for five years. I was eager to fight with the real mccoys.
Even though at the time, no one imagined that Dr. Kahneman would win the 2002 Nobel prize in economics, most of other prominent experimental decision scientists (e.g., Paul Slovic, Sarah Lichtenstein, Lola Lopes, Baruch Fischhoff, May Bar-Hillel, Dick Thaler, Robin Hogarth, George Loewenstein, Frank Yates, Reid Hastie, Robyn Dawes) understood that Danny and Amos were superstars. There was a lot of competition to talk to both of them.
I spotted Danny first. I hovered in his vicinity, waiting for the tiniest break in the steady stream of people wanting to talk to him. Finally, I saw my chance and briskly approached him. He read my name tag.
“Hello, Deborah. It’s nice to meet you. What sort of research do you do?”
”I criticize what you do.”
He smiled and graciously listened to my two minute pitch on why he and Amos were totally off base about a statistical brain teaser involving Linda, a notorious feminist bank teller. After a few minutes, he praised me for my effort but candidly confessed that like others who had tried (e.g., Lola Lopes), I had failed to convince him that he and Amos were wrong about Linda. He cordially drew the conversation to a close and walked away. One thing I have to say about Dr. Kahneman – he has treated me like a peer since the moment I met him.
I don’t have as vivid a memory of the moment I met Amos Tversky at that 1988 conference in Chicago that was a tribute to the late University of Chicago Graduate School of Business professor Hillel Einhorn, who collaborated with Robin Hogarth. Einhornandhogarth never became one word like kahnemanandtversky. Of course, neither did lichtensteinandslovic, for that matter.
I remember sitting at a table for a long time arguing with Amos about Linda the feminist bank teller. I understood that the reason Amos was willing to debate Linda with me for pi-squared as many minutes as Danny was because he thought he had a non-zero chance of scoring tuchus.
When I got to the University of Oregon, I became friends with Jennifer Freyd, who had been an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania and a grad student at Stanford. I told her about how Amos (a Stanford prof) had sort of hit on me at the Einhorn conference. In hindsight, it seems naïve to me that I was so shocked and indignant. It suggests that in my five years as a graduate student in the psychology department at the University of Pennsylvania, I did not experience sexual harassment. This is kind of a compliment, I guess, to Jon Baron, John Sabini, Bob Rescorla, Dave Premack and the other professors I interacted with at Penn.
Jennifer listened to the story about my encounter with Amos. She said something to the effect of “In my four years at Stanford, he never looked above my clavicle or below my sternum.” I can’t say that I blame him, actually, because…aw, never mind.
Of course, I don’t really want to talk about Danny, Amos and Jennifer. I want to talk about Linda and what she means to me.
The gist of the research by Kahneman and Tversky et al. is that the way that people think about statistics and risky decisions deviates from mathematical models of how statisticians and economists allege we should think about statistics and risky decisions.
There are two reasons for a discrepancy between how most people think and mathematical models that allegedly describe the way all people should think. One reason is that we have biases and flaws in our thinking, especially our mathematical thinking. A second reason is that there are biases and flaws in the alleged models of rationality developed by statisticians and economists.
Kahneman and Tversky deny the possibility of the second reason. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that their most virulent critic (Gerd Gigerenzer) denies the possibility of the first reason. Like Lopes (and Einhorn and Hogarth and Slovic and Lichtenstein and probably Hastie and Yates, for that matter), I believe both reasons have validity.
A few months ago, I thought of a way to explain the gist of my answer to the question “How can Kahneman and Tversky be so right and so wrong at the same time?” without having to bring the audience up to speed on all of the concepts necessary to understand their research (e.g., probability, expected value, heuristic).
I have this t-shirt with the number pi written in tiny numbers corresponding to the first few hundred digits of the infinite number of digits in pi. My mother bought it for my nephew. When she showed it to me and announced the intended recipient, I said “Over my dead body” and she changed her mind and gave it to me.
When a random person comments on my pi tee shirt, 98.6% of the time I say “Hey, I was in a pi-eating contest last week. I got through 3.1415 but I couldn’t eat nine.”
Once, someone heckled me mid-joke. After I said “I was in a pi eating contest last week.” he said “I can tell.”
Another guy let me finish and then said “Better luck next time.”
The other 1.4% of the time, I say this, which captures the gist of my doctoral dissertation and 20 years of academic research.
You know, mathematicians say that pi is an irrational number. Pi is used to estimate the weight and describe the shape of quasi-spherical objects like the sun, moon and earth not to mention human heads and living cells. It’s used to quantify quasi-cylindrical objects like arms, legs and large intestines.
Mathematicians say the basis for quantifying, measuring and thereby, better understanding important objects in the universe and our bodies is irrational. I say mathematicians are irrational.
I had been arguing with “kahnemanandtversky” (as Columbia University marketing professor Eric Johnson aptly puts it – it’s one meme, ergo it should be one word) in my mind for five years. I was eager to fight with the real mccoys.
Even though at the time, no one imagined that Dr. Kahneman would win the 2002 Nobel prize in economics, most of other prominent experimental decision scientists (e.g., Paul Slovic, Sarah Lichtenstein, Lola Lopes, Baruch Fischhoff, May Bar-Hillel, Dick Thaler, Robin Hogarth, George Loewenstein, Frank Yates, Reid Hastie, Robyn Dawes) understood that Danny and Amos were superstars. There was a lot of competition to talk to both of them.
I spotted Danny first. I hovered in his vicinity, waiting for the tiniest break in the steady stream of people wanting to talk to him. Finally, I saw my chance and briskly approached him. He read my name tag.
“Hello, Deborah. It’s nice to meet you. What sort of research do you do?”
”I criticize what you do.”
He smiled and graciously listened to my two minute pitch on why he and Amos were totally off base about a statistical brain teaser involving Linda, a notorious feminist bank teller. After a few minutes, he praised me for my effort but candidly confessed that like others who had tried (e.g., Lola Lopes), I had failed to convince him that he and Amos were wrong about Linda. He cordially drew the conversation to a close and walked away. One thing I have to say about Dr. Kahneman – he has treated me like a peer since the moment I met him.
I don’t have as vivid a memory of the moment I met Amos Tversky at that 1988 conference in Chicago that was a tribute to the late University of Chicago Graduate School of Business professor Hillel Einhorn, who collaborated with Robin Hogarth. Einhornandhogarth never became one word like kahnemanandtversky. Of course, neither did lichtensteinandslovic, for that matter.
I remember sitting at a table for a long time arguing with Amos about Linda the feminist bank teller. I understood that the reason Amos was willing to debate Linda with me for pi-squared as many minutes as Danny was because he thought he had a non-zero chance of scoring tuchus.
When I got to the University of Oregon, I became friends with Jennifer Freyd, who had been an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania and a grad student at Stanford. I told her about how Amos (a Stanford prof) had sort of hit on me at the Einhorn conference. In hindsight, it seems naïve to me that I was so shocked and indignant. It suggests that in my five years as a graduate student in the psychology department at the University of Pennsylvania, I did not experience sexual harassment. This is kind of a compliment, I guess, to Jon Baron, John Sabini, Bob Rescorla, Dave Premack and the other professors I interacted with at Penn.
Jennifer listened to the story about my encounter with Amos. She said something to the effect of “In my four years at Stanford, he never looked above my clavicle or below my sternum.” I can’t say that I blame him, actually, because…aw, never mind.
Of course, I don’t really want to talk about Danny, Amos and Jennifer. I want to talk about Linda and what she means to me.
The gist of the research by Kahneman and Tversky et al. is that the way that people think about statistics and risky decisions deviates from mathematical models of how statisticians and economists allege we should think about statistics and risky decisions.
There are two reasons for a discrepancy between how most people think and mathematical models that allegedly describe the way all people should think. One reason is that we have biases and flaws in our thinking, especially our mathematical thinking. A second reason is that there are biases and flaws in the alleged models of rationality developed by statisticians and economists.
Kahneman and Tversky deny the possibility of the second reason. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that their most virulent critic (Gerd Gigerenzer) denies the possibility of the first reason. Like Lopes (and Einhorn and Hogarth and Slovic and Lichtenstein and probably Hastie and Yates, for that matter), I believe both reasons have validity.
A few months ago, I thought of a way to explain the gist of my answer to the question “How can Kahneman and Tversky be so right and so wrong at the same time?” without having to bring the audience up to speed on all of the concepts necessary to understand their research (e.g., probability, expected value, heuristic).
I have this t-shirt with the number pi written in tiny numbers corresponding to the first few hundred digits of the infinite number of digits in pi. My mother bought it for my nephew. When she showed it to me and announced the intended recipient, I said “Over my dead body” and she changed her mind and gave it to me.
When a random person comments on my pi tee shirt, 98.6% of the time I say “Hey, I was in a pi-eating contest last week. I got through 3.1415 but I couldn’t eat nine.”
Once, someone heckled me mid-joke. After I said “I was in a pi eating contest last week.” he said “I can tell.”
Another guy let me finish and then said “Better luck next time.”
The other 1.4% of the time, I say this, which captures the gist of my doctoral dissertation and 20 years of academic research.
You know, mathematicians say that pi is an irrational number. Pi is used to estimate the weight and describe the shape of quasi-spherical objects like the sun, moon and earth not to mention human heads and living cells. It’s used to quantify quasi-cylindrical objects like arms, legs and large intestines.
Mathematicians say the basis for quantifying, measuring and thereby, better understanding important objects in the universe and our bodies is irrational. I say mathematicians are irrational.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
budget hearing
As you know, we’re in the midst of an extraordinary situation. Sixteen publicly elected and county-funded lawyers have declared war on democracy in Lane County, Oregon. Newbie Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner and the fifteen LaMe County Circus Court Judges (Mary Ann Bearden, Greg Foote, Doug Mitchell, Cynthia and Charles Carlson, Lauren Holland Jagger, Jack Billings, Ted Carp, Chuck Zennache and cronies) are hellbent on thwarting the will of the other 208,123 registered voters in Lane County.
A majority of the 10-person Lane County budget committee voted against using the last $16 million of the Secure Rural Schools funding from Uncle Sam that was porked on to one of the (dozen?) 2008 war appropriation bills (thank you Senator Wyden and Representative DeFazio!!!!!!) to restore the capacity of the Lane County Jail to its 2007 level. A majority of the 5-person subset of the Lane County Budget Committee commonly known as the LC Board of Commissioners also prefers to invest the money in something other than Prosecution, Incarceration and Slammer Services (PISS) kindly provided by Sheriff Russ Burger and LCDA Alex Gardner.
Of course, we should not be surprised at the disdain for democracy exhibited by Gardner, Bearden, Foote et al. Alex Gardner ran unopposed in the November, 2008 election because he received a whopping 36% of the vote when he ran unopposed in the May, 2008 primary. Five or six laMe county circus court judges also ran unopposed in 2008.
Please do not misunderstand. I am not saying that the loathsome lawyers funded at the county level are that much worse than their corrupt, sub-standard cronies at the state and Federal level. In contrast to LCDA Alex Gardner, whose name did not even appear on the November, 2008 ballot when he ran unopposed, ORAG Kroger ran against himself on the November ballot. Gardner’s name appeared zero times on the ballot. Kroger’s name appeared twice – as the Democratic and Republican nominee. LCDA Gardner and ORAG Kroger make a mockery of the democratic process. DeMOCKracy is right.
Then there’s the Federal level. If the hombre in the cracker house (that’s what Barack and Michelle Obama renamed the White House – the Cracker House) has his way, there will be SIX Catholic Justices on the Supreme Court. [What’s the optimal number of Catholic Supreme Court Justices? NUN! What did the priest say to the altar boy? REDACT!]
Then there's Federal Judge Kent in Texas and Federal Judge Coughenour in Washington. Aarrgh. Grrr.
The bottom line is that sixteen democracy hating lawyers who are publicly elected and funded have declared war on democracy in Lane County. Ms. Bearden, Mr. Gardner, Mr Foote et al: Your message has been heard loud and clear. Touche (too-shay)! That’s French for I lift my sword back at you and spit on your grandfather’s petunias!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V7zbWNznbs
Just to clarify for Commissioner Dwyer, who comes from Philadelphia. Touche (too-shay) doesn’t mean we’re going to Shea Stadium to watch Mets like Tom Seaver and Tug McGraw and Jerry Grote and Koosman. Too-shay is French for let the games begin!
Go malamutes!!
A majority of the 10-person Lane County budget committee voted against using the last $16 million of the Secure Rural Schools funding from Uncle Sam that was porked on to one of the (dozen?) 2008 war appropriation bills (thank you Senator Wyden and Representative DeFazio!!!!!!) to restore the capacity of the Lane County Jail to its 2007 level. A majority of the 5-person subset of the Lane County Budget Committee commonly known as the LC Board of Commissioners also prefers to invest the money in something other than Prosecution, Incarceration and Slammer Services (PISS) kindly provided by Sheriff Russ Burger and LCDA Alex Gardner.
Of course, we should not be surprised at the disdain for democracy exhibited by Gardner, Bearden, Foote et al. Alex Gardner ran unopposed in the November, 2008 election because he received a whopping 36% of the vote when he ran unopposed in the May, 2008 primary. Five or six laMe county circus court judges also ran unopposed in 2008.
Please do not misunderstand. I am not saying that the loathsome lawyers funded at the county level are that much worse than their corrupt, sub-standard cronies at the state and Federal level. In contrast to LCDA Alex Gardner, whose name did not even appear on the November, 2008 ballot when he ran unopposed, ORAG Kroger ran against himself on the November ballot. Gardner’s name appeared zero times on the ballot. Kroger’s name appeared twice – as the Democratic and Republican nominee. LCDA Gardner and ORAG Kroger make a mockery of the democratic process. DeMOCKracy is right.
Then there’s the Federal level. If the hombre in the cracker house (that’s what Barack and Michelle Obama renamed the White House – the Cracker House) has his way, there will be SIX Catholic Justices on the Supreme Court. [What’s the optimal number of Catholic Supreme Court Justices? NUN! What did the priest say to the altar boy? REDACT!]
Then there's Federal Judge Kent in Texas and Federal Judge Coughenour in Washington. Aarrgh. Grrr.
The bottom line is that sixteen democracy hating lawyers who are publicly elected and funded have declared war on democracy in Lane County. Ms. Bearden, Mr. Gardner, Mr Foote et al: Your message has been heard loud and clear. Touche (too-shay)! That’s French for I lift my sword back at you and spit on your grandfather’s petunias!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V7zbWNznbs
Just to clarify for Commissioner Dwyer, who comes from Philadelphia. Touche (too-shay) doesn’t mean we’re going to Shea Stadium to watch Mets like Tom Seaver and Tug McGraw and Jerry Grote and Koosman. Too-shay is French for let the games begin!
Go malamutes!!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
pavlov's mice
Anne Williams, Eugene Register Guard, June 15, 2009
Bill Deese, a veteran first-grade teacher at Gilham Elementary School, struck gold seven years ago when he held the first mouse circus, inspired by a student teacher’s [NAME?!?!?] more modest, mouse-related classroom project. His students stay busy as bees, and the whole school reaps the benefits.
When it comes to getting through these last days of school, “One of the best ideas I have is you save the best stuff for last,” said Deese, a gentle-mannered native Southerner who is retiring this year. “We go right up to the bell with this.”
Last Thursday, it was the second-graders’ turn to watch the circus, held in the music room and hosted by first-graders in black top hats. Other grades had their chance earlier, and the rest will get theirs this week.
Every year Deese embellishes and expands the circus, which is far more than just a year-end showcase. His students begin preparing for the circus weeks in advance, building mazes to certain specifications using the AppleWorks Draw program, creating charts, reading books and writing stories about mice, holding pre-circus trials and, of course, getting to know and safely handle the 10 tiny performers.
They include Lily, the Climbing Queen, who has been known to ascend a dangling string all the way up to the ceiling; Star, a maze ace; and Wildy, an all-around athlete who, by the students’ careful calculations, eats far more — in quantity and variety — than her competitors.
“I like Lily ’cause she climbs really high, and I like the mouse swimming,” said Cynae Martin, who, like several other of Deese’s students, said she’ll miss first grade once school’s out.
----
Hopefully, the name Pavlov rings a bell for you. He's the guy who discovered classical conditioning. Inherently meaningless events such as the sound of a bell or the sight of a white lab coat become meaningful when they become associated with inherently meaningful events such as saliva-gland-stimulating meat powder placed on your tongue by Pavlov or one of his bell-ringing, white-coat-wearing assistants. If you had a crush on someone the first time you heard Me and You and a Dog Named Boo, that song’s always going to remind you of how you felt about that person. Classical conditioning is about linking two external events in the environment.
Pavlov’s 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winning research is so famous that stand-up comic Eddie Izzard did a bit called "Pavlov's Cats."
The Russian physiologist Pavlov’s discovery of classical conditioning (CC) paved the way for American psychologist (Harvard, Minnesota, Indiana) B.F. Skinner’s description of the principles of instrumental conditioning (IC). [It would be disrespectful to every parent, teacher and dog trainer to say that Skinner “discovered” the principles of IC, the way that Pavlov discovered the principles of CC.] When you give your dog a treat every time the dog “shakes” your hand, you are reinforcing the shaking behavior and increasing its chances of occurring in the future. Instrumental conditioning is about linking an animal's behavior to an external event in the environment.
Now we've got Mr. Deese's mice, who are "taught" to climb and swim. The non-consensual laborers who perform in Mr. Deese’s circus aren’t Pavlov’s mice, they are Skinner’s mice. Someone, it is not clear who, trains the mice to climb up a rope and “swim.” The training for swimming might just involve dropping the mice in a bucket of agua and forcing them to swim or drown (Y’all get your Michael Phelpses on now, ya hear?) and the training for climbing might just be to put a chunk of cheddar at the top of the rope. I don’t know because the details of the training of the non-consensual, unpaid (i.e., slave) laborers were not described in the article in the R-G by Anne Williams.
I think it is fair to ask whether it is ethical for Mr. Deese to use n rodents a year for the purpose of creating this circus. Presumably Mr. Deese does not breed and raise the slave laborers in his garage, but rather purchases them from a company that provides laboratory animals to biology and neuroscience and pharmaceutical laboratories all across the county. How much does it cost Gilham Elementary School to purchase these (rather expensive, I’m betting) rodents? Perhaps the money spent to purchase mammalian slaves could be better spent on diversity-enhancing books like “Heather has two mommies” and “Uncle Joey wears fishnets.”
Aside from the financial cost of the rodents, there’s the question of whether they are used in an ethical way. When an educational institution purchases live beings, it needs to ensure that those live being are being used in a humane way and in a way that advances the educational agenda. If a high school math teacher bought a bunch of mice and allowed students to spend all their time making NASCAR tracks for them and racing them and quantifying various aspects of their behavior and pretended that was "math," those of us who live in the subset of Lane County not represented by Commissioners Dwyer and Stewart would be appalled.
Is Deese's circus use ethically justified? The fact that Mr. Deese saves it for the end of the year means it has high entertainment value. But what is the educational value?
It seems to me that if an elementary school is going to purchase laboratory grade animals, there needs to be a scientific component. If an AP Biology teacher wants to buy dead mice and have the kids dissect them, that’s great. If you want to buy live mice and keep them that way, you need to do something scientific with them. You need to have the kids actively train the mice, using principles of Skinnerian instrumental conditioning.
An added benefit of adding a scientific component (behaviorism 00001) and useful life skill (teaching humans to instrumentally condition other mammals) is that the 2-6 grade students could also participate if they wanted to. Children with an aptitude for training or an interest in science might choose to generate more elaborate tricks than climbing for cheddar and swimming for your life. The K-6 science curriculum could be cumulative and evolve into psychology and biology by fourth grade instead of degenerating into NASCAR science which is what it does now.
Last Thursday, it was the second-graders’ turn to watch the circus, held in the music room and hosted by first-graders in black top hats. Other grades had their chance earlier, and the rest will get theirs this week. Julia Siporin’s third-graders will deliver multimedia keynote presentations on endangered animals. Peggy Lilyengren’s fourth-graders will build race cars this week to complete a science unit on motion and design.
Bill Deese, a veteran first-grade teacher at Gilham Elementary School, struck gold seven years ago when he held the first mouse circus, inspired by a student teacher’s [NAME?!?!?] more modest, mouse-related classroom project. His students stay busy as bees, and the whole school reaps the benefits.
When it comes to getting through these last days of school, “One of the best ideas I have is you save the best stuff for last,” said Deese, a gentle-mannered native Southerner who is retiring this year. “We go right up to the bell with this.”
Last Thursday, it was the second-graders’ turn to watch the circus, held in the music room and hosted by first-graders in black top hats. Other grades had their chance earlier, and the rest will get theirs this week.
Every year Deese embellishes and expands the circus, which is far more than just a year-end showcase. His students begin preparing for the circus weeks in advance, building mazes to certain specifications using the AppleWorks Draw program, creating charts, reading books and writing stories about mice, holding pre-circus trials and, of course, getting to know and safely handle the 10 tiny performers.
They include Lily, the Climbing Queen, who has been known to ascend a dangling string all the way up to the ceiling; Star, a maze ace; and Wildy, an all-around athlete who, by the students’ careful calculations, eats far more — in quantity and variety — than her competitors.
“I like Lily ’cause she climbs really high, and I like the mouse swimming,” said Cynae Martin, who, like several other of Deese’s students, said she’ll miss first grade once school’s out.
----
Hopefully, the name Pavlov rings a bell for you. He's the guy who discovered classical conditioning. Inherently meaningless events such as the sound of a bell or the sight of a white lab coat become meaningful when they become associated with inherently meaningful events such as saliva-gland-stimulating meat powder placed on your tongue by Pavlov or one of his bell-ringing, white-coat-wearing assistants. If you had a crush on someone the first time you heard Me and You and a Dog Named Boo, that song’s always going to remind you of how you felt about that person. Classical conditioning is about linking two external events in the environment.
Pavlov’s 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winning research is so famous that stand-up comic Eddie Izzard did a bit called "Pavlov's Cats."
The Russian physiologist Pavlov’s discovery of classical conditioning (CC) paved the way for American psychologist (Harvard, Minnesota, Indiana) B.F. Skinner’s description of the principles of instrumental conditioning (IC). [It would be disrespectful to every parent, teacher and dog trainer to say that Skinner “discovered” the principles of IC, the way that Pavlov discovered the principles of CC.] When you give your dog a treat every time the dog “shakes” your hand, you are reinforcing the shaking behavior and increasing its chances of occurring in the future. Instrumental conditioning is about linking an animal's behavior to an external event in the environment.
Now we've got Mr. Deese's mice, who are "taught" to climb and swim. The non-consensual laborers who perform in Mr. Deese’s circus aren’t Pavlov’s mice, they are Skinner’s mice. Someone, it is not clear who, trains the mice to climb up a rope and “swim.” The training for swimming might just involve dropping the mice in a bucket of agua and forcing them to swim or drown (Y’all get your Michael Phelpses on now, ya hear?) and the training for climbing might just be to put a chunk of cheddar at the top of the rope. I don’t know because the details of the training of the non-consensual, unpaid (i.e., slave) laborers were not described in the article in the R-G by Anne Williams.
I think it is fair to ask whether it is ethical for Mr. Deese to use n rodents a year for the purpose of creating this circus. Presumably Mr. Deese does not breed and raise the slave laborers in his garage, but rather purchases them from a company that provides laboratory animals to biology and neuroscience and pharmaceutical laboratories all across the county. How much does it cost Gilham Elementary School to purchase these (rather expensive, I’m betting) rodents? Perhaps the money spent to purchase mammalian slaves could be better spent on diversity-enhancing books like “Heather has two mommies” and “Uncle Joey wears fishnets.”
Aside from the financial cost of the rodents, there’s the question of whether they are used in an ethical way. When an educational institution purchases live beings, it needs to ensure that those live being are being used in a humane way and in a way that advances the educational agenda. If a high school math teacher bought a bunch of mice and allowed students to spend all their time making NASCAR tracks for them and racing them and quantifying various aspects of their behavior and pretended that was "math," those of us who live in the subset of Lane County not represented by Commissioners Dwyer and Stewart would be appalled.
Is Deese's circus use ethically justified? The fact that Mr. Deese saves it for the end of the year means it has high entertainment value. But what is the educational value?
It seems to me that if an elementary school is going to purchase laboratory grade animals, there needs to be a scientific component. If an AP Biology teacher wants to buy dead mice and have the kids dissect them, that’s great. If you want to buy live mice and keep them that way, you need to do something scientific with them. You need to have the kids actively train the mice, using principles of Skinnerian instrumental conditioning.
An added benefit of adding a scientific component (behaviorism 00001) and useful life skill (teaching humans to instrumentally condition other mammals) is that the 2-6 grade students could also participate if they wanted to. Children with an aptitude for training or an interest in science might choose to generate more elaborate tricks than climbing for cheddar and swimming for your life. The K-6 science curriculum could be cumulative and evolve into psychology and biology by fourth grade instead of degenerating into NASCAR science which is what it does now.
Last Thursday, it was the second-graders’ turn to watch the circus, held in the music room and hosted by first-graders in black top hats. Other grades had their chance earlier, and the rest will get theirs this week. Julia Siporin’s third-graders will deliver multimedia keynote presentations on endangered animals. Peggy Lilyengren’s fourth-graders will build race cars this week to complete a science unit on motion and design.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Ho Courthouse?
Byline: Scott Maben
Jun. 18--Someday, they're apt to put someone's name on the new federal courthouse planned for the eastern edge of downtown.
That name well could be Michael R. Hogan, the chief federal judge for the District of Oregon, who has championed the need for the new building and followed every detail of the project's development.
"We'll just call this the United States Courthouse," Hogan, 54, said in a recent interview with The Register-Guard in his chambers at the existing federal courthouse on Pearl Street and East Seventh Avenue. "They do name these after people, but that's not a decision any of us would make."
Hogan, a native of Oregon and a University of Oregon Honors College graduate, speaks passionately of the art and architecture of the $70 million courthouse, to be built on the site of the Chiquita cannery. He says he wants it to be a "wonderful, inspiring" building that the community will take pride in and that people will want to visit for the joy of it, not merely because they have business there.
Following are excerpts from the interview with Hogan about the new courthouse:
Q: What are the shortcomings of the existing courthouse?
A: "Its greatest shortcoming is security deficiencies. These days the appropriate plan for a courthouse is to separate the prisoner circulation from the public circulation and the court staff circulation. They come together only in a courtroom. Here, everyone comes in the same entrance: prisoners, the public, the press, the judges, the staff. And it's a bad situation; it causes a danger for everyone. The United States Marshal's Service ... referred to this building as one of their 'true trouble spots.' This building has placed either first or second on the worst security in a federal courthouse in the United States."
In addition, "we've run out of space, to the extent that the lawyers who help me on my staff are in the other building. We have many of our agencies out in leased space. We're paying a lot of money for lease payments."
Q: For the new courthouse, what role did you play in the siting process and what role will you play now in its design?
A: "I was invited to sit on a committee that considered siting, and I participated on that as one of several people. My role was no bigger than any other member of the committee.
"With regard to design of the courthouse, I expect that I'll have some input, but there are a lot of people who have input on it.
"Under the contract with (the General Services Administration), the architect is required to propose three different overall concepts. Those concepts will be made available for public review and input. After GSA indicates which concept it preferred, that goes into a concept development phase. GSA brings in national peers ... prominent architects and architectural writers. Their job is to be critics of the design and make suggestions as to ways to improve it."
Q: Do you have any veto power over any aspect of the design and construction?
A: "I won't have veto power.
"My goal is that security, for example, if it's not transparent, will at least be translucent. We hope that we can have security that's not noticeable, and that does not push people out of the courtroom. My hope is for a design that pulls people into the courtroom."
Q: Contrast the potential for that with what people experience now when they walk in this building.
A: "You walked by some bollards when you came in -- those big round metal things up out of the ground. I don't think bollards invite people into the building. I hope that we can eliminate them, or at least have as few as possible. In our entrance area, while you expect security, our (metal detector) more or less dominates our public entrance. And I think that's a shame. I think the entrance of a building ought to be inviting and inspirational, not one dominated by the thought of security. I would hope that we have inspiring public space. My encouragement will be that security will not be the dominant thought when you come in the entrance to the courthouse. We will accomplish security in a more elegant fashion."
Q: In light of the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, isn't a fortress precisely what's needed?
A: "Absolutely not. We will not have a fortress. There are ways to avoid that. And we will use the best thinking in the country, in the world, in that regard. This building, along with the new courthouse in Springfield, Mass., has been chosen to set a new paradigm for security treatments.
"For example, we have the opportunity to surface the millrace. The millrace can be a wonderful urban waterway, which at the same time provides a sense of delight and interest for our citizens, but also a security feature.
"You talk about Oklahoma City. The problem there, of course, was that they brought this truck right up to the front of the building. You can accomplish a lot with a little room, with a little space. We're going to have more or less four acres over here. And on a site that size, what we will give the city and the federal government is a gift of green to the city, a beautiful park, but that park can also have the secondary purpose of providing security just by the space in it.
"We could try to make a building secure against everything. But we're going to use judgment. We're not going to worry about security for something that has very little chance of ever happening. We will try to focus our security concerns on those things which are more likely to happen.
"Any building could be damaged if someone had the right equipment. We just want to be smart about evaluating risk and then take steps to protect the public and the participants in our hearings and the lawyers."
Q: I understand you've become something of a student of architecture during this project. What do you think of the notion of a public building serving as an art form or a showcase for public art.
A: "I think that our public buildings ought to be art in themselves and ought to include important art. We've been able to prevail in these early months and efforts with GSA to increase their arts budget from one-half percent up to one and one-half percent. And that means we will have close to a million dollars to spend on art.
"Many of the people working on the courthouse hope that this art is art that's truly integrated into the building, that adds to the building, that gives it a greater sense of wonder and delight, rather than a space where you would plop art in that spot."
Q: What features of this building will ensure that it will be an enduring value for the court -- such as energy efficiency, Internet wiring and provisions for retrofits that may not even be foreseen.
A: "One term some of us have used in thinking about the courthouse is that it will be a digital courthouse, and we want to encourage those designers and the companies that are looking ahead -- they're thinking not about what's on the shelf today but what should be out there in six or seven or eight or 10 years -- we'd like to have those concepts as part of our courthouse.
"This courthouse should be a very efficient building and one which provides a kind of goal for other buildings in the community to reach toward. ... We have a moderate climate, and sometimes you can make use of the temperature outside rather than burning up electricity to do these things."
Q: Describe the benefits of this investment for the city of Eugene as well as for the citizens of Oregon.
A: "We're trying to build a 100-year building. We know it's going to influence our community for a long time, and so the burden in producing a building that builds our community up is great, but it also provides a tremendous opportunity.
"There is also the opportunity here to bring an excellent example of architectural style into our community. My hope is that this building is one that when Aunt Ethel comes to visit, that you'll surely take her to see this building, and not only that, you'll pull into the parking lot and stop and say, 'You need to come inside; there's something you need to see in there.'
"I had a hope that in the more public area there may be art that schoolchildren would want to touch. And just in the touching that they would feel a part of the court system and a part of the federal government, and feel like it's responding to them in some small way, rather than just being unapproachable."
Q: When you think of the whole Chiquita-Broadway-riverfront site, what do you see 10 years from now.
A: "Here we are, a city with a magnificent natural resource in the middle of it, and yet there are very few places we can see (the Willamette River). We have a chance to make that a part of our urban experience, which is wonderful forward thinking. And I believe that this courthouse can serve as a cornerstone and a jump-start for (the city's new downtown) plan."
Q: What kinds of buildings do you think might sprout up around the new courthouse?
A: "Typically new federal courthouses cause entire areas to have a revivification. Title companies and law offices, for example, follow courthouses. There need to be places for people to eat. I think that there are some wonderful opportunities to provide some housing along the river. There can be a wonderful mix of uses."
Q: What would you say to taxpayers who might wonder why this project could not also be a cooperation among the federal and state entities to provide a much needed courthouse for Lane County Circuit Court as well?
A: "I wish it could have been. I wish there could have been cooperation. That is an idea that early on I broached privately among a number of governmental leaders. But there are institutional impediments that are difficult to overcome built into who's going to own the building and who will call the shots. And that's unfortunate. It's much better if we can work together. ... I pushed for it and lost."
Q: Given the shortfalls in budgets for schools and higher education, how should taxpayers view this investment as a positive use of their money?
A: "It is not a building that we're going to spend a lot of money on and only use for a short time. If you look at today's dollars, it's substantial. But if you look at today's dollars in 20 years and 50 years, then people will see that they received a great bargain in a place that houses the delivery of justice to our citizens."
NEW COURTHOUSE
-- Why it's needed: The current 108,000-square-foot federal courthouse is too small and has serious security problems related to prisoner handling, worker safety and vulnerability to terrorist attack.
-- What will be built: A 265,290-square-foot courthouse on about four acres at the west end of the Chiquita vegetable cannery site east of downtown. The federal government will consolidate various agencies into the new courthouse and the current courthouse and federal building. Estimated savings from no longer having to lease space around Eugene is $28 million over the next 30 years.
-- The cost: Estimated $70 million. Congress so far has approved $7.1 million for site acquisition and building design.
-- What it will look like: Unknown. A design team of Morphosis of Santa Monica, Calif., and DLR Group Architecture of Portland will do the design.
-- What will be inside: About 265 employees of court-related agencies, including bankruptcy courts that now are in leased space. The number of federal judges is expected to increase from five to nine in 2002 and to 13 by 2022.
To see more of The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore., or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.registerguard.com
(c) 2001, The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
Jun. 18--Someday, they're apt to put someone's name on the new federal courthouse planned for the eastern edge of downtown.
That name well could be Michael R. Hogan, the chief federal judge for the District of Oregon, who has championed the need for the new building and followed every detail of the project's development.
"We'll just call this the United States Courthouse," Hogan, 54, said in a recent interview with The Register-Guard in his chambers at the existing federal courthouse on Pearl Street and East Seventh Avenue. "They do name these after people, but that's not a decision any of us would make."
Hogan, a native of Oregon and a University of Oregon Honors College graduate, speaks passionately of the art and architecture of the $70 million courthouse, to be built on the site of the Chiquita cannery. He says he wants it to be a "wonderful, inspiring" building that the community will take pride in and that people will want to visit for the joy of it, not merely because they have business there.
Following are excerpts from the interview with Hogan about the new courthouse:
Q: What are the shortcomings of the existing courthouse?
A: "Its greatest shortcoming is security deficiencies. These days the appropriate plan for a courthouse is to separate the prisoner circulation from the public circulation and the court staff circulation. They come together only in a courtroom. Here, everyone comes in the same entrance: prisoners, the public, the press, the judges, the staff. And it's a bad situation; it causes a danger for everyone. The United States Marshal's Service ... referred to this building as one of their 'true trouble spots.' This building has placed either first or second on the worst security in a federal courthouse in the United States."
In addition, "we've run out of space, to the extent that the lawyers who help me on my staff are in the other building. We have many of our agencies out in leased space. We're paying a lot of money for lease payments."
Q: For the new courthouse, what role did you play in the siting process and what role will you play now in its design?
A: "I was invited to sit on a committee that considered siting, and I participated on that as one of several people. My role was no bigger than any other member of the committee.
"With regard to design of the courthouse, I expect that I'll have some input, but there are a lot of people who have input on it.
"Under the contract with (the General Services Administration), the architect is required to propose three different overall concepts. Those concepts will be made available for public review and input. After GSA indicates which concept it preferred, that goes into a concept development phase. GSA brings in national peers ... prominent architects and architectural writers. Their job is to be critics of the design and make suggestions as to ways to improve it."
Q: Do you have any veto power over any aspect of the design and construction?
A: "I won't have veto power.
"My goal is that security, for example, if it's not transparent, will at least be translucent. We hope that we can have security that's not noticeable, and that does not push people out of the courtroom. My hope is for a design that pulls people into the courtroom."
Q: Contrast the potential for that with what people experience now when they walk in this building.
A: "You walked by some bollards when you came in -- those big round metal things up out of the ground. I don't think bollards invite people into the building. I hope that we can eliminate them, or at least have as few as possible. In our entrance area, while you expect security, our (metal detector) more or less dominates our public entrance. And I think that's a shame. I think the entrance of a building ought to be inviting and inspirational, not one dominated by the thought of security. I would hope that we have inspiring public space. My encouragement will be that security will not be the dominant thought when you come in the entrance to the courthouse. We will accomplish security in a more elegant fashion."
Q: In light of the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, isn't a fortress precisely what's needed?
A: "Absolutely not. We will not have a fortress. There are ways to avoid that. And we will use the best thinking in the country, in the world, in that regard. This building, along with the new courthouse in Springfield, Mass., has been chosen to set a new paradigm for security treatments.
"For example, we have the opportunity to surface the millrace. The millrace can be a wonderful urban waterway, which at the same time provides a sense of delight and interest for our citizens, but also a security feature.
"You talk about Oklahoma City. The problem there, of course, was that they brought this truck right up to the front of the building. You can accomplish a lot with a little room, with a little space. We're going to have more or less four acres over here. And on a site that size, what we will give the city and the federal government is a gift of green to the city, a beautiful park, but that park can also have the secondary purpose of providing security just by the space in it.
"We could try to make a building secure against everything. But we're going to use judgment. We're not going to worry about security for something that has very little chance of ever happening. We will try to focus our security concerns on those things which are more likely to happen.
"Any building could be damaged if someone had the right equipment. We just want to be smart about evaluating risk and then take steps to protect the public and the participants in our hearings and the lawyers."
Q: I understand you've become something of a student of architecture during this project. What do you think of the notion of a public building serving as an art form or a showcase for public art.
A: "I think that our public buildings ought to be art in themselves and ought to include important art. We've been able to prevail in these early months and efforts with GSA to increase their arts budget from one-half percent up to one and one-half percent. And that means we will have close to a million dollars to spend on art.
"Many of the people working on the courthouse hope that this art is art that's truly integrated into the building, that adds to the building, that gives it a greater sense of wonder and delight, rather than a space where you would plop art in that spot."
Q: What features of this building will ensure that it will be an enduring value for the court -- such as energy efficiency, Internet wiring and provisions for retrofits that may not even be foreseen.
A: "One term some of us have used in thinking about the courthouse is that it will be a digital courthouse, and we want to encourage those designers and the companies that are looking ahead -- they're thinking not about what's on the shelf today but what should be out there in six or seven or eight or 10 years -- we'd like to have those concepts as part of our courthouse.
"This courthouse should be a very efficient building and one which provides a kind of goal for other buildings in the community to reach toward. ... We have a moderate climate, and sometimes you can make use of the temperature outside rather than burning up electricity to do these things."
Q: Describe the benefits of this investment for the city of Eugene as well as for the citizens of Oregon.
A: "We're trying to build a 100-year building. We know it's going to influence our community for a long time, and so the burden in producing a building that builds our community up is great, but it also provides a tremendous opportunity.
"There is also the opportunity here to bring an excellent example of architectural style into our community. My hope is that this building is one that when Aunt Ethel comes to visit, that you'll surely take her to see this building, and not only that, you'll pull into the parking lot and stop and say, 'You need to come inside; there's something you need to see in there.'
"I had a hope that in the more public area there may be art that schoolchildren would want to touch. And just in the touching that they would feel a part of the court system and a part of the federal government, and feel like it's responding to them in some small way, rather than just being unapproachable."
Q: When you think of the whole Chiquita-Broadway-riverfront site, what do you see 10 years from now.
A: "Here we are, a city with a magnificent natural resource in the middle of it, and yet there are very few places we can see (the Willamette River). We have a chance to make that a part of our urban experience, which is wonderful forward thinking. And I believe that this courthouse can serve as a cornerstone and a jump-start for (the city's new downtown) plan."
Q: What kinds of buildings do you think might sprout up around the new courthouse?
A: "Typically new federal courthouses cause entire areas to have a revivification. Title companies and law offices, for example, follow courthouses. There need to be places for people to eat. I think that there are some wonderful opportunities to provide some housing along the river. There can be a wonderful mix of uses."
Q: What would you say to taxpayers who might wonder why this project could not also be a cooperation among the federal and state entities to provide a much needed courthouse for Lane County Circuit Court as well?
A: "I wish it could have been. I wish there could have been cooperation. That is an idea that early on I broached privately among a number of governmental leaders. But there are institutional impediments that are difficult to overcome built into who's going to own the building and who will call the shots. And that's unfortunate. It's much better if we can work together. ... I pushed for it and lost."
Q: Given the shortfalls in budgets for schools and higher education, how should taxpayers view this investment as a positive use of their money?
A: "It is not a building that we're going to spend a lot of money on and only use for a short time. If you look at today's dollars, it's substantial. But if you look at today's dollars in 20 years and 50 years, then people will see that they received a great bargain in a place that houses the delivery of justice to our citizens."
NEW COURTHOUSE
-- Why it's needed: The current 108,000-square-foot federal courthouse is too small and has serious security problems related to prisoner handling, worker safety and vulnerability to terrorist attack.
-- What will be built: A 265,290-square-foot courthouse on about four acres at the west end of the Chiquita vegetable cannery site east of downtown. The federal government will consolidate various agencies into the new courthouse and the current courthouse and federal building. Estimated savings from no longer having to lease space around Eugene is $28 million over the next 30 years.
-- The cost: Estimated $70 million. Congress so far has approved $7.1 million for site acquisition and building design.
-- What it will look like: Unknown. A design team of Morphosis of Santa Monica, Calif., and DLR Group Architecture of Portland will do the design.
-- What will be inside: About 265 employees of court-related agencies, including bankruptcy courts that now are in leased space. The number of federal judges is expected to increase from five to nine in 2002 and to 13 by 2022.
To see more of The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore., or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.registerguard.com
(c) 2001, The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
letter to judge coffin
June 15, 2009
To: USDC-OR Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin
cc: USDC-OR Chief Judge Ann Aiken
From: Deborah Frisch, plaintiff-in-waiting
re: fourteenth amendment rights violating delay re: 09-cv-6126-TC?
On page 1, you write “for the reasons set forth below, plaintiff’s complaint is dismissed, without service of process, on the basis that it is frivolous.” [under 28 USC 1915(d).]
On page 8, you write “Plaintiff is allowed 30 days from the date of this order to file an amended complaint curing the deficiencies set forth above.”
On page 2 of the 8 page “Order to Proceed in Forma Pauperis and Order to Dismiss” you filed on June 3, 2009 in response to my 12 page “Complaint” filed on May 8, 2009 you cite Lopez, 939 F. 2d at 883 and note that you are legally obligated to “liberally construe the allegations of a pro se plaintiff and to afford the plaintiff the benefit of any doubt.”
On page 3, you write “In federal court, dismissal for failure to state a claim is proper ‘only if it is clear that no relief could be granted under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations.’….Before dismissing a pro se civil rights complaint for failure to state a claim, this court supplies the plaintiff with a statement of the complaint’s deficiencies. A pro se litigant will be given leave to amend his or her complaint unless it is absolutely clear that the deficiencies of the complaint cannot be cured by amendment.”
On pages 4-6, you argue that even if every material fact alleged were true, no relief could be granted for the harm allegedly caused by former Lane County Deputy Attorney F. Douglas Harcleroad, Deputy LCDA Joann Miller, Lane County Circus Court Judge Ted Carp and Doug Mitchell because the loathsome lawyers who make the rules rig the game to protect themselves and their wretched cronies from legal action. This deficiency was easily cured by removing Counts 2, 3 and 4 of Claim 1 from the Original Complaint that alleged malfeasance by Harcleroad, Miller, Carp and Mitchell.
Similarly, on pages 6-7, you argue that even if every material fact alleged were true, no relief could be granted for the harm allegedly caused by Eugene Police Officer Judson Warden and Sergeant Daniel Long when they lied under oath at the March 4, 2009 trial because “Private individuals and government officials who serve as witnesses are absolutely immune from suit for damages based on their testimony.” This deficiency was easily cured by removing references to the March 4, 2009 trial in Count 1 of Claim 1 that alleged malfeasance by Warden and Long.
There are two paragraphs in the four page “Discussion” that describe deficiencies in the May 8, 2009 Complaint that were not completely cured by the deletion of Counts 2, 3 and 4 of Claim 1 and the March 4, 2009 subset of Count 1 of Claim 1. The last paragraph on page 7 states “In addition, Plaintiff has not alleged any factual basis for her claim against the City of Springfield.” This deficiency was easily cured by adding a Count 3 to Claim 2 describing the factual basis for my claim against the City of Springfield.
That leaves one paragraph describing a alleged deficiency that was not cured by the deletion of parts of Claim 1 (Counts 2, 3 and 4 and part of Count 1) and the addition of Count 3 to Claim 2. On page 7 the paragraph that begins “With respect to Plaintiff’s….” you allege that the allegations made in paragraphs 11 and 12 “fail to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” Paragraph 11 alleges that the decision by EPD Officer Warden and Sergeant Long on November 2, 2008 to fail to offer the plaintiff the opportunity to press charges against the person who had been found in possession of her wallet (as the plaintiff had alleged to Officer Warden and Sergeant Long) violated the plaintiff’s Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. Paragraph 12 alleges that the decision by Warden and Long to fail to generate written reports of EPD Incidents 88125 (assault) and 88130 (person stop) violated the plaintiff’s fourteenth amendment right to due process.
The allegations in paragraphs 11 and 12 of the original complaint are clearly jury questions. I believe that it was inappropriate for you to include them in the June 3, 2009 document, because speculating on what a jury would say about a plaintiff’s plausible fourteenth amendment claim regarding non-immune behaviors by municipal employees does not rise to the standard described on page 2 of affording a pro se plaintiff the benefit of any doubt. I chose to delete paragraph 11 but not paragraph 12 in my amended complaint filed on June 5, 2009.
In sum, the fact that you gave the pro se plaintiff 30 days to prepare an amended complaint is proof that you believe the deficiencies in the original complaint were curable. As described above, the deficiencies in the May 8, 2009 complaint that you described in your June 3, 2009 Order to Proceed in Forma Pauperis and Order to Dismiss were cured in the June 5, 2009 Amended Complaint. Thus, there is no valid reason for you to delay your approval to serve the defendants with the complaint. Ergo, the defendants named in the amended complaint in 09-cv-6126-TC ought to be served with the amended complaint as soon as possible, if not sooner.
To: USDC-OR Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin
cc: USDC-OR Chief Judge Ann Aiken
From: Deborah Frisch, plaintiff-in-waiting
re: fourteenth amendment rights violating delay re: 09-cv-6126-TC?
On page 1, you write “for the reasons set forth below, plaintiff’s complaint is dismissed, without service of process, on the basis that it is frivolous.” [under 28 USC 1915(d).]
On page 8, you write “Plaintiff is allowed 30 days from the date of this order to file an amended complaint curing the deficiencies set forth above.”
On page 2 of the 8 page “Order to Proceed in Forma Pauperis and Order to Dismiss” you filed on June 3, 2009 in response to my 12 page “Complaint” filed on May 8, 2009 you cite Lopez, 939 F. 2d at 883 and note that you are legally obligated to “liberally construe the allegations of a pro se plaintiff and to afford the plaintiff the benefit of any doubt.”
On page 3, you write “In federal court, dismissal for failure to state a claim is proper ‘only if it is clear that no relief could be granted under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations.’….Before dismissing a pro se civil rights complaint for failure to state a claim, this court supplies the plaintiff with a statement of the complaint’s deficiencies. A pro se litigant will be given leave to amend his or her complaint unless it is absolutely clear that the deficiencies of the complaint cannot be cured by amendment.”
On pages 4-6, you argue that even if every material fact alleged were true, no relief could be granted for the harm allegedly caused by former Lane County Deputy Attorney F. Douglas Harcleroad, Deputy LCDA Joann Miller, Lane County Circus Court Judge Ted Carp and Doug Mitchell because the loathsome lawyers who make the rules rig the game to protect themselves and their wretched cronies from legal action. This deficiency was easily cured by removing Counts 2, 3 and 4 of Claim 1 from the Original Complaint that alleged malfeasance by Harcleroad, Miller, Carp and Mitchell.
Similarly, on pages 6-7, you argue that even if every material fact alleged were true, no relief could be granted for the harm allegedly caused by Eugene Police Officer Judson Warden and Sergeant Daniel Long when they lied under oath at the March 4, 2009 trial because “Private individuals and government officials who serve as witnesses are absolutely immune from suit for damages based on their testimony.” This deficiency was easily cured by removing references to the March 4, 2009 trial in Count 1 of Claim 1 that alleged malfeasance by Warden and Long.
There are two paragraphs in the four page “Discussion” that describe deficiencies in the May 8, 2009 Complaint that were not completely cured by the deletion of Counts 2, 3 and 4 of Claim 1 and the March 4, 2009 subset of Count 1 of Claim 1. The last paragraph on page 7 states “In addition, Plaintiff has not alleged any factual basis for her claim against the City of Springfield.” This deficiency was easily cured by adding a Count 3 to Claim 2 describing the factual basis for my claim against the City of Springfield.
That leaves one paragraph describing a alleged deficiency that was not cured by the deletion of parts of Claim 1 (Counts 2, 3 and 4 and part of Count 1) and the addition of Count 3 to Claim 2. On page 7 the paragraph that begins “With respect to Plaintiff’s….” you allege that the allegations made in paragraphs 11 and 12 “fail to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” Paragraph 11 alleges that the decision by EPD Officer Warden and Sergeant Long on November 2, 2008 to fail to offer the plaintiff the opportunity to press charges against the person who had been found in possession of her wallet (as the plaintiff had alleged to Officer Warden and Sergeant Long) violated the plaintiff’s Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. Paragraph 12 alleges that the decision by Warden and Long to fail to generate written reports of EPD Incidents 88125 (assault) and 88130 (person stop) violated the plaintiff’s fourteenth amendment right to due process.
The allegations in paragraphs 11 and 12 of the original complaint are clearly jury questions. I believe that it was inappropriate for you to include them in the June 3, 2009 document, because speculating on what a jury would say about a plaintiff’s plausible fourteenth amendment claim regarding non-immune behaviors by municipal employees does not rise to the standard described on page 2 of affording a pro se plaintiff the benefit of any doubt. I chose to delete paragraph 11 but not paragraph 12 in my amended complaint filed on June 5, 2009.
In sum, the fact that you gave the pro se plaintiff 30 days to prepare an amended complaint is proof that you believe the deficiencies in the original complaint were curable. As described above, the deficiencies in the May 8, 2009 complaint that you described in your June 3, 2009 Order to Proceed in Forma Pauperis and Order to Dismiss were cured in the June 5, 2009 Amended Complaint. Thus, there is no valid reason for you to delay your approval to serve the defendants with the complaint. Ergo, the defendants named in the amended complaint in 09-cv-6126-TC ought to be served with the amended complaint as soon as possible, if not sooner.
pavlov's mice
Bill Deese, a veteran first-grade teacher at Gilham Elementary School, struck gold seven years ago when he held the first mouse circus, inspired by a student teacher’s more modest, mouse-related classroom project.
“I like Lily ’cause she climbs really high, and I like the mouse swimming,” said Cynae Martin, who, like several other of Deese’s students, said she’ll miss first grade once school’s out.
--
Hopefully, the name Pavlov rings a bell for you. He's the guy who discovered classical conditioning. Inherently meaningless events such as the sound of a bell or the sight of a white lab coat become meaningful when they become associated with inherently meaningful events such as meat on your tongue.
Pavlov is so famous that stand-up comic Eddie Izzard did a bit called "Pavlov's Cats."
Now we've got Pavlov's mice, who are "taught" to climb and swim.
lemme get this straight. Meadowlark Elementary School Principal BJ Blake is forcing children to be tolerant of an off-white male who like to bully people into calling him she, even though he has XY chromosomes and Gilham Elementary School teaches students it's fun to torture rodents (I don't think mice enjoy "swimming").
what is going on here? it's totally wacko crazy, even compared to how eugene "normally" is!!!
Sunday, June 14, 2009
homeopathic country fair
I guess I could go charge a ticket to the Oregon Country Fair but since I have no disposable income since the sum of my bills due in the next 17 days is greater than the amount of my cash reserves, it would not be very much fun. I would not be able to buy food such as the $7 (probably $8 this year) something (Thali?) platter at golden avatar with vegetable fritters, curry, pappadam and halvah or a De Frisco’s (they’re at the country fair, aren’t they?) chicken sandwich with poppy seed coleslaw and peanut sauce on a yummy onion bun or anything else for that matter.
I guess I could swing by the Target across from the Wal-Mart on West 11th that’s a bit west of the location of the fender-bender at 9:16 p.m. on January 21, 2009 in front of the Seven-Eleven at Eleventh and Bertelsen and use my Oregon Trash, I mean Trail Card and bring my own cheez doodles.
But I think I will skip the annual hippiefest. If I watch Magic to Do from Pippin on youtube and go about my business with an open and calm mind, I can tap into the magic that is crystallized at the Oregon Country Fair that exists here all the time.
Join us, Leave your fields to flower
Join us, Leave your cheese to sour
Join us, Come and waste an hour or two
Doo-dle-ee-do
Journey, Journey to a spot exciting, mystic and exotic
Journey, Through our anecdotic revue
Speaking of Pippin, Corner of the Sky is not a bad alt.dot.graduation song.
I’m very grateful for the knowledge that you’ve given me. But I’m afraid what I’m looking for can’t be found in books.
Everything has its season
Everything has its time
Show me a reason and I'll soon show you a rhyme
Cats fit on the windowsill
Children fit in the snow
Why do I feel I don't fit in anywhere I go?
Rivers belong where they can ramble
Eagles belong where they can fly
I've got to be where my spirit can run free
Got to find my corner of the sky
Sunday poetry
William Wordsworth
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
--
The world is too much with us; then and now,
We toil to buy and thus lay waste our powers;
Ignoring nature because she’s not ours;
We look at what we’ve lost and wonder how.
The sea, the mountains and the sun and moon;
The wind and rain that howl with such power,
Sometimes someone will stop to smell a flower
But mostly, we are deeply out of tune;
Earth moves us not when God we try to see
The pagan’s way is a defeated creed
The beauty that surrounds us remains free
Though hidden by our self-defeating greed.
So when you’re by a stream or at the sea
Remember that you’ve got all that you need.
Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-----
You’ve got two options. Both look good
But both you cannot take
Though if you could you surely would
Alas you can’t, that’s understood
So what choice should you make?
Well, this way looks to me quite fair
It seems the better claim
Except the other’s got less wear
Which makes me want to say “Go there!”
Alas I’m pulled by both the same.
So equally I’m drawn each way
And certainty I lack
Perhaps I won’t decide today!
Yet wanting not to fret and sway
I must choose one and not look back.
This tale I’ll recount with a sigh
In England, Germany and France
Alas, two roads diverged and I
I took the one less traveled by
Pour toujours vive la difference!
I guess I could swing by the Target across from the Wal-Mart on West 11th that’s a bit west of the location of the fender-bender at 9:16 p.m. on January 21, 2009 in front of the Seven-Eleven at Eleventh and Bertelsen and use my Oregon Trash, I mean Trail Card and bring my own cheez doodles.
But I think I will skip the annual hippiefest. If I watch Magic to Do from Pippin on youtube and go about my business with an open and calm mind, I can tap into the magic that is crystallized at the Oregon Country Fair that exists here all the time.
Join us, Leave your fields to flower
Join us, Leave your cheese to sour
Join us, Come and waste an hour or two
Doo-dle-ee-do
Journey, Journey to a spot exciting, mystic and exotic
Journey, Through our anecdotic revue
Speaking of Pippin, Corner of the Sky is not a bad alt.dot.graduation song.
I’m very grateful for the knowledge that you’ve given me. But I’m afraid what I’m looking for can’t be found in books.
Everything has its season
Everything has its time
Show me a reason and I'll soon show you a rhyme
Cats fit on the windowsill
Children fit in the snow
Why do I feel I don't fit in anywhere I go?
Rivers belong where they can ramble
Eagles belong where they can fly
I've got to be where my spirit can run free
Got to find my corner of the sky
Sunday poetry
William Wordsworth
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
--
The world is too much with us; then and now,
We toil to buy and thus lay waste our powers;
Ignoring nature because she’s not ours;
We look at what we’ve lost and wonder how.
The sea, the mountains and the sun and moon;
The wind and rain that howl with such power,
Sometimes someone will stop to smell a flower
But mostly, we are deeply out of tune;
Earth moves us not when God we try to see
The pagan’s way is a defeated creed
The beauty that surrounds us remains free
Though hidden by our self-defeating greed.
So when you’re by a stream or at the sea
Remember that you’ve got all that you need.
Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-----
You’ve got two options. Both look good
But both you cannot take
Though if you could you surely would
Alas you can’t, that’s understood
So what choice should you make?
Well, this way looks to me quite fair
It seems the better claim
Except the other’s got less wear
Which makes me want to say “Go there!”
Alas I’m pulled by both the same.
So equally I’m drawn each way
And certainty I lack
Perhaps I won’t decide today!
Yet wanting not to fret and sway
I must choose one and not look back.
This tale I’ll recount with a sigh
In England, Germany and France
Alas, two roads diverged and I
I took the one less traveled by
Pour toujours vive la difference!
Saturday, June 13, 2009
brain dead judge brissenden
I hypothesize that I am not going to be very successful motivating masses of people to read and reflect on the 60-page 2008 Annual Report of The City of Eugene’s Civilian Oversight System: The Office of the Police Auditor (OPA) & the Civilian Review Board (CRB), prepared by Interim Eugene Police Auditor Dawn Marie Reynolds and Eugene Civilian Review Board Chair (Cottage Grove/Florence Municipal Court Judge) Richard Brissenden.
But the cost-effectiveness of trying doesn’t just depend on the total number of people influenced, it also depends on the value associated with communicating with the tiny subset that is. And I am 100% sure that anything I write about the report will motivate EPD Chief Kerns to go to his copy of the report which is already smeared in his fingerprints and see what I’m referring to. Since it’s cost-effective to increase the extent to which Pete is evidence-based, this is cost-effective behavior.
How can I be so sure that Chief Kerns is a total 2008 Annual Report OPA/CRB geek? Good question. Over the last 27 months, I’ve attended at least a dozen of the monthly meetings of the Eugene Police Commission. Former EPD Chief Robert Lehner (who has an MBA from the University of Arizona and now is Chief of Police in Elk Grove, CA) and Chief Pete Kerns understand that my primary purpose is to have 180 seconds to communicate with them. Until Thursday, every time I spoke during the public comments at an EPC meeting, Robbie, I mean Bob and Pete would look at me and remain silent and engage in other non-verbal behaviors communicating “I am listening.”
For the first few months, I really thought that Mr. Lehner was listening to me. Then one day, an alternative hypothesis occurred to me. “I have a Glock in my pocket. I can shoot her any time I want. The reason I am not shooting is not because I don’t want to but because I choose not to because this will be over in 47 seconds, I mean 46, 45, 44….”
But Thursday, Pete did not even pretend to listen to me, even though what I was saying would have been very interesting to him. I provided a list of a half-dozen as-yet-unindicted criminals who also happen to be sworn officers of the Eugene Police Department, some misdemeanorers (Warden, Solesbee) and some felons (McBride, Gilbert, Thompson). I provided a do-it-yourself kit for how their victims could file civil suits against them and the city of Eugene and Lane County in United States District Court.
Interim Chief Kerns did not even pretend to listen to me. Interim Police Auditor Reynolds had just handed him a copy of the 2008 Annual Report and he was flipping through it, pencil in hand just like I’d done ten minutes earlier when PA Reynolds gave me a copy. The point is that I hope and predict that Pete’s copy of Dawn’s report is going to get even more covered in his fingerprints than it already is.
In order to encourage class participation, here’s a little quiz. If Chief Kerns or Eugene Police Commissioner Ahlen, Valle, Miller or Dodge or City Councilor Clark or PAORC member Syrett or EPD Planner Phelps or EPC Coordinator Zimmer or Deputy PA Southworth of PA Office Assistant Cox anyone else at the meeting knows the answer, please reply to all.
1. The only place I’ve written f-curse you on the report so far is in response to a sentence on page 25. What is the sentence?
2. On page 5, CRB Chair Brissenden reveals that he discriminates on the basis of a feature that is deemed an illegal basis for discrimination by the United States government and other jurisdictions. This faux pas calls into question the claim that CRB members are “free from bias (p. 10)” as well as the claim that Mr. Brissenden is fit to be a migrant Lane County municipal court judge. What is the fax pas?
3. On page 3, Mr. Brissenden writes “In 2008 the cases the CRB reviewed focused on issues relating to the Fourth Amendment of the United States which prohibits unlawful searches and seizures of persons within the United States…In the cases we have reviewed we have seen we have seen [sic] a noticeable number of instances in which EPD officers should have sought a warrant before searching and in which the consent to search was either denied or was the result of undue pressure on the part of the officers. Examples of cases and OPA’s recommendations to EPD are detailed within this report.”
If City Attorney Glenn Klein had proofread this section, he would have suggested that CRB Chair Brissenden delete the extra “we have seen.” Mr. Klein also might have suggested deleting the whole paragraph. Why?
4. On page 3, Mr. Brissenden writes “We have also looked at three cases [in] which the civilians were minors and expressed our concern that EPD might want to reexamine its current practice of questioning children without their parent’s consent or permission [or presence]….In one case the board reviewed a minor was struck in the head by a flashlight and required treatment in a hospital. While there was disagreement as to whether the blow was intentional or not, the questioning of the minor (without the presence of an attorney or parent and while he was lying in a hospital bed) seemed inappropriate. As a result of the study of this case, the CRB recommended to the Police Commission, that they look into the use of metal flashlights. These flashlights are being abandoned by other police departments as they are too frequently used as impact weapons and can cause serious injury.”
It appears that the ambiguously described head injury to a minor caused by “a flashlight” was actually in instance of either assault or negligence by a Eugene Police Department officer. But migrant Judge Brissenden thinks it’s an issue about metal vs. plastic flashlights.
Why the heck is Mr. Brissenden a Municipal Court Judge in Cottage Grove and Florence? Have all of the residents of Cottage Grove and Florence who elected him been the victims of head injuries caused by flashlight-wielding Cottage Grove (such as former officer/Eugene resident Scott Graham, who was investigated by the FBI by not indicted by Assistant US Attorney Sean Hoar or LCDA Alex Gardner for publishing pornographic images of male minors on Flickr) and Florence police officers?
But the cost-effectiveness of trying doesn’t just depend on the total number of people influenced, it also depends on the value associated with communicating with the tiny subset that is. And I am 100% sure that anything I write about the report will motivate EPD Chief Kerns to go to his copy of the report which is already smeared in his fingerprints and see what I’m referring to. Since it’s cost-effective to increase the extent to which Pete is evidence-based, this is cost-effective behavior.
How can I be so sure that Chief Kerns is a total 2008 Annual Report OPA/CRB geek? Good question. Over the last 27 months, I’ve attended at least a dozen of the monthly meetings of the Eugene Police Commission. Former EPD Chief Robert Lehner (who has an MBA from the University of Arizona and now is Chief of Police in Elk Grove, CA) and Chief Pete Kerns understand that my primary purpose is to have 180 seconds to communicate with them. Until Thursday, every time I spoke during the public comments at an EPC meeting, Robbie, I mean Bob and Pete would look at me and remain silent and engage in other non-verbal behaviors communicating “I am listening.”
For the first few months, I really thought that Mr. Lehner was listening to me. Then one day, an alternative hypothesis occurred to me. “I have a Glock in my pocket. I can shoot her any time I want. The reason I am not shooting is not because I don’t want to but because I choose not to because this will be over in 47 seconds, I mean 46, 45, 44….”
But Thursday, Pete did not even pretend to listen to me, even though what I was saying would have been very interesting to him. I provided a list of a half-dozen as-yet-unindicted criminals who also happen to be sworn officers of the Eugene Police Department, some misdemeanorers (Warden, Solesbee) and some felons (McBride, Gilbert, Thompson). I provided a do-it-yourself kit for how their victims could file civil suits against them and the city of Eugene and Lane County in United States District Court.
Interim Chief Kerns did not even pretend to listen to me. Interim Police Auditor Reynolds had just handed him a copy of the 2008 Annual Report and he was flipping through it, pencil in hand just like I’d done ten minutes earlier when PA Reynolds gave me a copy. The point is that I hope and predict that Pete’s copy of Dawn’s report is going to get even more covered in his fingerprints than it already is.
In order to encourage class participation, here’s a little quiz. If Chief Kerns or Eugene Police Commissioner Ahlen, Valle, Miller or Dodge or City Councilor Clark or PAORC member Syrett or EPD Planner Phelps or EPC Coordinator Zimmer or Deputy PA Southworth of PA Office Assistant Cox anyone else at the meeting knows the answer, please reply to all.
1. The only place I’ve written f-curse you on the report so far is in response to a sentence on page 25. What is the sentence?
2. On page 5, CRB Chair Brissenden reveals that he discriminates on the basis of a feature that is deemed an illegal basis for discrimination by the United States government and other jurisdictions. This faux pas calls into question the claim that CRB members are “free from bias (p. 10)” as well as the claim that Mr. Brissenden is fit to be a migrant Lane County municipal court judge. What is the fax pas?
3. On page 3, Mr. Brissenden writes “In 2008 the cases the CRB reviewed focused on issues relating to the Fourth Amendment of the United States which prohibits unlawful searches and seizures of persons within the United States…In the cases we have reviewed we have seen we have seen [sic] a noticeable number of instances in which EPD officers should have sought a warrant before searching and in which the consent to search was either denied or was the result of undue pressure on the part of the officers. Examples of cases and OPA’s recommendations to EPD are detailed within this report.”
If City Attorney Glenn Klein had proofread this section, he would have suggested that CRB Chair Brissenden delete the extra “we have seen.” Mr. Klein also might have suggested deleting the whole paragraph. Why?
4. On page 3, Mr. Brissenden writes “We have also looked at three cases [in] which the civilians were minors and expressed our concern that EPD might want to reexamine its current practice of questioning children without their parent’s consent or permission [or presence]….In one case the board reviewed a minor was struck in the head by a flashlight and required treatment in a hospital. While there was disagreement as to whether the blow was intentional or not, the questioning of the minor (without the presence of an attorney or parent and while he was lying in a hospital bed) seemed inappropriate. As a result of the study of this case, the CRB recommended to the Police Commission, that they look into the use of metal flashlights. These flashlights are being abandoned by other police departments as they are too frequently used as impact weapons and can cause serious injury.”
It appears that the ambiguously described head injury to a minor caused by “a flashlight” was actually in instance of either assault or negligence by a Eugene Police Department officer. But migrant Judge Brissenden thinks it’s an issue about metal vs. plastic flashlights.
Why the heck is Mr. Brissenden a Municipal Court Judge in Cottage Grove and Florence? Have all of the residents of Cottage Grove and Florence who elected him been the victims of head injuries caused by flashlight-wielding Cottage Grove (such as former officer/Eugene resident Scott Graham, who was investigated by the FBI by not indicted by Assistant US Attorney Sean Hoar or LCDA Alex Gardner for publishing pornographic images of male minors on Flickr) and Florence police officers?
Thursday, June 11, 2009
jo miller
A Springfield businessman was sentenced Wednesday to 240 days in jail after pleading guilty to seven felony sex charges relating to his hiring of underage girls as prostitutes.
Prasath Boudavong, who owned Far Man restaurant for four years, pleaded guilty to three counts of third-degree rape and five counts of third-degree sodomy for sex acts with girls as young as 14 between November 2007 and April of this year.
Lane County Circuit Judge Jack Billings also placed the 56-year-old Boudavong on three years of court-supervised probation, ordered him to register as a sex offender, and banned him from contact with minors except those specified in writing by his probation officer. Boudavong also forfeited to the state a 2000 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck he reportedly used to transport the girls to a house where the sex acts took place because they were too young to drive.
A Lane County grand jury in April indicted Boudavong on those charges and on four counts each of promoting prostitution and compelling prostitution. The latter charge is a Measure 11 offense carrying a minimum prison term of five years and eight months.
However, as part of Boudavong’s plea deal, Lane County Deputy District Attorney JoAnn Miller agreed to dismiss all the prostitution charges. Boudavong had no criminal history, she told Billings, and her legal research suggested that the Legislature intended Oregon’s promoting and compelling prostitution offenses “to be directed at someone who’s the pimp, not the john.”
Prasath Boudavong, who owned Far Man restaurant for four years, pleaded guilty to three counts of third-degree rape and five counts of third-degree sodomy for sex acts with girls as young as 14 between November 2007 and April of this year.
Lane County Circuit Judge Jack Billings also placed the 56-year-old Boudavong on three years of court-supervised probation, ordered him to register as a sex offender, and banned him from contact with minors except those specified in writing by his probation officer. Boudavong also forfeited to the state a 2000 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck he reportedly used to transport the girls to a house where the sex acts took place because they were too young to drive.
A Lane County grand jury in April indicted Boudavong on those charges and on four counts each of promoting prostitution and compelling prostitution. The latter charge is a Measure 11 offense carrying a minimum prison term of five years and eight months.
However, as part of Boudavong’s plea deal, Lane County Deputy District Attorney JoAnn Miller agreed to dismiss all the prostitution charges. Boudavong had no criminal history, she told Billings, and her legal research suggested that the Legislature intended Oregon’s promoting and compelling prostitution offenses “to be directed at someone who’s the pimp, not the john.”
shame on senate
WASHINGTON – Congress struck the government's strongest anti-smoking blow in decades Thursday with a Senate vote to give regulators new power to limit nicotine in cigarettes, drastically curtail ads and ban candied tobacco products aimed at young people.
Cigarette foes say the changes could cut into the 400,000 deaths every year caused by smoking and reduce the $100 billion in annual health care costs linked to tobacco.
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Wow. After 40 years of resisting the forces trying to allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate nicotine-containing products like cigarettes, the United States Senate finally succumbed.
Opponents, led by Republican Sen. Richard Burr of the tobacco-growing state of North Carolina, argued that the FDA, which is in charge of ensuring the safety of food and drug products, was the wrong place to regulate an item that is injurious to health.
Good point, Senator Burr. Also, once the Federal government starts telling us what we can and cannot breathe in, who knows where it will end. What next, government regulation of air?
STOP THE MADNESS - call your senator and just say no to FDA regulation of nicotine!
Cigarette foes say the changes could cut into the 400,000 deaths every year caused by smoking and reduce the $100 billion in annual health care costs linked to tobacco.
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Wow. After 40 years of resisting the forces trying to allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate nicotine-containing products like cigarettes, the United States Senate finally succumbed.
Opponents, led by Republican Sen. Richard Burr of the tobacco-growing state of North Carolina, argued that the FDA, which is in charge of ensuring the safety of food and drug products, was the wrong place to regulate an item that is injurious to health.
Good point, Senator Burr. Also, once the Federal government starts telling us what we can and cannot breathe in, who knows where it will end. What next, government regulation of air?
STOP THE MADNESS - call your senator and just say no to FDA regulation of nicotine!
meadowlark final exam
Meadowlark Elementary School
Final Exam
June, 2009
SECTION A
For each of the following duos, circle the one that is the most transgendered.
1. Starsky and Hutch
2. Cagney and Lacey
3. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
4. Thelma and Louise
5. George and Barbara Bush
6. Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse
7. Sonny and Cher
SECTION B (Multiple choice)
1. The type of couple that was singled out as attention-worthy in the exhibit funded by 4J Superintendent George Russell, endorsed by Meadowlark Elementary School Principal BJ Blake and created by Sally Sheklow of CALC was:
a. white man, African-American woman
b. African-American man, Latino man
c. Latino woman, albino man
d. white woman, white woman
e. Asian woman, African-American man
2. The take-home message of the edjewcational exhibit endorsed by Principal Blake is:
a. you should not be judgmental of people, even those who choose to shack up with people who are genetically predisposed to produce a different amount of melanin than they are.
b. you should not be judgmental of people, even those who bully other people into referring to them with pronouns that do not correspond to their chromosomes
c. who the heck knows
d. a and b
e. c and d
3. If a<3 and b<7, then a+b must be:
a. >pi
b. <10
c. who are we to say what a+b “must” be?
d. a and c
4. The name of the Marist Catholic High “School” student who threatened to bomb Marist Catholic High School is named ________ and his cousin, the O’Hara Catholic “School” student who threatened to bomb O’Hara Catholoic “School” is named ___________.
a. Courageous Cat, Minute Mouse
b. Minute Mouse, Courageous Cat
c. Kalen Dennis, Kurtis Stewart
d. Kurtis Stewart, Kalen Dennis
5. The lawyer for Kalen Dennis (Mark Spence) was the campaign manager for Lane County Circus Court Judge:
a. Debra Vogt
b. Greg Foote
c. Mary Ann Bearden
d. Debra Vogt
e. b and c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu4r7sAe9XM
Final Exam
June, 2009
SECTION A
For each of the following duos, circle the one that is the most transgendered.
1. Starsky and Hutch
2. Cagney and Lacey
3. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
4. Thelma and Louise
5. George and Barbara Bush
6. Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse
7. Sonny and Cher
SECTION B (Multiple choice)
1. The type of couple that was singled out as attention-worthy in the exhibit funded by 4J Superintendent George Russell, endorsed by Meadowlark Elementary School Principal BJ Blake and created by Sally Sheklow of CALC was:
a. white man, African-American woman
b. African-American man, Latino man
c. Latino woman, albino man
d. white woman, white woman
e. Asian woman, African-American man
2. The take-home message of the edjewcational exhibit endorsed by Principal Blake is:
a. you should not be judgmental of people, even those who choose to shack up with people who are genetically predisposed to produce a different amount of melanin than they are.
b. you should not be judgmental of people, even those who bully other people into referring to them with pronouns that do not correspond to their chromosomes
c. who the heck knows
d. a and b
e. c and d
3. If a<3 and b<7, then a+b must be:
a. >pi
b. <10
c. who are we to say what a+b “must” be?
d. a and c
4. The name of the Marist Catholic High “School” student who threatened to bomb Marist Catholic High School is named ________ and his cousin, the O’Hara Catholic “School” student who threatened to bomb O’Hara Catholoic “School” is named ___________.
a. Courageous Cat, Minute Mouse
b. Minute Mouse, Courageous Cat
c. Kalen Dennis, Kurtis Stewart
d. Kurtis Stewart, Kalen Dennis
5. The lawyer for Kalen Dennis (Mark Spence) was the campaign manager for Lane County Circus Court Judge:
a. Debra Vogt
b. Greg Foote
c. Mary Ann Bearden
d. Debra Vogt
e. b and c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu4r7sAe9XM
budget brouhaha
Around the same time I got an Oregon Trail (food stamps) card in April, I had to collect coins from under the seats in my car in order to pay my electric bill. I realized I needed to cut down on my expenses. I curtailed the habit of making handouts for police policy meetings (e.g., Eugene Police Commission, Eugene Civilian Review Board, Eugene Police Auditor Ordinance Committee, Lane County Public Safety Coordinating Council).
But yesterday, on the way to the cancelled PSCC meeting in the Buford Conference Room in LCOG’s new digs on the 5th floor of 859 Willamette (they rent out the fourth floor to corporate tenants, thus increasing the profitability of the acquisition), I stopped at the Kinko’s at 13th and Willamette to make a copy of four graphs I had cut and pasted onto a single sheet of paper as a preface to my opinion about whether Lane County should dip into savings to spend more money on prosecution and incarceration services in FY’10, as alleged by the DA, Sheriff and all 15 Circuit Court Judges. I parked next to the elaborate memorial for David Minor who was killed by a motor vehicle while bicycling at this intersection.
The four graphs are from a report called “One in 100: Behind Bars in America in 2008” by the Pew Centers for the States.
The first graph is on page 5 and shows that between 1987 and 2007, the prison population in the United States tripled from about 600,000 to 1,600,000. The second graph is on page 34 and shows that the United States leads the world in terms of per capita incarceration. At 750/100,000, the US incarcerates about 10 times as many people as France (85/100,000), Switzerland (79/100,000) and Italy (67/100,000).
The third graph is on page 14 and ranks all 50 states in terms of percentage of general fund spent on corrections. Oregon is number 1 in the country. The fourth graph is page 16 and shows the ratio of corrections to education spending. Oregon is number 3 in the country.
So the United States spends more on corrections than any other country and Oregon spends more on corrections than any other state. This is the starting point for the debate between Commissioners Fleenor, Handy and Sorenson versus Stewart and Green about the optimal amount of FY’10 Lane County, Oregon corrections spending.
Some more useful information - Oregon’s unemployment rate (12%) is second only to Michigan.
Lane County’s unemployment rate (13.6%) is above average for Oregon.
Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner was quoted by a local television station a few months ago as saying that the percentage of Lane County’s General Fund that goes to “public safety” was down from 71% to 57%. The implication (which was not supported by evidence or argument) is that 71/29 is a better ratio of “public safety to other” than 57/43. Public safety is a euphemism for Prosecution, Incarceration and Slammer Services (PISS). “Other” is a euphemism for Health, Education and other Affirming of Life Services (HEALS). Sheriff Burger, DA Gardner and Judge Bearden and their cronies on the Lane County Board of Commissioners (Stewart and Dwyer) believe 71/29 is a better PISS/HEALS ratio than 57/43.
I talked to a woman in the budget department in Linn County. She said that when you add in the dedicated tax levy for public safety, the ratio of public safety to other spending is about 57%. She said that’s typical for Oregon.
So LCDA Alex Gardner thinks that in addition to having an unemployment rate that’s above average for Oregon which is second in the nation, Lane County should have a public safety spending that’s above average for Oregon, which is first in the nation (see 1 in 100, page 14).
Alex Gardner ran unopposed for DA in November, 2008 because 36% of registered voters chose him when he ran unopposed in the May primary. When the R-G wrote about him, he was quoted as bragging that he was granted early admission to the University of Oregon as a psychology major. Mr. Gardner appears to believe that being smarter than the typical UO psychology major is a noteworthy accomplishment. The lack of veracity of this belief is painfully clear to anyone who has taught psychology at the University of Oregon or anyone who has interacted with Mr. Gardner.
But yesterday, on the way to the cancelled PSCC meeting in the Buford Conference Room in LCOG’s new digs on the 5th floor of 859 Willamette (they rent out the fourth floor to corporate tenants, thus increasing the profitability of the acquisition), I stopped at the Kinko’s at 13th and Willamette to make a copy of four graphs I had cut and pasted onto a single sheet of paper as a preface to my opinion about whether Lane County should dip into savings to spend more money on prosecution and incarceration services in FY’10, as alleged by the DA, Sheriff and all 15 Circuit Court Judges. I parked next to the elaborate memorial for David Minor who was killed by a motor vehicle while bicycling at this intersection.
The four graphs are from a report called “One in 100: Behind Bars in America in 2008” by the Pew Centers for the States.
The first graph is on page 5 and shows that between 1987 and 2007, the prison population in the United States tripled from about 600,000 to 1,600,000. The second graph is on page 34 and shows that the United States leads the world in terms of per capita incarceration. At 750/100,000, the US incarcerates about 10 times as many people as France (85/100,000), Switzerland (79/100,000) and Italy (67/100,000).
The third graph is on page 14 and ranks all 50 states in terms of percentage of general fund spent on corrections. Oregon is number 1 in the country. The fourth graph is page 16 and shows the ratio of corrections to education spending. Oregon is number 3 in the country.
So the United States spends more on corrections than any other country and Oregon spends more on corrections than any other state. This is the starting point for the debate between Commissioners Fleenor, Handy and Sorenson versus Stewart and Green about the optimal amount of FY’10 Lane County, Oregon corrections spending.
Some more useful information - Oregon’s unemployment rate (12%) is second only to Michigan.
Lane County’s unemployment rate (13.6%) is above average for Oregon.
Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner was quoted by a local television station a few months ago as saying that the percentage of Lane County’s General Fund that goes to “public safety” was down from 71% to 57%. The implication (which was not supported by evidence or argument) is that 71/29 is a better ratio of “public safety to other” than 57/43. Public safety is a euphemism for Prosecution, Incarceration and Slammer Services (PISS). “Other” is a euphemism for Health, Education and other Affirming of Life Services (HEALS). Sheriff Burger, DA Gardner and Judge Bearden and their cronies on the Lane County Board of Commissioners (Stewart and Dwyer) believe 71/29 is a better PISS/HEALS ratio than 57/43.
I talked to a woman in the budget department in Linn County. She said that when you add in the dedicated tax levy for public safety, the ratio of public safety to other spending is about 57%. She said that’s typical for Oregon.
So LCDA Alex Gardner thinks that in addition to having an unemployment rate that’s above average for Oregon which is second in the nation, Lane County should have a public safety spending that’s above average for Oregon, which is first in the nation (see 1 in 100, page 14).
Alex Gardner ran unopposed for DA in November, 2008 because 36% of registered voters chose him when he ran unopposed in the May primary. When the R-G wrote about him, he was quoted as bragging that he was granted early admission to the University of Oregon as a psychology major. Mr. Gardner appears to believe that being smarter than the typical UO psychology major is a noteworthy accomplishment. The lack of veracity of this belief is painfully clear to anyone who has taught psychology at the University of Oregon or anyone who has interacted with Mr. Gardner.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
gardner, burger & bearden
There was a Lane County Public Safety Coordinating Council meeting listed in the Register Guard today at 3:00. I was excited because the meeting was in town at the new LCOG mansion (859 Willamette) and not out by Autzen at the Serbu Center for Young Hoodlums, Scofflaws and Ne'er-do-wells.
Unfortunately, the Sofa, oops sorry, I mean Chair of the PSCC, Lane County Commissioner Faye Stewart chose not to inform the public that the meeting was cancelled, choosing to waste the time of Carol Berg-Caldwell and me. Faye did not want to expend the extra calories it would have taken to cc: me and Ms. Berg-Caldwell on the email he sent to the members (and I do mean members!) of the PSCC canceling the meeting– LCDA Alex Gardner, LCCC Presiding Judge Mary Ann Bearden, EPD Chief Kerns, SPD Chief Smith, LC Sheriff Burger, DA Gardner, OSP Lieutenant Bloom, Eugene City Councilor Solomon and the snivilian members (Tim Laue, Paul Solomon, Gretchen Pearce – you know, randomly chosen citizens).
There’s a battle going on between Lane County Commissioners Fleenor, Sorenson and Handy against Commissioners Stewart and Dwyer and Sheriff Burglar and DA Gardner and the 15 Lane County Circus Court judges and the Eugene Register Guard regarding funding for the jail.
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/opinion/15150757-47/story.csp
What arrogance for the R-G and DA Gardner and Sheriff Burger and Judge Bearden to try to thwart the will of the majority of the Lane County Board of Commissioners and the majority of the Lane County Budget Committee.
The 3/5 =60% of the commissioners who are opposed to more money for prosecution and incarceration (Handy/Sorenson/Fleenor) represent more than 60% of the residents of Lane County. Faye Stewart’s area called East Lane extends as far west as Crow. While it is larger than all four other areas combined, it probably is the least densely populated. (Somehow, this does not surprise me.)
So while Handy/Sorenson/Fleenor represent 60% of the Lane County Board of Commissioners, their constituents probably represent more than 60% of Lane County residents. Add to that the fact that the average constituent of Handy (north Eugene), Sorenson (south Eugene) or Fleenor (west Lane) has pi times as many neurons as the average constituent of Dwyer (Springfield) or Stewart (east Lane), and you begin to see how arrogant it is for the Lane County Circuit Court, District Attorney and Sheriff, in conjunction with the Eugene Register Guard to try to bully the majority of commissioners out of their opinion. Voters have rejected taxes for prosecution and incarceration nine times. 60% of the commissioners who represent more than 60% of residents are opposed. But Gardner, Burger and Bearden know better than everyone else.
Isn't it time for Stewart to find a real job and for Dwyer to be put out to pasture?
And I realize that Sheriff Burger, DA Gardner and Presiding Judge Bearden hate democracy, but they are just going to have to get used to it.
Unfortunately, the Sofa, oops sorry, I mean Chair of the PSCC, Lane County Commissioner Faye Stewart chose not to inform the public that the meeting was cancelled, choosing to waste the time of Carol Berg-Caldwell and me. Faye did not want to expend the extra calories it would have taken to cc: me and Ms. Berg-Caldwell on the email he sent to the members (and I do mean members!) of the PSCC canceling the meeting– LCDA Alex Gardner, LCCC Presiding Judge Mary Ann Bearden, EPD Chief Kerns, SPD Chief Smith, LC Sheriff Burger, DA Gardner, OSP Lieutenant Bloom, Eugene City Councilor Solomon and the snivilian members (Tim Laue, Paul Solomon, Gretchen Pearce – you know, randomly chosen citizens).
There’s a battle going on between Lane County Commissioners Fleenor, Sorenson and Handy against Commissioners Stewart and Dwyer and Sheriff Burglar and DA Gardner and the 15 Lane County Circus Court judges and the Eugene Register Guard regarding funding for the jail.
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/opinion/15150757-47/story.csp
What arrogance for the R-G and DA Gardner and Sheriff Burger and Judge Bearden to try to thwart the will of the majority of the Lane County Board of Commissioners and the majority of the Lane County Budget Committee.
The 3/5 =60% of the commissioners who are opposed to more money for prosecution and incarceration (Handy/Sorenson/Fleenor) represent more than 60% of the residents of Lane County. Faye Stewart’s area called East Lane extends as far west as Crow. While it is larger than all four other areas combined, it probably is the least densely populated. (Somehow, this does not surprise me.)
So while Handy/Sorenson/Fleenor represent 60% of the Lane County Board of Commissioners, their constituents probably represent more than 60% of Lane County residents. Add to that the fact that the average constituent of Handy (north Eugene), Sorenson (south Eugene) or Fleenor (west Lane) has pi times as many neurons as the average constituent of Dwyer (Springfield) or Stewart (east Lane), and you begin to see how arrogant it is for the Lane County Circuit Court, District Attorney and Sheriff, in conjunction with the Eugene Register Guard to try to bully the majority of commissioners out of their opinion. Voters have rejected taxes for prosecution and incarceration nine times. 60% of the commissioners who represent more than 60% of residents are opposed. But Gardner, Burger and Bearden know better than everyone else.
Isn't it time for Stewart to find a real job and for Dwyer to be put out to pasture?
And I realize that Sheriff Burger, DA Gardner and Presiding Judge Bearden hate democracy, but they are just going to have to get used to it.
Lame Crooks, Oafs & Grifters
Public Workshop – Mark Your Calendars!
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Location: Eugene Water & Electric Board Training Center (500 East 4th Avenue in Eugene)
Workshop Agenda: Presentation starting at 6:00 followed by opportunity to provide input for your vision for the Willamette River.
Workshop Flyer:
Forum sponsors and partners in this effort include:
* Lane Council of Governments
* McKenzie Watershed Council
* The Nature Conservancy
* City of Eugene
* McKenzie River Trust
* City of Springfield
* Willamalane Park & Recreation District
* Lane County Parks
* Eugene Water & Electric Board
* Willamette Riverkeeper
* Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission
For More Information: go to www.lcog.org/willamette
Contact: Jeff Krueger, Lane Council of Governments, jkrueger@lcog.org
-----------
5:52 p.m.
EWEB Training Center
Where’s the sign-up sheet for public comments?
Go straight down the hallway to that table.
Thanks.
Grrr. This isn’t a sign-up sheet for public comments. It’s just a sign in sheet to bring back to LCOG and the funding agencies (EWEB, Eugene, Willamalane, McKenzie River Trust, Lane County) to show how many people participated! Aaarrggh. WHERE IS THE SIGN-UP SHEET FOR PUBLIC COMMENTS?!?!?!?!
You must be Deb. I’m Jeff Krueger from LCOG. Nice to meet you.
Hi, Jeff. My ex-ex (or ex-ex-ex depending on how you count), anyway, my favorite ex used to work for LCOG. You bought our house at 26th and Monroe. Nice to see you too. Look, my 180 seconds of public comment is not going to focus on the Willamette River, the focus of tonight’s meeting. I’m going to focus on how this meeting is a spectacular example of how pathological LCOG is and how Lane County’s survival depends on its elimination. I just wanted to check to make sure you’re not going to interrupt me for focusing on LCOG and not on the Willamette River the way that the chair of the Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission did the other day.
Actually, Deb, I will call you on it if you deviate from the focus of tonight’s meeting.
Uh, Jeff, any aggression you exhibit toward my first amendment during public comments tonight will be retaliated against via pixels tomorrow. I promise, you really want to be totally chill about how I use my 180 seconds tonight, dude. Okay, bro? Now, WHERE IS THE SIGNUP SHEET FOR PUBLIC COMMENTS?!?!?!??!?!
Oh, there are no public comments. There are five or six stations where you can chat informally with random employees of the funding agencies who are not acting in their official capacities but are merely here to transfer your verbal comments to huge sheets of butcher block paper via crayon or sharpie (your choice!). Hey, I gotta go. Great to meet you, Deb.
You too, Jeff.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Location: Eugene Water & Electric Board Training Center (500 East 4th Avenue in Eugene)
Workshop Agenda: Presentation starting at 6:00 followed by opportunity to provide input for your vision for the Willamette River.
Workshop Flyer:
Forum sponsors and partners in this effort include:
* Lane Council of Governments
* McKenzie Watershed Council
* The Nature Conservancy
* City of Eugene
* McKenzie River Trust
* City of Springfield
* Willamalane Park & Recreation District
* Lane County Parks
* Eugene Water & Electric Board
* Willamette Riverkeeper
* Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission
For More Information: go to www.lcog.org/willamette
Contact: Jeff Krueger, Lane Council of Governments, jkrueger@lcog.org
-----------
5:52 p.m.
EWEB Training Center
Where’s the sign-up sheet for public comments?
Go straight down the hallway to that table.
Thanks.
Grrr. This isn’t a sign-up sheet for public comments. It’s just a sign in sheet to bring back to LCOG and the funding agencies (EWEB, Eugene, Willamalane, McKenzie River Trust, Lane County) to show how many people participated! Aaarrggh. WHERE IS THE SIGN-UP SHEET FOR PUBLIC COMMENTS?!?!?!?!
You must be Deb. I’m Jeff Krueger from LCOG. Nice to meet you.
Hi, Jeff. My ex-ex (or ex-ex-ex depending on how you count), anyway, my favorite ex used to work for LCOG. You bought our house at 26th and Monroe. Nice to see you too. Look, my 180 seconds of public comment is not going to focus on the Willamette River, the focus of tonight’s meeting. I’m going to focus on how this meeting is a spectacular example of how pathological LCOG is and how Lane County’s survival depends on its elimination. I just wanted to check to make sure you’re not going to interrupt me for focusing on LCOG and not on the Willamette River the way that the chair of the Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission did the other day.
Actually, Deb, I will call you on it if you deviate from the focus of tonight’s meeting.
Uh, Jeff, any aggression you exhibit toward my first amendment during public comments tonight will be retaliated against via pixels tomorrow. I promise, you really want to be totally chill about how I use my 180 seconds tonight, dude. Okay, bro? Now, WHERE IS THE SIGNUP SHEET FOR PUBLIC COMMENTS?!?!?!??!?!
Oh, there are no public comments. There are five or six stations where you can chat informally with random employees of the funding agencies who are not acting in their official capacities but are merely here to transfer your verbal comments to huge sheets of butcher block paper via crayon or sharpie (your choice!). Hey, I gotta go. Great to meet you, Deb.
You too, Jeff.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
dammit, willamette
Inviting public discourse in Eugene can be a two-edged sword, Moll and Ziller acknowledge. There will be people who want a river flowing free without constraints, sitting down with those who own property along it and who bear the brunt of impacts when the river shifts its flow. But public involvement wards off a worse problem, Moll said.
“When you’re dealing with public resources, the biggest danger is apathy,” he said.
The “open spaces” concept isn’t just about the parks, trails and other recreation facilities along the river, said Jeff Krueger, a landscape architect with Lane Council of Governments, which is organizing Tuesday’s workshop. It also involves private land owners, whose practices can have significant impacts.
The planning effort is much like the Rivers to Ridges project LCOG organized in 2003, Krueger said. That was a coordinated effort by local planners to map out potential parks, trail systems and habitat restoration projects from Fern Ridge to the Coburg Hills and from Creswell to Junction City.
Such plans may feel a little squishy because they have no regulatory teeth. They don’t require that anyone do anything, Krueger acknowledged.
“When you’re dealing with public resources, the biggest danger is apathy,” he said.
The “open spaces” concept isn’t just about the parks, trails and other recreation facilities along the river, said Jeff Krueger, a landscape architect with Lane Council of Governments, which is organizing Tuesday’s workshop. It also involves private land owners, whose practices can have significant impacts.
The planning effort is much like the Rivers to Ridges project LCOG organized in 2003, Krueger said. That was a coordinated effort by local planners to map out potential parks, trail systems and habitat restoration projects from Fern Ridge to the Coburg Hills and from Creswell to Junction City.
Such plans may feel a little squishy because they have no regulatory teeth. They don’t require that anyone do anything, Krueger acknowledged.
salisbury hill
June 7, 2009
A legal skirmish on a hilltop in southwest Eugene has pitted well-to-do homeowners against a developer of multi-million dollar mansions.
The 1½-year-old battle over the development of a 10-acre pasture along Hawkins Lane has been fought through the city’s land use process, a circuit court hearing and mediation — and onto the Oregon Court of Appeals.
The developer wants to subdivide the pasture for up to 35 houses. But neighbors say homeowners association rules allow him to build no more than one house.
Lawyers fees in the dispute broke the $100,000 mark and are likely to go higher in what one neighbor laments as a war of attrition waged through the courts.
And neighbors in the Hawkins View subdivision are “prepared to go the distance,” said attorney Jeff Salisbury, who lives near the disputed pasture and who’s representing the neighborhood association.
July 8, 2008
September 5, 2008
A legal skirmish on a hilltop in southwest Eugene has pitted well-to-do homeowners against a developer of multi-million dollar mansions.
The 1½-year-old battle over the development of a 10-acre pasture along Hawkins Lane has been fought through the city’s land use process, a circuit court hearing and mediation — and onto the Oregon Court of Appeals.
The developer wants to subdivide the pasture for up to 35 houses. But neighbors say homeowners association rules allow him to build no more than one house.
Lawyers fees in the dispute broke the $100,000 mark and are likely to go higher in what one neighbor laments as a war of attrition waged through the courts.
And neighbors in the Hawkins View subdivision are “prepared to go the distance,” said attorney Jeff Salisbury, who lives near the disputed pasture and who’s representing the neighborhood association.
July 8, 2008
September 5, 2008
Monday, June 8, 2009
dimaggio and braud
On May 15, 1941, New York Yankee outfielder Joe DiMaggio began a 56-game hitting streak — the centerpiece of a legendary career transcending baseball and immortalizing DiMaggio. Sunday, Marist High infielder Kayla Braud concludes a prep softball career with her graduation — a day after she will attempt to defend her team’s state championship and extend her own streak to 103 games.
Make no mistake: Kayla is an elite athlete heading to a powerhouse program at the University of Alabama. She’s a young woman of great talent who possesses a work ethic that values sacrifice, discipline and effort. But these are the very qualities that define Kayla off of the field and demand that her community — Marist, Eugene, Lane County and Oregon — applaud Kayla for what her own immortal record actually represents.
Joe DiMaggio’s brother Dominic wrote Joe’s epitaph: “Dignity, grace, elegance personified.” A fitting description, also, of Kayla Braud the student and Kayla Braud the athlete.
Billy Ferrari, AP English teacher, Marist High Skule, Eugene, OR
Eugene Register Guard June 4, 2009
Mr. Ferrari’s Marist High School English class today
Good morning, class. I know your assignment over the weekend was to reread the essay you wrote about The Catcher in the Rye by Holden Caufield, oops sorry, I mean J.D. Salinger (aarrggh! why is that so hard for me to remember?!) in October and the essay you wrote about Chaucer’s, I mean Shakespeare’s Hamlet in February and to try to integrate the insights therein regarding selfhood, self-determinacy and the illusion of free will.
The plan was that students would voluntarily read sections of their essays and we’d have a class discussion based on your individual essays. But I’ve changed my mind.
[Heckler: How can you change something you don’t have?]
I want you to sit at your desks quietly and write essays comparing and contrasting the 1941 hitting streak by former New York Yankee Joe DiMaggio and the 2009 hitting streak by Marist High School Spartan Kayla Braud. Discuss at least seven similarities between Yankee DiMaggio and Spartan Braud and if time permits, discuss a difference.
Please excuse me while I go to the teacher’s room to watch reruns of fake University of Oregon students dressed in excruciatingly tight groin-and-thigh-revealing-knickers engage in homoerotic interpersonal contact while ostensibly trying to kick a dead pig over an elevated and horizontally situated piece of aluminum.
Dear Mr. Ferrari,
Thank you for providing yet another example of what a stupid Catholic moron you are and an opportunity to communicate my opinion of your AP English class and this pisspoor excuse for an educational institutional that my Catholic nutcase sperm and egg donors forced me to attend instead of allowing me the privilege of attending a school with an evidence-based curriculum collaboratively designed by educators and parents such as 4J or Bethel. [I realize the phrase “Catholic moron” is redundant and I apologize for my lack of pithiness.]
[to be completed at a later date]
Sincerely,
A student
P.S. What did the priest say to the altar boy?
Mmmm….ass!!!!!
Make no mistake: Kayla is an elite athlete heading to a powerhouse program at the University of Alabama. She’s a young woman of great talent who possesses a work ethic that values sacrifice, discipline and effort. But these are the very qualities that define Kayla off of the field and demand that her community — Marist, Eugene, Lane County and Oregon — applaud Kayla for what her own immortal record actually represents.
Joe DiMaggio’s brother Dominic wrote Joe’s epitaph: “Dignity, grace, elegance personified.” A fitting description, also, of Kayla Braud the student and Kayla Braud the athlete.
Billy Ferrari, AP English teacher, Marist High Skule, Eugene, OR
Eugene Register Guard June 4, 2009
Mr. Ferrari’s Marist High School English class today
Good morning, class. I know your assignment over the weekend was to reread the essay you wrote about The Catcher in the Rye by Holden Caufield, oops sorry, I mean J.D. Salinger (aarrggh! why is that so hard for me to remember?!) in October and the essay you wrote about Chaucer’s, I mean Shakespeare’s Hamlet in February and to try to integrate the insights therein regarding selfhood, self-determinacy and the illusion of free will.
The plan was that students would voluntarily read sections of their essays and we’d have a class discussion based on your individual essays. But I’ve changed my mind.
[Heckler: How can you change something you don’t have?]
I want you to sit at your desks quietly and write essays comparing and contrasting the 1941 hitting streak by former New York Yankee Joe DiMaggio and the 2009 hitting streak by Marist High School Spartan Kayla Braud. Discuss at least seven similarities between Yankee DiMaggio and Spartan Braud and if time permits, discuss a difference.
Please excuse me while I go to the teacher’s room to watch reruns of fake University of Oregon students dressed in excruciatingly tight groin-and-thigh-revealing-knickers engage in homoerotic interpersonal contact while ostensibly trying to kick a dead pig over an elevated and horizontally situated piece of aluminum.
Dear Mr. Ferrari,
Thank you for providing yet another example of what a stupid Catholic moron you are and an opportunity to communicate my opinion of your AP English class and this pisspoor excuse for an educational institutional that my Catholic nutcase sperm and egg donors forced me to attend instead of allowing me the privilege of attending a school with an evidence-based curriculum collaboratively designed by educators and parents such as 4J or Bethel. [I realize the phrase “Catholic moron” is redundant and I apologize for my lack of pithiness.]
[to be completed at a later date]
Sincerely,
A student
P.S. What did the priest say to the altar boy?
Mmmm….ass!!!!!
Sunday, June 7, 2009
saudi cinema
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – For the first time in three decades, Saudis in the nation's capital did something that most Westerners take for granted — they went to the movies. But it wasn't exactly date night. No women were allowed.
Friday, June 5, 2009
dimwit corbett
I was the first person to comment at the May 21 meeting about the “Shared Community/Mixed Identities” photo display at Meadowlark and Buena Vista elementary schools, and let me repeat the words that I opened with there.
No one should be harassed by anyone for the clothes they wear, for the color of their skin, for the person they choose to be with, the person they choose to be, the opinion they may have or anything else I may have left out.
Everyone deserves respect until something is done to lose that respect.
We are discussing two issues here. One is accepting people based on their race and ethnic background. And two is sexual orientation.
There is a difference. This photo array attempted to mask the second issue.
No one should be harassed by anyone for the clothes they wear, for the color of their skin, for the person they choose to be with, the person they choose to be, the opinion they may have or anything else I may have left out.
Everyone deserves respect until something is done to lose that respect.
We are discussing two issues here. One is accepting people based on their race and ethnic background. And two is sexual orientation.
There is a difference. This photo array attempted to mask the second issue.
taxpayer-funded felon
HOUSTON —
A convicted federal judge told the president Tuesday he would resign from the bench in June 2010, nearly a year after he enters prison for lying about sexually abusing two assistants.
U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent would draw a full salary of $174,000 a year and benefits until the resignation takes effect, said his lawyer, Dick DeGuerin. Kent decided on the delay so his wife, who has a brain tumor and other serious medical problems, could retain health benefits, DeGuerin said.
The resignation was submitted a week after denial of Kent's request to retire on disability due to depression - which would have allowed him to continue receiving his full salary for the rest of his life. By resigning, he gets nothing after next year.
Kent, 59, is resigning to try and avoid the "spectacle" of an impeachment process by Congress, DeGuerin said. The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday, and both women he victimized are scheduled to speak.
"Judge Kent's own actions continue to prove that he is unworthy of public service," said U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, the ranking Republican on the committee. "This is an outrageous abuse of authority and defies the very principles of justice Judge Kent swore to uphold."
According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, there is no procedure to reject a federal judge's resignation notice. The only way a federal judge can be removed is through impeachment.
Kent was invited to speak at the hearing as well, but will not attend. DeGuerin said there is no reason to continue with the impeachment. "He's been completely defeated," DeGuerin said.
Last month, Kent was sentenced to 33 months in prison, fined $1,000 and ordered to pay $6,550 in restitution to his former secretary and his case manager, whose complaints resulted in the first sex abuse case against a sitting federal judge. As part of a plea deal, Kent admitted he tried to force the case manager into unwanted sex acts in August 2003 and March 2007, and did the same with his secretary from 2004 through at least 2005.
Kent is set to report to prison June 15.
A convicted federal judge told the president Tuesday he would resign from the bench in June 2010, nearly a year after he enters prison for lying about sexually abusing two assistants.
U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent would draw a full salary of $174,000 a year and benefits until the resignation takes effect, said his lawyer, Dick DeGuerin. Kent decided on the delay so his wife, who has a brain tumor and other serious medical problems, could retain health benefits, DeGuerin said.
The resignation was submitted a week after denial of Kent's request to retire on disability due to depression - which would have allowed him to continue receiving his full salary for the rest of his life. By resigning, he gets nothing after next year.
Kent, 59, is resigning to try and avoid the "spectacle" of an impeachment process by Congress, DeGuerin said. The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday, and both women he victimized are scheduled to speak.
"Judge Kent's own actions continue to prove that he is unworthy of public service," said U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, the ranking Republican on the committee. "This is an outrageous abuse of authority and defies the very principles of justice Judge Kent swore to uphold."
According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, there is no procedure to reject a federal judge's resignation notice. The only way a federal judge can be removed is through impeachment.
Kent was invited to speak at the hearing as well, but will not attend. DeGuerin said there is no reason to continue with the impeachment. "He's been completely defeated," DeGuerin said.
Last month, Kent was sentenced to 33 months in prison, fined $1,000 and ordered to pay $6,550 in restitution to his former secretary and his case manager, whose complaints resulted in the first sex abuse case against a sitting federal judge. As part of a plea deal, Kent admitted he tried to force the case manager into unwanted sex acts in August 2003 and March 2007, and did the same with his secretary from 2004 through at least 2005.
Kent is set to report to prison June 15.
monsieur coughenour
SEATTLE — A federal judge in Seattle says he may overturn part of a jury verdict that cleared a Kent police officer in a shooting that wounded a passenger in a stolen car.
Judge John Coughenour (COON'-our) told lawyers he had very serious reservations about the verdict that exonerated Officer Jason Clift.
Judge John Coughenour (COON'-our) told lawyers he had very serious reservations about the verdict that exonerated Officer Jason Clift.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
touche, tc
On May 8, 2009 I submitted a civil complaint at the Wayne L. Morse United States Courthouse against Lane County and the cities of Eugene and Springfield and seven of their employees. I also filed a motion to proceed in forma pauperis.
On June 3, 2009 Federal Judge Thomas M. Coffin issued an order to proceed in forma pauperis and an order to dismiss re: 09-cv-6126-TC. The eight page response to the 43 statements in my twelve page complaint begins by saying “Plaintiff’s Application to proceed in forma pauperis is allowed. However, for the reasons set forth below, plaintiff’s complaint is dismissed, without service of process, on the basis that it is frivolous.” It ends by saying that I have 30 days to “file an amended complaint curing the deficiencies set forth above.”
If you register with PACER, it costs 8 cents a page to read or download documents. For a buck sixty (=20 (=12+8) pages * 8 cents a page for all you non-mathletes!) you can read the allegedly honorable Judge Coffin’s justification for the allegation that my complaint is frivolous and think about whether you agree and if not, how one could respond to it.
On June 3, 2009 Federal Judge Thomas M. Coffin issued an order to proceed in forma pauperis and an order to dismiss re: 09-cv-6126-TC. The eight page response to the 43 statements in my twelve page complaint begins by saying “Plaintiff’s Application to proceed in forma pauperis is allowed. However, for the reasons set forth below, plaintiff’s complaint is dismissed, without service of process, on the basis that it is frivolous.” It ends by saying that I have 30 days to “file an amended complaint curing the deficiencies set forth above.”
If you register with PACER, it costs 8 cents a page to read or download documents. For a buck sixty (=20 (=12+8) pages * 8 cents a page for all you non-mathletes!) you can read the allegedly honorable Judge Coffin’s justification for the allegation that my complaint is frivolous and think about whether you agree and if not, how one could respond to it.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
cereal stalker update
Mr. Tobi Hill-Meyer was quoted by Ms. Anne Williams in the May 30 Eugene Register Guard:
“Over the past two weeks I’ve dealt with hate mail and gained the attention of a serial stalker, so I’m happy to de-escalate things for now rather than create more conflict”
---
When I spoke with the Eugene Police Department officers at the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza on Saturday, I learned a little bit more about the so-called cereal stalker. On April 1, 2009, an employee at the Albertson’s at 18th and Willamette found a box of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran scattered on the floor in the cereal aisle.
EPD Detective Dan Braziel described the scene. “It was awful. The flakes were totally smashed into what was practically a powder. The raisins weren’t smashed, but they were totally smushed. The first responders were horrified. They hadn’t seen anything this bad since the Pop Tart massacre of ’03.”
EPD Detective Mercy McDonald elaborated. “We hoped and prayed that it was an isolated incident, but on May 2, 2009, 911 dispatch received a call from the Winco at Beltline and Barger. A box of Cocoa Puffs had been scattered on the floor and stomped on. It was total dust. Given the ethnicity of the cereal, we labeled it a hate crime.”
EPD Lieutenant Scott Fellman went on. “EPD Chief Pete Kerns decided that stopping the cereal stalker was EPD’s number one priority and suggested that the Eugene City Council ban stores from selling cereal because it was too dangerous. But while the eight councilors were mulling over the idea, there was a terrifying incident at the Fred Meyer’s on West 11th suggesting an escalation of the violence. Right next to the carrots, there was a watery mess of stringy, greenish material. At first it was believed to be broccoli or cucumber. But after a SWAT team removed the material and tested it in the Oregon State Police forensic lab, we realized that the violence had escalated and that we were now dealing with a celery stalker.”
“Over the past two weeks I’ve dealt with hate mail and gained the attention of a serial stalker, so I’m happy to de-escalate things for now rather than create more conflict”
---
When I spoke with the Eugene Police Department officers at the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza on Saturday, I learned a little bit more about the so-called cereal stalker. On April 1, 2009, an employee at the Albertson’s at 18th and Willamette found a box of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran scattered on the floor in the cereal aisle.
EPD Detective Dan Braziel described the scene. “It was awful. The flakes were totally smashed into what was practically a powder. The raisins weren’t smashed, but they were totally smushed. The first responders were horrified. They hadn’t seen anything this bad since the Pop Tart massacre of ’03.”
EPD Detective Mercy McDonald elaborated. “We hoped and prayed that it was an isolated incident, but on May 2, 2009, 911 dispatch received a call from the Winco at Beltline and Barger. A box of Cocoa Puffs had been scattered on the floor and stomped on. It was total dust. Given the ethnicity of the cereal, we labeled it a hate crime.”
EPD Lieutenant Scott Fellman went on. “EPD Chief Pete Kerns decided that stopping the cereal stalker was EPD’s number one priority and suggested that the Eugene City Council ban stores from selling cereal because it was too dangerous. But while the eight councilors were mulling over the idea, there was a terrifying incident at the Fred Meyer’s on West 11th suggesting an escalation of the violence. Right next to the carrots, there was a watery mess of stringy, greenish material. At first it was believed to be broccoli or cucumber. But after a SWAT team removed the material and tested it in the Oregon State Police forensic lab, we realized that the violence had escalated and that we were now dealing with a celery stalker.”
ode to eau
For many days and many moons
The rain came pouring down
And many people growled and frowned
And stomped around the town.
Then one day the sun shone bright
And everyone was gay
“Isn’t it a beautiful and
lovely, gorgeous day?”
Arms and legs and more went bare
And everyone rejoiced
But me, I got my grouchy on
Cause I prefer it moist.
For many days and many moons
There wasn’t any rain
While other people smiled with glee
I thought I’d go insane[r].
So last night when the thunder boomed
And lightning filled the sky
I thanked the one beyond the sun
And said good-bye to dry.
The rain came pouring down
And many people growled and frowned
And stomped around the town.
Then one day the sun shone bright
And everyone was gay
“Isn’t it a beautiful and
lovely, gorgeous day?”
Arms and legs and more went bare
And everyone rejoiced
But me, I got my grouchy on
Cause I prefer it moist.
For many days and many moons
There wasn’t any rain
While other people smiled with glee
I thought I’d go insane[r].
So last night when the thunder boomed
And lightning filled the sky
I thanked the one beyond the sun
And said good-bye to dry.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
macarthur murderess?
California Attorney General Edmund Brown announced today that he intends to press felony charges against Harvard University professor/Macarthur Genius Award Winner Dr. Sue Goldie for being an accessory to the murder of Jenny Tetlock, a California resident who died after being poisoned by the Gardasil vaccine. The basis of the charge is an August 21, 2008 paper in the New England Journal of Medicine by Dr. Goldie and Jane Kim.
AG Brown noted that although Ms. Tetlock was diagnosed a year before the publication of the article in NEJM and her parents, University of California- Berkeley business school professors Phil Tetlock and Barb Mellers decided to expose her to the HPV vaccine even earlier than that, he still felt justified accusing Dr. Goldie of playing a causal role in Jenny's death.
"I realize there are those in the evidence-based community who are skeptical of the allegation that the 2008 paper by Goldie and Kim provides probable cause of being accessory to murder that began in 2007, but given the utter lack of evidence-basedness in the whole Gardasil debate, this does not concern me."
Dr. Goldie is expected to waive extradiction and is expected to be transported to Alcatrez before the end of the week.
Monday, June 1, 2009
pensees de mourir
pensees de mourir
The day will come for everyone that is the very last
And all that you have said and done is in the distant past.
Will there be a reckoning by God or something more?
Will you have the time to wonder what it’s all been for?
And if there is a one somewhere who’s followed your whole path
Who says to you “My friend it’s time to do the final math.”
What will be the measure of how well you spent your time?
Will there be a lot of points for writing words that rhyme?
On the day that is the one that is my very last
I hope I have the time to think about the time that’s passed.
I’ll think about a person, a canyon or a meal
And thank the one who made the sun and all else that is real.
The day will come for everyone that is the very last
And all that you have said and done is in the distant past.
Will there be a reckoning by God or something more?
Will you have the time to wonder what it’s all been for?
And if there is a one somewhere who’s followed your whole path
Who says to you “My friend it’s time to do the final math.”
What will be the measure of how well you spent your time?
Will there be a lot of points for writing words that rhyme?
On the day that is the one that is my very last
I hope I have the time to think about the time that’s passed.
I’ll think about a person, a canyon or a meal
And thank the one who made the sun and all else that is real.
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