Church Bulletin Bloopers

In the spirit of the holiday, here is some church humor. These have been circulating on the internet, so they are not original with me. However, they are pretty funny.

My Favorite:

Missionary from Africa speaking at Calvary Memorial Church in Racine. Name: Bertha Belch. Announcement: Come tonight and hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa".

Events

A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.

Thursday night: Potluck Supper - Prayer and medication will follow.

Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.

Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It is a good chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.

Next Sunday is the family hayride and bonfire at the Fowlers. Bring your own hot dogs and guns. Friends are welcome! Everyone come for a fun time.

The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.

Announcement in a church bulletin for a National Prayer & Fasting Conference: "The cost for attending the Fasting & Prayer conference includes meals".

(For the group of ladies called Moms Who Care and pray for the children in school). When their meeting was cancelled one week: "There will be no Moms who care this week."

Men's Prayer Breakfast. No charge, but your damnation will be gratefully accepted.

The church will host an evening of fine dining, superb entertainment, and gracious hostility.

Support Groups

Low Self-Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 to 8:30 p.m. Please use the back door.

Weight Watchers will meet at 7 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.

Jean will be leading a weight-management series Wednesday nights. She's used the program herself and has been growing like crazy!

I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, even though he diets, yet shall be live.

Music

The third verse of Blessed Assurance will be sung without musical accomplishment.

Next Sunday Mrs. Vinson will be soloist for the morning service. The pastor will then speak on "It's a Terrible Experience."

22 members were present at the church meeting held at the home of Mrs. Marsha Crutchfield last evening. Mrs. Crutchfield and Mrs. Rankin sang a duet, The Lord Knows Why.

At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What is hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.

Eight new choir robes are currently needed, due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.

The Senior Choir invites any member of the congregation who enjoys sinning to join the choir.

Our next song is "Angels We Have Heard Get High."

Miss Charlene Mason sang, "I Will Not Pass This Way Again," giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

Next Thursday, there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.

The 'Over 60s Choir' will be disbanded for the summer with the thanks of the entire church.

Song Lyrics: What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and briefs to bear.

Sermons

The preacher will preach his farewell massage, after which the choir will sing, "Break Forth With Joy".

The Rev. Merriweather spoke briefly, much to the delight of the audience.

During the absence of our pastor, we enjoyed the rare privilege of hearing a good sermon when J. F. Stubbs supplied our pulpit.

The church is glad to have with us today as our guest minister the Rev. Shirley Green, who has Mrs. Green with him. After the service we request that all remain in the sanctuary for the Hanging of the Greens.

The sermon this morning: Jesus Walks on the Water. The sermon tonight: Searching for Jesus.

Barbara C. remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack's sermons.

Worship

This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward and lay an egg on the altar.

The audience is asked to remain seated until the end of the recession.

Ushers will eat latecomers.

The pastor will light his candle from the altar candles.
The ushers will light their candle from the pastor's candle.
The ushers will turn and light each worshipper in the first pew.

If you choose to heave during the Postlude, please do so quietly.

Sex and Procreation

Today... Christian Youth Fellowship Sexuality Course, 8 p.m. Please park in the rear parking lot for this activity.

Pastor is on vacation. Massages can be given to church secretary.

The rosebud on the altar this morning is to announce the birth of David Alan Belzer, the sin of Rev. and Mrs. Julius Belzer.

For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery down stairs.

Thursday at 5:00 PM, there will be a meeting of the Little Mothers Club. All ladies wishing to be "Little Mothers" will meet with the Pastor in his private study.

The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind. They can be seen in the church basement Saturday.

In Sickness and Health

On a church bulletin during the minister's illness: GOD IS GOOD - Dr. Hargreaves is better.

Don't let worry kill you off - let the church help.

Due to the Rector's illness, Wednesday's healing services will be discontinued until further notice.

Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community.

If you are going to be hospitalized for an operation, contact the pastor. Special prayer also for those who are seriously sick by request.

Brother Lamar has gone on to be the Lord.

Miscellaneous

Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles, and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.

The outreach committee has enlisted 25 visitors to make calls on people who are not afflicted with any church.

This afternoon there will be a meeting in the South and North ends of the church. Children will be baptized at both ends.

The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: "I upped My Pledge----Up Yours."

Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 pm in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King.

Glory of God to all and peas to his people on earth.

Church sign: Jesus Saves!
Safeway sign across the street: Safeway saves you more!

Please welcome Pastor Don, a caring individual who loves hurting people.

Worst Christmas Carols Ever

I love Christmas music. However, every once in a while, you hear something that is so bad that it makes you want to puke. I am not talking about novelty songs like "I'm Gettin' Nuttin' for Christmas" and "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer." While those songs are irreverent and not quite in keeping with the holiday spirit, they are witty and fun. To make my Hall of Shame, a Christmas Carol must either be blatantly offensive (and not in an ironic way) or be senseless sentimental drivel or be just plain slow and boring. So far I have four songs on the list. Feel free to suggest your own additions.

1. "Santa Claus Will Take You to Hell" by Westboro Baptist Church.

Fortunately, you will NOT hear this song on the radio. However, it just shows that some people just can't stand to see anyone else enjoying the Christmas season. For the unitiated, Westboro Baptist Church is a cultish group which revels in the belief that God will punish everyone but them. They said that the people who died in 9/11 are victims of God's wrath. They show up at the funerals of American soldiers and pronounce God's judgment. Now they have written a Christmas carol in which Santa Claus is blamed for the collapsing economy, the death of soldiers in Iraq and just about everything else in society.

If you don't believe me, go to: http://www.layscience.net/node/421. I have to warn you, this song is offensive to the max.

Thanks to Elle Adair for the tip.

2. "Christmas Shoes" by New Song.

I recently heard this song on the radio and couldn't believe that they would play it without a disclaimer. This is a song about a little boy trying to buy some shoes for his dying mother because "I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight." This has nothing to do with Christmas and is a blatant appeal to sappy sentimentality. I don't know what else to say, other than change the station if this song begins to play.

3. "The Cat Carol" by Bruce Evans.

The JB and Sandy Morning Show recently highlighted this song as one of the worst Christmas Carols ever and I have to agree. It is a song about a cat who is locked outside in a blizzard and who saves a mouse with the heat from his body only to be discovered dead by Santa. According to the song's website, "The Cat Carol has a traditional appeal, but there’s an underlying humour which keeps it from getting too sucky." No, this song is just annoying. While the underlying message about sacrifice in the spirit of the season is very appropriate, the actual song is just so bad. The songs drags along with no sense of irony and is way too cute.

4. "Same Old Lange Syne" by Dan Fogelberg

I have hated this song for years. It limps along like a Yugo with a blown transmission. It contains such profound lyrics as:

We took her groceries to the checkout stand,
The food was totalled up and bagged.
We stood there lost in our embarrassment,
As the conversation dragged.

This is almost a parody of the bad singer/songwriter who is trying so hard to be earnest but sounds like he is reading a grocery list.

ttyl Pulled From Round Rock Middle School Libraries. Is It Censorship?

Recently a familiar scene played out in Round Rock. Parents learned that middle school libraries included a book called ttyl which included adult situations and bad language. The parents complained and put together a petition of 150 other parents who didn't want the book in the library. Panels were convened, appeals were taken and finally the superintendent of schools made the decision to pull the books from the middle school libraries and move them to the high school libraries. What is the reaction to all of this? Predictably, there are cries of censorship. This raises a question that I have been wanting to blog about: What is censorship?

A Little Background

First, a little background. ttyl is a book by Lauren Myracle about three fifteen year old friends who get into some age inappropriate situations. One girl strips at a frat party and finds herself on the internet. Another girl is seduced by a teacher and has to be rescued by her friends. One of the girls has a potty mouth. According to the author and her supporters, the book is a cautionary tale about the choices girls make. According to the book's detractors, it is pornographic smut which encourages bad behavior. I haven't read the book yet. However, I will note that a Christian counselor recently recommended that I read the book, because in his words, that's how kids really talk.

Censorship They Say

Back to the big question: Is this censorship? Lauren Myracle thinks it is. (On a completely unrelated note, I want to give Ms. Myracle props for a great pun. Her blog article is titled "Jesus Bans Myracle." The Round Rock superintendent's name is Dr. Jesus Chavez. I am likely to read the book on the strength of the pun alone). On her blog, she writes:

But it IS banning a book to say, "This book is now banned from all middle schools. It is not allowed to be on the shelves, it is not available for students to check out." It IS censorship to say, "Look around. See all the lovely books the library has chosen for its population? Now, draw a big black line through all the pink books with smilies on them, because we don't like them and we want them to no longer exist in this glorious collection."

* * *

If I were in Nazi Germany, and my uncle, say, wrote me a letter expressing his ideas about what Hitler was doing, and the Minister of Propaganda intercepted that letter and drew black lines through certain words before giving it to me, that equals censorship, right? Someone else is deciding what's appropriate for me to read and what's not.

Mrs. Jennings wanted ttyl blacked out in all the middle school libraries in her district. That IS censorship.

And she got what she wanted.

She also says:

Censorship, on the other hand, is an individual seeking to suppress materials from a position of intolerance, imposing his or her values on the group. Censorship, in this case, ensures that students can only read what Superintendent Chavez and the Jennings deems acceptable.

But why should the Jennings’ opinion be given greater weight than that of the librarians, teachers, and other parents who reviewed the book and found it appropriate? What are her qualifications? What was her process?

Finally, she concludes that the First Amendment rights of Round Rock Middle Schoolers were violated.

The American Library Association would agree with Ms. Myracle. Its Intellectual Freedom Manual states:

“Intellectual freedom can exist only where two essential conditions are met: first, that all individuals have the right to hold any belief on any subject and to convey their ideas in any form they deem appropriate; and second, that society makes an equal commitment to the right of unrestricted access to information and ideas regardless of the communication medium used, the content of the work, and the viewpoints of both the author and receiver of information. Freedom to express oneself through a chosen mode of communication, including the Internet, becomes virtually meaningless if access to that information is not protected. Intellectual freedom implies a circle, and that circle is broken if either freedom of expression or access to ideas is stifled.”

But Is It Censorship?

I have included the lengthy quotes because I wanted to let the author and the ALA speak for themselves. I hope that I have accurately reflected their viewpoints because I am going to take them to task. In my mind, there is a huge distinction between censorship and failure of the government to make a work available to the public in a given forum.

I would define censorship as banning or prohibiting an item. For example, if the Williamson County District Attorney prosecuted Barnes & Noble for selling ttyl, that would constitute censorship. For another example, if the Round Rock schools prohibited students from bringing ttyl onto campus, that would strike me as censorship as well. In Ms. Myracle's example from her blog, if the government intercepted a letter and blacked out portions of it, that would clearly constitute censorship.

However, for the Round Rock School District to say that we will provide ttyl in the high school library rather than the middle school library because it is more age appropriate for high school students doesn't look like censorship. The action of Dr. Chavez does not prohibit any middle school student from reading the book. Any student who wants to read the book may buy it on Amazon.com, check it out from the public library or read it when they enter high school. Indeed, the fact that the book has been "banned" may do a lot to stimulate interest in it.

What concerns me here about the claims of censorship and book banning is the subtext which says that decisions about what books should be included in public school libraries should be left to the professionals, namely librarians and teachers. When parents object to inclusion of a specific book that they have concerns about or when school boards and superintendents accede to their wishes, there is a sense that something sacred has been violated. Literary professionals frequently argue that parents should be allowed to decide what their children read, but not what is made available to other children. However, this doesn't seem to give any weight to the notion that parents have a legitimate concern about the overall school environment. It also doesn't give much credit to the fact that public schools are paid for by the public, including the parents who are complaining. Finally, it doesn't give much credit to the notion that the First Amendment is a two way street. The First Amendment gives citizens, including parents, the right to petition the government for the redress of grievances. That is what happened in this case.

The Legal Issue

One of the arguments that I intended to make was that there is no constitutional right to object to a book being removed from a public school library. However, it turns out that there is, although it probably wouldn't apply in this case. In Board of Education v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982), the Supreme Court held that a case where a student sued for violation of his civil rights based upon books being removed from a school library should be allowed to go to trial. That case has some similarities to the present one. A group of school board members sought to remove books from the school library that they thought were anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-semitic and "just plain filthy." They appointed a committee to review the books and then rejected the committee's recommendation that most of the books be retained. A parent, acting on behalf of a student, sued the school board for violation of the student's First Amendment rights. The District Court tossed the suit out without a trial, finding that the school board had acted properly in applying community values. The Supreme Court sent the case back for trial, finding that the School Board's reason for removing the books was an issue which should be developed at trial.

The Supreme Court agreed with the school board that it should be allowed to act based upon community standards, stating, "We are therefore in full agreement with petitioners that local school boards must be permitted 'to establish and apply their curriculum in such a way as to transmit community values,' and that 'there is a legitimate and substantial community interest in promoting respect for authority and traditional values be they social, moral, or political.'" However, that authority did not extend to the wholesale suppression of ideas.

The Supreme Court summed up the issue as follows:

With respect to the present case, the message of these precedents is clear. Petitioners rightly possess significant discretion to determine the content of their school libraries. But that discretion may not be exercised in a narrowly partisan or political manner. If a Democratic school board, motivated by party affiliation, ordered the removal of all books written by or in favor of Republicans, few would doubt that the order violated the constitutional rights of the students denied access to those books. The same conclusion would surely apply if an all-white school board, motivated by racial animus, decided to remove all books authored by blacks or advocating racial equality and integration. Our Constitution does not permit the official suppression of ideas. Thus whether petitioners' removal of books from their school libraries denied respondents their First Amendment rights depends upon the motivation behind petitioners' actions. If petitioners intended by their removal decision to deny respondents access to ideas with which petitioners disagreed, and if this intent was the decisive factor in petitioners' decision, 22 then petitioners have exercised their discretion in violation of the Constitution. To permit such intentions to control official actions would be to encourage the precise sort of officially prescribed orthodoxy unequivocally condemned in Barnette. On the other hand, respondents implicitly concede that an unconstitutional motivation would not be demonstrated if it were shown that petitioners had decided to remove the books at issue because those books were pervasively vulgar. Tr. of Oral Arg. 36. And again, respondents concede that if it were demonstrated that the removal decision was based solely upon the "educational suitability" of the books in question, then their removal would be "perfectly permissible." Id., at 53. In other words, in respondents' view such motivations, if decisive of petitioners' actions, would not carry the danger of an official suppression of ideas, and thus would not violate respondents' First Amendment rights.

In the Pico case, most of the challenged books were written by African Americans. As a result, there was a hint that the school district was racially motivated. However, in the case of ttyl, it seems pretty clear that removing a book based on its language and age appropriateness would pass constitutional muster.

Conclusion

I plan to read ttyl. Based on what I know, I would probably recommend it to my 16 year old daughter, but not my 13 year old daughter. However, I am not convinced that this is a case of censorship.

The Second Golden Age of Saturday Morning Cartoons Part 3: Freazazoid

No discussion of the slate of Spielberg Saturday morning cartoons would be complete without mentioning Freakazoid, the first internet generated superhero. In the early 1990s, personal computers and the internet were still in their infancy. In this story, a computer manufacturer discovers a minor flaw in its product: if exactly right combination of keys were pressed, the user would be sucked into the internet. Concluding that it would be impossible for this to ever happen, they keep the news under wraps. However, they didn't count on a cat walking across the keyboard. Computer nerd Dexter Douglass is sucked into the internet and takes on a second identity as the manic Freakazoid. All of this is explained in the opening theme.



Ricardo Montalban played the villain Guttierrez who developed the dangerous computer. This started a career in cartoon villainy for Montalban, who also played Senor Senior, Sr. in Kim Possible.



Despite his awesome powers, Freakazoid could be neutralized by poo gas.



Despite the show's cult appeal, it never really caught on. It lasted only 24 episodes over a season and a half. In the following clip, Freakazoid, Wakko and the Brain argue over who Steven Spielberg likes best only to face disappointment.



The show's finale predicted that they would return some day. This prediction has come true as Warner Brothers Video released the first season on DVD on July 28, 2008.




More information than you would ever want to know is contained in the comprehensive Wikipedia article.

The Second Golden Age of Saturday Morning Cartoons Part 2: Pinky and the Brain

Gee Brain, what are we going to do tonight?

The same thing we do every night. Try to take over the world!

Those lines opened every episode of Pink & the Brain, a cartoon about a megalomaniac lab mouse and his goofy sidekick and their ill-fated plans to take over the world. This show started as a segment on the Animaniacs and was spun off into its own show. The hyper-intelligent Brain and the generally hyper Pinky engaged in all kinds of schemes, such as going back in time to replace the Declaration of Independence with the Declaration of Obedience. Despite the fact that their plans invariably failed, they were always ready to have another go at taking over the world.

Here is the Pink & the Brain opening theme in seven different languages.

English:



German:



Russian:



Spanish:



Japanese:



Arabic:



Multi-lingual:

The Second Golden Age of Saturday Morning Cartoons Part 1: Animaniacs

When I was a kid, Saturday morning cartoons were the high point of the week. I lived for shows like Scooby Doo, Speed Racer and Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner. For me, that was the golden age of Saturday morning cartoons. However, after I grew up, there was a second golden age of Saturday morning cartoons, thanks to Steven Spielberg. While Mr. Spielberg is better known for Jurassic Park, Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, he also produced a slate of Saturday morning cartoons in the 1990s, including Animaniacs, Pinky & the Brain and Freakazoid. These cartoons featured clever theme songs and even more clever writing.

Part 1 of my tribute to the cartoons of Steven Spielberg features the Animaniacs. Here is the opening theme.



Although I was never a big Bill Clinton fan, I always chuckled at the shot of Bill Clinton playing the sax.

The Animaniacs could be educational as shown by this song featuring the capitals of the 50 states. I know some teachers still use this one.



The show also featured educational belching



as well as general zaniness.



They don't make them like this anymore!

Grading an Obama Administration

The votes are in and Barack Obama will be the next president. However, which Barack Obama will we see? Will it be the cool, collected orator who inspired millions with his uplifting rhetoric and message of change or will it be the Chicago pol who blindly voted with the Democratic party 96% of the time? I am willing to give the new president a chance, even though I expect to disagree with him a lot. Here are eight areas in which he can impress me or not.

Budget and Economy. Does anyone have a clue on how to get the economy back on track? If the Democrats or Republicans have a plan, I don't think I've heard it. Similarly, anyone has a way to reduce the budget-busting defecits of the last eight years, I don't know about it. Because the hole is so deep here, any progress will look good.

Energy. The Obama campaign has promised to invest billions in alternative energy sources. If President Obama is able to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and make wind and solar power feasible for use, he will have done something that other presidents have only talked about. However, if he vetoes domestic oil production and nuclear power, while supporting wasteful progrms that actually hurt the environment, such as the current ethanol subsidies, we will look back fondly on $4 a gallon gas prices.

Foreign Policy. Sen. Obama has promised to consult with our allies and negotiate with rogue nations. As president, he will face challenges from al Qaeda, Hezbollah and a resurgent Russia. If our allies demand appeasement, will he have the courage to stand firm? If North Korea, Syria, Libya and Iran promise to play nice while ramping up their ability to harm our interests, will he accept their words at face value? It is a dangerous world and we will need the support of our allies. However, we will need to lead and inspire rather than passively follow European opinion. We will need to "trust but verify" as a great president once said.

Healthcare. I have read through the Obama campaigns promises on healthcare and they seem like a lot of blue smoke and mirrors to me. As I understand the proposals, everyone will have access to affordable healthcare coverage and it won't cost any more because the government will make the system more efficient. If President Obama can pull this off, his legacy will be secure. However, if the solution to healthcare is to create another government bureaucracy like social security, he will bankrupt the country.

Immigration. Our current immigration system violates the laws of supply and demand. While there is a massive demand for hard-working laborers seeking to make a better life for their families, our immigration laws artificially restrict the number of people who can have access to the American dream. The predictable result is that millions of people are here illegally. This in turn creates opportunity for drug runners and criminals to slip through a porous border. We will be able to better secure the border if we offer those who are willing to work hard and play by the rules an opportunity to come here legally. While this proposition makes sense to me, it will face strong opposition from both the left and the right. On the left, unions oppose increasing the supply of labor because it will result in more competition. On the right, there are nativists who fear an influx of Spanish-speaking workers from south of the border. It will take a political genius to navigate this issue.

Iraq. We know that the U.S. will reduce its presence in Iraq dramatically during an Obama administration. However, the big question is whether we will make an orderly transition to a sovereign Iraqi government or whether we will cut and run. Having made a bad decision to invade Iraq, we can still make things worse. If we pull out precipitously, we will embolden our enemies to turn up the pressure.

Judges. We know that President Obama will appoint liberal judges who will support Roe v. Wade. That is a given. However, will his appointees be more Breyer than Brennan? Stephen Breyer has proven to be a relatively cautious and thoughtful liberal. William Brennan viewed the Constitution as a malleable instrument used to reach a desired result.

Middle Class Tax Cuts. Sen. Obama campaigned on the promise to reduce taxes for 95%of working Americans. Bill Clinton promised a middle class tax cut also, but it never happened. Will President Obama deliver a middle class tax cut or will he use the current financial crisis as an excuse to back away from this promise?

No More Gates

The election is over at long last. My fervent hope for the next four years is that we learn to banish the word gate from our vocabulary. I am not talking about actual gates, like the Sather Gate pictured below. I am talking about the unfortunate habit of adding -gate on to a word to define a scandal. I have two reasons for this, one stylistic and one substantive.



Every since Watergate, lazy journalists have used gate to name a scandal. We have had Troopergate I, II and II (involving Bill Clinton, Elliot Spitzer and Sarah Palin respectively), Filegate, Passportgate, Plamegate, Travelgate, etc. Merely adding the suffix gate onto a scandal is a poor substitute for thought and should be banned from the lexicon. Iran-Contra and Whitewater are examples of how an affair can stand on its own the necessity to remind people that it is a scandal by calling it a gate.

However, on a more serious level, I hope that we will give the scandals a rest for a while. When Bill Clinton became president, the right wing tried to negate the election results by launching a series of investigations into the Clintons and their associates. This ended with the sorry spectacle of the President lying under oath about his sexual pecadillos and facing an impeachment trial. While perjury is a serious matter, there was no need for the question to be asked in the first place.

The Democrats have learned to respond in kind with a never-ending string of so-called ethics scandals including the politically motivated prosecution of Tom Delay and the Valerie Plame affair.

Are we any better off for having spent the last sixteen years scandalizing each other? Careers have been destroyed, people have gone to jail and millions have been spent on special prosecutors. However, when it was all said and done, did any of it make our government better or improve us as a nation? I don't think so.

My fervent hope would be that we can lay off of the scandals for a while. If you disagree with President Obama (a position I may find myself in), debate his policies and discuss his priorities. However, we can do without the tabloid politics.

Lost in Translation

This morning I saw a Bimbo. No, it's not what you think. I saw the Bimbo logo on a soccer jersey worn by a student at Austin High as I was dropping my daughter off at school. I have seen the Bimbo brand before at the grocery store and on soccer jerseys and have chuckled at the unintended meaning. However, today I was curious enough to do some digging and find out where the name comes from.

Grupo Bimbo, based in Mexico, is one of the four largest food corporations in the world. It sponsors several professional futbol teams, including Chivas, Club America and Rayados de Monterrey, as well as many youth leagues. Its logo is one of the three most common seen on Mexican futbol uniforms.

The name "Bimbo" apparently does not have any meaning in Mexican Spanish and was chosen to compete with the existing Bambi and Dumbo brands in Mexico. According to Wikipedia, "bimbo" has almost become synonymous with bread. Thus, the name does not have any negative connotation. However, it is unlikely that the company will be sponsoring any womens' soccer teams in the United States.

My Favorite Scary Movies

Halloween is this week. For me, October is a great opportunity to watch scary movies. Here are some of my favorites. Please feel free to add your own in the Comments section.

But first a little prologue. Halloween is an interesting phenomenon. Like Mardi Gras, it is a secular celebration which is the antithesis of the religious holiday which gave rise to it. Halloween comes from All Hallows Eve. In the Christian tradition, All Saints Day is a hopeful remembrance of those who have died in the faith during the prior year. While the focus is on death, from the Christian perspective, it is really about the triumph of live over death in the promise of the resurrection. Halloween, on the other hand, is about candy (for kids) and partying (for adults) and has overtunes of both flirting with and chasing away evil spirits. Thus, All Saints Day celebrates good spirits, while Halloween focuses on bad spirits (and in many cases the kind of spirits that come in a bottle).

Scary movies fit in with Halloween because they are a case of both flirting with and warding off evil spirits. We watch scary movies because we are fascinated by the unbelievable. Scary movies put ordinary people in situations which require them to accept that the impossible is happening and find the strength to overcome that challenge. There is a darker side of horror which mocks and revels in the suffering of its victims. I don't intentionally watch those movies because they feed on emotions which are sickening. I also don't care for movies which epict evil as omnipotently powerful. However, I don't insist that the hero always survive, because a tragic or heroic death can say something significant about life.

A good scary movie has several elements. One is a challenge arising from an unbelieveable situation. Whether it involves zombies, vampires or chainsaw wielding maniacs, a scary movie has an element which jolts ordinary people out of their comfortable world. Another is a strong hero who overcomes panic to deal with the crisis. While many scary movies have a larger than life villain, this is not a requirement. Some of the best scary movies feature a horrific setup, such as a zombie attack, without a specific bad guy. An added bonus is a movie with really creepy images that prey on our subconscious or a really good tagline. Clowns and things which hide under the bed are a plus.

I have decided to list these in alphabetical order rather than trying to rank them.

28 Days Later (2003)

This is a good breakdown of society movie. Bad scientists experiment with a virus which induces uncontrollable violence in lab monkeys. Animal rights activists liberate the monkeys only to unleash a plague which is spready by being bit by an infected person. Our hero wakes up from a coma 28 days later and realizes that the world he knew no longer exists. He must band together with other survivors to try to escape the hordes of humans who have been turned into flesh-eating monsters. In the end, he finds that the threat from his fellow humans is every bit as dangerous as that from the zombies.

The elements that I really like about this movie are that the central conflict is created by reckless scientific experiements and clueless activists, as well as the contrast between the human and zombie threats. That sounds way too analytic, so I will just add that it is fast-paced and exciting throughout.

Alien (1979)

"In space no one can hear you scream." The line isn't in the movie, but captures the spirit well. This is your basic monster movie in space. Astronauts land on a planet only to find it inhabited by aliens. This one has a great gross-out scene where the alien, having gestated, bursts out of a man's stomach and begins running around. The plot eventually reaches its climax in the battle between the last surviving astronaut, Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver), and the queen alien. One of the best parts of this movie is watching the strong female character fight the alien after all of her shipmates have been slaughtered.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer(1992)

It's hard to take a horror movie about a girl named Buffy too seriously. This one, like Fright Night below, is two parts camp and one part carnage. However, Buffy remains faithful to the basic horror premise. Buffy, a cheerleading, mall-dwelling teen (played by Kristy Swanson) must come to terms wih the fact that her friends are turning up undead and that a creepy old guy wants to train her to be a slayer. After Merrick (the creepy old guy played by Donald Sutherland) is killed, she must team up with an outcast (played by Luke Perry) to face her destiny. The final battle between good and evil occurs fittingly at the prom.

Fright Night (1985)

Fright Night is an updated vampire story that pays homage to teenage boys who spend too much time watching horror movies. Charlie Brewster (played by William Ragsdale) likes staying up late to watch his favorite show "Fright Night." Unfortunately he happens to look at the window to see the new neighbor disposing of a body. Eventually the vampire (Jerry Dandridge played by Chris Sarandon) figures out that Charlie is on to him and pays him a warning call. Charlie enlists the reluctant assistance of Peter Vincent (played by Roddy McDowell), the star of Fright Night, to vanquish the vampire. Vincent takes it all as a joke until he realizes that Jerry the vampire has no shadow. Eventually the cowardly actor and the scared teenager join forces to fight the vampire. This one has a chilling scene where Charlie is locked in a room with his girlfriend who has been bitten by the vampire. He must decide whether to kill her or allow himself to be devoured by the one he loves. Part of the appeal of Fright Night is that it is cleverly written and doesn't take itself too seriously. The movie has some great lines like when Jerry Dandridge saunters out in front of the two terrified vampire hunters and announces, "Welcome to Fright Night--for real." There is also a great line where Peter Vincent holds up a cross to ward off the vampire, who casually knocks it away and sneers, "For it to work on me, you have to have faith."

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Night of the Living Dead is the first and best modern zombie movie. A trip to the cemetary turns gruesome when the dead begin gnawing on the living. Although the zombies stumble about like cubicle workers who haven't had their morning coffee, they are able to catch their victims unaware for the reason that none of the people in this movie have ever seen a zombie movie before. It takes a while for the gathered humans to figure out that being bit by a zombie turns you into one as well. For some reason, the undead only want living flesh. As a result, they are able to grow their numbers exponentially as they feed on their one-time friends and neighbors. Although the movie was filmed in black and white to save money, the film choice helps to heighten the feeling of despair as the shambling hordes surround the living to satisfy their insatiable desire for flesh. The ending is dark as the last survivor of the band is shot by rescuers who mistake him for a zombie.

Poltergeist (1982)

Poltergeist does a masterful job of turning the commonplace into the terrifying. A suburban house is inhabited by vengeful spirits who steal children. A creepy tree reaches through windows, a stuffed clown tries to strangle a boy and a closet contains a vortex. All of these are the stuff of childhood nightmares. Like any good horror movie, it takes a while for the ordinary people to figure what is happening around them, although the cute little girl sees it clearly when she announces, "They're heeere." As the plot develops, it turns out that a greedy company built the subdivision over a graveyard without moving the bodies and that restless spirits who cannot cross over to the other side are trapped below. Although the film is rated a tame PG, most of its impact comes from the psychological, including the theme of an innocent child in peril.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Like Buffy and Fright Night, this British import is as much of a send-up of its genre than a serious attempt to shock. The gore factor places this one on the horror side of the horror/humor divide but does not take away from the fact that this is a clever, tongue in cheek movie. Shaun is a low level manager at an electronics store whose main passion in life is going to the pub. His lack of ambition causes his girlfriend to drop him. When things start going weird, he is so beat down and lowkey that he hardly notices that people are starting to feast on human flesh. One of the movie's great ironic focuses is that most of the people who turn into zombies were so phlegmatic to begin with that the change doesn't seem very dramatic. Shaun gathers a few friends and family and manages a last stand at the Winchester Pub. Shaun comes alive with purpose as he fights to save his little band. After things return to normal, he goes back to spending much of his time playing video games with his best friend (who is now a zombie but can still work a PS2). The level of gore and the fact that main characters get horribly maimed and killed by the zombies keeps this on the scary side of the humor/horror divide.

The Shining (1980)

The Shining is another movie that creeped me out when I was a teen. I went to see it with friends while my parents were out of town. After I went to bed and was trying to get the movie out of my head, my comrades snuck around and banged on my window causing me to jump out of my skin. If it wasn't for the bracing shock from the practical joke, I probably would not have gotten to sleep that night.

This is the story of a writer who brings his wife and young son to a creepy hotel where he will work as caretaker for the winter. Once it starts to snow, they are cut off from civilization. As the story progresses weird things happen. Ghostly twins appear in the hall, elevators gush buckets of blood and the little boy starts uncontrollably shouting "REDRUM." The wife (Shelley Duvall) realizes that her husband (Jack Nicholson) has gone around the bend when she checks on his manuscript and finds that he has written "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" about a million times. No one does crazy like Jack Nicholson and when he snaps, it is terrifying. The scene where he bashes in the bathroom door with an ax and then announces "Heeere's Johnny" is a classic in horror.

The strength of the movie lies in its long build-up. Weird things happen, but are they real or just the product of an overworked imagination? "REDRUM" and "Heeere's Johnny" are two of the great lines in horror. My personal favorite scary scene is the one where the little boy is riding his big wheel down a long, dark hallway and comes across the ghostly twins. I think of it frequently when I am travelling and have to walk down long, dark hallways to get to my room.

The Sixth Sense (1999)

The Sixth Sense is not a horror movie in the classic sense. It is more of a creepy suspense movie. However, any movie containing the line "I see dead people" belongs on a list of scary movies. This is the story of a child psychologist played by Bruce Willis who must counsel a child who claims to see ghosts. What is worse, the ghosts don't know they are dead. The child convinces the doctor that ghosts are real and are more confused than malevolent. As Bruce Willis becomes obsessed with his patient, his wife grows more distant and fragile. This one has a great twist ending which I won't spoil.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre does not need much introduction. It is a classic of horror. The pseudo-documentary style and low-budget film making gives it an air of authenticity. One of the strengths of this story is Leatherface, the chainsaw wielding villain. There is no backstory, no explanation, just a maniac with a chainsaw who carves up victims for his twisted family to cook as barbecue. This is a dark movie. The scene where one of the girls in the group almost escapes from the cannibals' house only to be captured and hung on a meathook is overpowering in its despair.

Horror Humor:

Although they don't have any genuinely scary parts, the following movies about ghosts, monsters and vampires are just plain fun.

Beetlejuice (1988)

Beetlejuice is a ghost story told from the perspective of the ghosts. When a loving couple is tragically killed, they find themselves trapped in their former home. When truly repulsive owners move in and try to convert their charming farmhouse into an avant garde nightmare, the newly dead try to scare them away with underwhelming results. They call in Beetlejuice the bio-exorcist to rid them of their unwanted guests. Hilarity ensues and dead and living learn to live together in peace and harmony. Michael Keaton plays a totally over the top Beetlejuice, doing Jim Carrey before there was a Jim Carrey.

Ghostbusters (1984)

Ghostbusters is about pseudo-scientists who discover that ghosts really exist and turn ghost containment into a lucrative business. The Ghostbusters are played by Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis at the top of their game. Along the way, they must do battle with the EPA and a demon named Zool. My favorite scene is where Zool threatens to destroy them with whatever they think of and Dan Ackroyd inadvertently thinks of the Sta-Puff Marshmellow Man, leading to a climactic battle with a fluffy but deadly monster.

Love At First Bite (1979)

This is a comedic send-up of the Dracula legend. Communists evict Dracula from his castle, causing him to predict that without him, Transylvania will be as dull as Bucharest on a Monday night. The Count (George Hamilton) and his henchman Renfield (Artie Johnson) travel to America where they try to fit in. The count gets a hangover when he drinks the blood of a wino but finds a love from across the ages when he meets Cindy Sondheim (Susan St. James). A neurotic Dr. Rosenberg/Van Helsing tries to defeat the count with the help of a skeptical detective. In the end, Count Dracula finds true love, Cindy Sondheim pays her bill to Dr. Rosenberg and Dr. Rosenberg and Lt. Ferguson get to share the count's cape.

Young Frankenstein (1974)

This is a Mel Brooks movie so it is over the top in ribald humor. In this story, a descendant of Dr. Viktor Frankenstein returns to Transylvania and takes up his infamous grandfather's experiments. When Igor steals the wrong brain for the creation, the reanimated body proves unstable and deathly afraid of fire. In a pygmalion like moment, the new Dr. Frankenstein unveils his creation to the world in a dance number which is marred by a floodlight which catches on fire. History repeats itself with peasants with pitchforks and torches, but this time the good Doctor manages to fix the imbalance in the monster's brain and two mismatched couples are paired with the proper partners.

Supreme Court Hands A Victory to the Democrats

Recently I wrote about Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner's attempts to avoid invalidating improper voter registrations. The District Court for the Southern District of Ohio and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals found that Secretary Brunner was thwarting the Helping America Vote Act which requires verification of voter registrations. However, the Supreme Court tossed out the ruling. The nation's highest court found that the Republican Party did not have standing to make the Ohio Secretary of State obey the law. As a result, they tossed out the suit without regard to its merits. The result may be entirely proper. Standing is a legal concept which is used to sort out interfering intermeddlers from parties who have are directly interested in a controversy. On the other hand, they might just be trying to make up for Bush v. Gore.

Up in the Ayers

William Ayers is receiving a lot of attention these days. During the 1960s and 1970s, he participated in bombings and riots as a leader of the Weather Underground. Surprisingly he was never prosecuted for these actions and later emerged from the underground and refashioned himself as an educator. He is now a professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago where his teaching interests include "teaching for social justice, urban educational reform, narrative and interpretive research, children in trouble with the law, and related issues."

During the current presidential campaign, he has received a lot of attention, both for his radical past, of which he wishes he could have done more, and for his more recent respectability where he sits on boards with people like Barack Obama.

Some of his fellow educators are up in arms about the fact that Prof. Ayers has been demonized and subject to slander and character assasination. Some 3,247 of them have signed an online petition in support of Bill Ayers, which can be found at www.supportbillayers.org. Here is what the profs have to say:

All citizens, but particularly teachers and scholars, are called upon to challenge orthodoxy, dogma, and mindless complacency, to be skeptical of authoritative claims, to interrogate and trouble the given and the taken-for-granted. Without critical dialogue and dissent we would likely be burning witches and enslaving our fellow human beings to this day. The growth of knowledge, insight, and understanding--- the possibility of change--- depends on that kind of effort, and the inevitable clash of ideas that follows should be celebrated and nourished rather than crushed. Teachers have a heavy responsibility, a moral obligation, to organize classrooms as sites of open discussion, free of coercion or intimidation. By all accounts Professor Ayers meets this standard. His classes are fully enrolled, and students welcome the exchange of views that he encourages.

The current characterizations of Professor Ayers---“unrepentant terrorist,” “lunatic leftist”---are unrecognizable to those who know or work with him. It’s true that Professor Ayers participated passionately in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, as did hundreds of thousands of Americans. His participation in political activity 40 years ago is history; what is most relevant now is his continued engagement in progressive causes, and his exemplary contribution---including publishing 16 books--- to the field of education. The current attacks appear as part of a pattern of “exposés” and assaults designed to intimidate free thinking and stifle critical dialogue. Like crusades against high school and elementary teachers, and faculty at UCLA, Columbia, DePaul, and the University of Colorado, the attacks on and the character assassination of Ayers threaten the university as a space of open inquiry and debate, and threaten schools as places of compassion, imagination, curiosity, and free thought. They serve as warnings that anyone who voices perspectives and advances questions that challenge orthodoxy and political power may become a target, and this, then, casts a chill over free speech and inquiry and the spirit of democracy.

We, the undersigned, stand on the side of education as an enterprise devoted to human inquiry, enlightenment, and liberation. We oppose the demonization of Professor William Ayers.

There is so much that is interesting about this statement. Does the criticism of Bill Ayers constitute an attack on "free speech and inquiry and the spirit of democracy"? This seems a bit overwrought. Bill Ayers is being attacked for participating in riots and planting bombs. That is hardly the stuff of free speech and inquiry and the spirit of democracy. Instead, it reflects the use of violence to intimidate. While the statement acknowledges that he "participated passionately in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, as did hundreds of thousands of Americans," most Americans did not resort to violence and the rejection of democracy which it entails.

The whole controversy over Bill Ayers involves the difference between past and present. Bill Ayers' past is unsavory and the Republican ticket has gone to great lengths to publicize it. Bill Ayers' present is more complicated. He writes books and sits on boards. His message may be just as radical, but his methods are now more acceptable. In what must seem like a recurrent theme in my writing, I think that everyone (but me) is wrong. The Republicans are trying to tie Bill Ayers' past to Barack Obama's present. However, Sen. Obama didn't participate in Prof. Ayers' past. He knew him as a former radical turned respectable. On the other hand, the professors are a bit paranoid when they think that criticism of Bill Ayers' past constitutes censorship of their present. Criticism of one man's violent past is not an attack on all who share similar views today.

The real issue here is whether people can change and whether we can put aside the past. The Bill Ayers of today does not set bombs and participate in riots. However, he is not remorseful about his past either, stating that he wishes he could have done more. I would be intrigued to take a class from Bill Ayers for the purpose of seeing whether he really does espouse freedom of inquiry and thought or indoctrination into radical dogma. However, I am not sure that I would want my daughters in his classroom.

On a completely unrelated note, the numbers behind the online petition may be a little bit inflated (just like ACORN's voter registrations). Weighing in at #852 is "Sal Monella" from the University of Texas at Austin. I checked the records of my hometown university and could not find any reference to Prof. Monella. However, perhaps he is in the Biology Department and I just missed his bio.

What I Like About the Presidential Candidates

Last week I wrote about my disagreements with John McCain and Barack Obama. This week I am going to focus about what I find positive about each of the candidates.

Iraq

Both candidates are partly right here. Sen. Barack Obama was correct in objecting a pre-emptive war that we didn't need to fight. While I believe firmly that America should defend itself when threatened, the lesson that I have taken away from the Iraq fiasco is that just because we can fight bad guys (and Saddam Hussein was very bad) does not mean that we should. War is messy. Civilians die. Our troops get killed. War puts people in barbaric circumstances where they may betray their better nature due to fear, stress, panic or anger. Embarassments like Abu Ghraib and Haditha are bound to happen despite the best intentions of our commanders or our soldiers on the ground. Since the cost of war is so high, it should be reserved for situations where overwhelming force can eliminate a threat or we have no choice. In retrospect, Iraq did not fit either category. Saddam Hussein was a sadistic dictator who invaded neighboring countries, thumbed his nose at the international community and committed atrocities against his own people. However, at the time of the Iraq invasion, he was largely contained. Additionally, we did not have the moral authority to lead an invasion. We could have done that in 1991 after the first Gulf War. However, 2003 was not the right time.

Sen. John McCain was also partly right about Iraq. He courageously stood up to his party's administration to say that torture was not an acceptable practice for a free, democratic country. He also realized that the Bush administration's plan for managing the insurgency in Iraq was badly flawed. The only thing worse than an unnecessary war is an unnecessary war badly handled. Sen. McCain was right to realize that once you intervene in a country in the name of democracy, you can't just walk away in midstream.

Taxes

While I don't agree completely with either candidate, the fact that they are both talking about tax cuts for some segment of the population is good. Sen. Obama wants to cut taxes for people who don't pay any taxes. That seems like a government handout rather than a true tax cut. Sen. McCain wants to cut taxes for everyone including the super-rich. I really don't mind that much if people who make a lot more money than me pay more in taxes. Perhaps I should, but I don't.

Immigration

Both John McCain and Barack Obama have supported immigration reform. I think this is very important. Our immigration system is broken. We have a high demand for immigrant workers, but our laws do not allow them to come here legally. As a result, we have illegal immigration. The logical solution would be to find a way to allow the people who want to come here to work to do so legally. Both Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain have supported this in the past, although they also voted for the stupid border fence.

Family Values

This is not an issue usually identified with Democrats. However, I have to give credit to Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden for their commitment to their families. Sen. Obama has been devoted to his wife and children. Sen. Biden raised his children as a single parent after the tragic death of his wife. Gov. Palin also deserves credit for supporting her pregnant daughter's decision to keep her baby even though it made for some embarassing publicity for her campaign. Sen. McCain who left his first wife for an heiress doesn't score as well in this area, but at least he has been faithful to his second wife.

Bankruptcy Reform

This is an issue near and dear to my heart since I am bankruptcy lawyer. The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 took a system that worked relatively well and provided a useful tool for keeping families in the middle class and made it more complicated and expensive with little benefit in return. Sen. Obama was one of the few Senators who stood against this bill. Of course, his running mate, Sen. Biden, was one of the main cheerleaders for it. The Obama-Biden ticket has proposed allowing home mortgages to be modified in bankruptcy, a change which should help some families.

Judges

I believe strongly that a government of laws is superior to a government of men. Sen. McCain believes that the legislative branch should make the laws and that the judicial branch should apply the laws as written without regard to who benefits. I think that this is a sound philosophy and one which preserves the balance in our system. Appointing judges who will decide cases based on who they want to win is a very bad idea.

Energy

While renewable energy sources make excellent long term sense, we are nowhere near being able to rely on these technologies. Therefore, unless we pursue an "all of the above" strategy which includes domestic oil drilling and nuclear power as well as promotion of alternate energy sources, we will be in serious trouble. John McCain recognizes this.

Bipartisanship

There has been a lot said in this election about the need for change and specifically the need to change the tone in Washington. John McCain has a good record of working with the oppositve party, even when it places him in conflict with his own party. He has done this on judicial nominations, campaign finance reform and immigration. Barack Obama is also willing to work with Republicans, but only when they agree with the Democratic Party, as shown by the fact that he votes with the Democrats 96% of the time.

Vote for Melissa Goodwin

I have been talking about the national election a lot in this blog. Today I want to talk about a local candidate who needs your support. If you don't vote in Travis County, you can skip reading the rest of this post. Melissa Goodwin is judge of the 427th District Court in Travis County. This is a new criminal court. In the short time that she has been in office she has presided over trials involving murder, offenses against children, sexual offenses, robbery, home invasions, and serious drug and property crimes. Her background has prepared her well for this position. Her background includes eight years working for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the State's highest criminal court, four years as a Justice of the Peace, three years of private practice and a stint with the General Counsel's Office of the State Bar of Texas.

Melissa is a judge with independence and integrity. While she was a Justice of the Peace, I appeared before her representing a tenant whose landlord was unfairly seeking to evict her and to charge her outrageous fees. Judge Goodwin denied the eviction despite the fact that the same landlord would no doubt appear in her court many times while she would likely never see the tenant again.

Melissa has one small handicap in her campaign to keep her job. She was appointed by Gov. Rick Perry and is a Republican. In the past, only one Republican trial judge has ever been re-elected in Travis County because of the strong Democratic presence here. It makes absolutely no sense that we elect judges in partisan elections. Whether someone is running on the Republican or Democratic ticket has very little to do with their legal training and credentials. However, that is the system that we have.

I have nothing bad to say about Judge Goodwin's opponent. He is also qualified for the job. However, I do think that once you have someone who is qualified and doing a good job that you shouldn't replace them just because they are not from the right political party. If Melissa were a Democrat running against a Republican, I would feel just as strongly about her qualifications as judge. This is an office that should not be awarded based on politics.

New Music I'm Listening To

It takes a real effort for me to find new music that I like. I listen to a station where I like the morning show and which plays music aimed at 30-somethings. A lot of the time it is easier to just listen to my old Who and Cars CDs. However, every once in a while, I come across new music which intrigues me. This posting is dedicated to three very different bands fronted by female lead singers.

Flyleaf

I heard about Flyleaf from my daughter. They were on her short list of bands to see at the Austin City Limits Festival. I didn't go, but I did watch live streaming video of the concert and was blown away. Flyleaf is very hard music, the kind I would have listened to in my teens and twenties, but is also very intelligent. The band's website explains it like this:

Heavy music and pained lyrics go together like cake and ice cream, and Belton, Texas quintet, Flyleaf, aren't about to break with tradition. But while many loud rockers reopen old wounds by singing about their broken homes and broken hearts, Flyleaf confront past traumas to heal old scars and prove in the process that hope shines brighter than despair.

While they are not a "Christian" band, they are a band made up of Christians who address religious themes in their music. Their most powerful song is "Cassie," a song about two girls who were asked whether they believed in God by the Columbine murderers. Both girls said yes and were killed for their answer. This song remembers these modern-day martyrs.

Nightwish

I heard about Nightwish from my trainer. After listening to their latest CD, I'm not sure whether I'm hooked yet, but I am definitely interested. For those who don't know, Nightwish is like the most popular band in Finland. They are classically influenced hard rock in the same tradition as Kansas, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Jethro Tull. The first song on their current CD "Dark Passion Play" is thirteen minutes long and shows a certain self-indulgent desire to make music without regard to commercial appeal. Their music alternates between heavy metal and strings. Like I said, they have my interest.

Katy Perry

I know that I shouldn't like Katy Perry. Her first single was very racy. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's best that I not explain. Suffice it to say that when one of Kristen's friends had her Quinceanera she gave strict instructions not to play THAT song. However, her second single "Hot N Cold" is pretty irresistable. It has an infectious beat and clever lyrics. The opening line is "You change your mind like a girl changes clothes." This is an ironic choice of words for a song addressed to a guy and is a really great simile.

Presidential Candidates Face Challenges to Eligibility

In an already strange election year, both major party candidates have faced challenges to their eligibility to run for president from members of their own party! The problem lies with Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, which states that only a "natural born citizen" may hold the office of president of the United States. There have been suits filed against both John McCain and Barack Obama questioning their eligibility to run for president. The bizarre twist is that both suits have been filed by litigants who claim to be members of the same party as the candidate they seek to disqualify!

Challenge to McCain Eligibility Fails

In Sen. McCain's case, it is undisputed that he was born in the Panama Canal Zone to American parents. Republican Fred Hollander brought a suit against John McCain alleging that to be a "natural born citizen" as required by the Constitution, a person must have been born within the United States. Since the Constitution does not define "natural born citizen" or use the term in any other context, the question is open to debate. Interestingly enough, if Mr. Hollander's argument was correct, FDR (who was born in Canada to American parents) would not have been eligible to be president either.

Sen. McCain is safe for now. The suit against him was dismissed based upon lack of standing. Hollander v. McCain, 566 F.Supp.2d 63 (D. N.H. 2008). Standing is a legal concept which says that in order to bring a lawsuit, you must have been personally harmed in some way. While a rival party or candidate would have standing to challenge an ineligible candidate, a voter from the same party does not have standing because his interest is no different than any one of millions of other voters.

Obama Challenge Pending

In Sen. Obama's case, there are allegations of intrigue and obscure immigration law interpretations. Barack Obama was born to an 18 year old American mother and a Kenyan father. If he was born in the United States, then he would clearly have been an American citizen at birth. The Obama campaign has posted a copy of a birth certificate demonstrating that he was born in Hawaii. However, Philip Berg, a one-time Democratic candidate for Senator and Governor of Pennsylvania, has alleged a conspiracy. Mr. Berg has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court alleging that Sen. Obama's mother was not able to fly back to the United States in time for his birth and that he was really born in Kenya. He claims that the birth certificate posted by the campaign is a fake and has demanded that Sen. Obama produce the original. Berg v. Obama, No. 08-CV-4083 (E.D. Pa.).

The Kenya vs. Hawaii distinction is important because under federal law at the time, a child born to an American parent in a another country could only become a citizen as a matter of right if the American parent had lived in the United States for at least five years after the age of fourteen. In other words, in order for a child born overseas with only one American parent to automatically become a citizen, the American parent would have to be at least nineteen. Since Sen. Obama's mother was only eightteen (at least according to the lawsuit), he would not qualify.

The case gets even stranger based on the subsequent moves of Sen. Obama's globe-trotting mother. After Sen. Obama's birth, she divorced and remarried an Indonesian national. They resided in Indonesia where young Barack attended school. According to the Complaint, Indonesia did not allow foreigners to attend school at this time, so that Barack must have been adopted or acknowledged by his Indonesian step-father such that he became an Indonesian national and forfeited his American citizenship. The Plaintiff claims to have school records listing Barack Obama as an Indonesian citizen. Of course, it is also possible that school officials allowed him to attend school and listed him as an Indonesian without regard to whether he had become a citizen. The Complaint also alleges that Sen. Obama used an Indonesian passport to travel to Pakistan, India and Indonesia in 1981. However, this argument is based largely on the conjecture that Pakistan and Indonesia would have been more likely to allow him to travel to those countries if he had a passport from a Muslim country as opposed to an American passport. As a result, it is a pretty weak argument.

Sen. Obama and the Democratic National Committee have filed a motion to dismiss the case against Sen. Obama on the same standing grounds that were successfully urged by Sen. McCain. The case will likely have the same outcome. As a result, unless Sen. McCain or the Republican Party tries to challenge Sen. Obama's eligibility to run for president, the issue will likely die there.

How to Make Soccer Popular in the United States

I am often asked why soccer is not more popular in America. Soccer is certainly popular as a player's sport. My club has almost 3,000 players in South Austin alone, while the South Texas Youth Soccer Association has over 100,000 players. Those numbers should stand up to any other participatory sport. However, the attention paid to professional futbol pales in comparison to that given to professional football.

The Spanish national team may have found a way to make soccer more popular in this country. The Spanish team was sponsored by beermaker Cruzcampo. The sponsor promised that if the team made it past the quarter-finals, that each player would receive their weight in beer. The promise worked. The team won the European championship, bringing the country's first major title in over 40 years.

The team had a special weigh-in to see how many beer they would receive. Goalkeeper Pepe Reina earned the most beer at 211 pounds, while slight forward Santi Cazorla will receive only 155 pounds of beer. Over all, the team will receive 5,200 bottles of beer. Now there is an example that Americans might notice.

A Tale of Voter Fraud and Two Democratic Secretaries of State

Every election cycle there are charges and counter-charges related to voter fraud and voter suppression. Republicans fear that Democrats are padding the voter rolls with non-existent or ineligible voters while Democrats claim that Republicans are trying to discourage the disenfranchised from exercising their franchise. As in prior years, much of the focus is on ACORN, the Association of Communities Organized for Reform Now.

ACORN proudly announces that it has registered 1.3 million new voters this year. However, the legitimacy of many of these registrations is in doubt. In Indianapolis, 105% of the eligible voters have registered. In Las Vegas, the starting line-up of the Dallas Cowboys appeared on registration forms submitted by ACORN. In Lake County, Indiana, ACORN turned in 5,000 applications at the last moment which included dead people, a person registered as living at a fast food restaurant and multiple applications signed for different registrants in the same hand. In other instances, the same person has registered up to 72 times at the insistence of ACORN workers.

While ACORN bills itself as a non-partisan organization, the Obama campaign paid it $800,000 for get out the vote operations during the primary elections and ACORN has endorsed Obama. An ACORN worker interviewed by Pelestra.net a student news network, stated that she was registering voters so that they would vote for Obama.

There are currently investigations into ACORN activities in ten battleground states. According to ACORN lawyer Brian Moller, “We believe their purpose is to attack ACORN and suppress votes. We think that by attacking ACORN that they are going to discourage people who have may have registered with ACORN from voting.”

The reaction to ACORN’s questionable activities varies dramatically from state to state. In Las Vegas, where ACORN registered 80,000 new voters including Tony Romo and TO Owens, Democratic Secretary of State Ross Miller led an effort to have law enforcement authorities raid ACORN’s office and seize evidence. ACORN responded that this and other investigations were "part of a carefully choreographed campaign to intimidate the largest organization of black and Hispanic poor people in the country."

The story in Ohio was somewhat different. ACCORN claims to have registered 247,335 new voters in this critical swing state. However, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that ACORN officials admitted that they lacked the resources to identify fraudulent registrations.

The response of Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner was rather lethargic. Under the Helping Americans Vote Act, the State was required to enter into an agreement with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to identify discrepancies in voter registrations. The Secretary of State entered into such an agreement. However, when a mismatch occurred, it took no further action other than noting it in its records. The Secretary of State claimed that county boards of elections could perform this task, but had to admit that they had no ability to search the records to find non-conforming records. In other words, the Secretary of State would search for voter registrations which did not match up to the state’s database and then took no further action to investigate fraudulent registrations. The United States District Court concluded that Secretary of State Brunner was violating the law.

Based upon this information, it is clear to the Court that Defendant is not in compliance with HAVA, which requires matching for the purpose of verifying the identity of the voter before counting that person’s vote. As Plaintiffs have argued, the State is not verifying the voter registration information for entries when there is a mismatch, and the county boards of elections are not able to investigate the mismatches to determine voter eligibility because they have no effective way to identify or isolate the mismatches from the rest of the pile. Under this system, HAVA’s matching and verification requirements serve no identifiable purpose and are rendered meaningless.

Opinion and Order, Ohio Republican Party, et al vs. Jennifer, Case No. 2:08-cv-00913 (S.D. Ohio 10/9/08), p. 11.

Secretary Brunner’s attempts to comply with the letter but not the spirit of the law might be justified were it not for other examples of partisan bias. Secretary Brunner tried to disallow absentee ballots submitted by the McCain campaign for the reason that a box not required by law had not been checked. The Ohio Supreme Court ordered her to count the ballots. Additionally, Secretary Brunner had to be restrained from excluding observers from locations conducting same day voter registration and early voting.

While ACORN claims that it is merely helping the underprivileged to vote, it seems likely that hundreds of thousands of false voter registration forms are being submitted. If state officials turn a blind eye to these applications, as almost happened in Ohio, it stands to reason that some number of fraudulent votes would be cast. In a close election, the integrity of the system requires that election officials carefully scrutinize voter registrations to ensure that one man, one vote does not turn into one man, dozens of votes. When partisan organizations like ACORN facilitate fraudulent registrations (which certainly appears to be happening), election officials and law enforcement should be diligent rather than turning a blind eye.

A Pox On Both Your Candidates!

This election cycle, there is a lot of spin flying around the internet. Hardly a day goes by without someone sending me a warning about the dangers of Barack Obama or pointing out some flaw with Sarah Palin. For this article, I am going to focus on what I dislike about both candidates’ positions. I will follow up with one about what I like about each (that will take longer to research). I don’t expect my handful of readers to agree with my positions, but I hope that it will encourage you to discuss what you like and dislike about the candidates.

Barack Obama

Energy

Sen. Obama recognizes the need to be free from dependence on foreign oil. He just opposes anything other than renewable sources of energy. He boldly states the goal to achieve 10% renewable energy by 2012 and 25% by 2025. However, he is unclear about how he will get there aside from investing $150 billion over the next ten years. On the other hand, he opposes offshore drilling, while stating that he favors nuclear energy in principle while opposing it in practice. Meanwhile, his short term plan is to impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies and use that money to give a tax credit to citizens. Is that smart? A windfall profits tax will raise the price of oil and will discourage new exploration, just as it did in the Carter administration. Thus, we are going to impose higher taxes on the oil companies, which will lead to higher prices, so that we can give a tax credit to make up for the higher prices that would be caused by the windfall profits tax.

Foreign Policy/Iraq

Sen. Obama wants the troops out of Iraq. That is a worthy goal and one that will happen regardless of who is elected president. However, if he had his way, the troops would be gone by now and we would never have achieved the results from the surge, results that Sen. Obama denies. Sen. Obama’s foreign policy is marked by inconsistency. He says that he will build greater consensus with our allies and talk to our enemies. However, he has advocated unilaterally launching military raids into Pakistan. How popular will that be? Sen. Obama has said that he will listen to our military leaders, but issued a policy statement critical of Gen. David Petraeus immediately prior to meeting with him.

Healthcare

I can’t really say that I disagree with Sen. Obama’s healthcare proposals. He wants to ensure that people can keep their existing healthcare coverage, that it will be less expensive than it is now and that everyone will have access to affordable healthcare. That sounds great. However, I am troubled by the lack of specifics. The only specific proposal that I see is requiring parents to insure their children and punishing them if they don’t.

Judicial Selection

Sen. Obama wants to end conservative judicial activism and replace it with liberal judicial activism. He voted against both of President Bush’s nominees on the ground that they did not favor the powerless sufficiently. He has stated that in certain difficult cases, adherence to precedent and legal reasoning will not be sufficient to achieve a result and that “in those difficult cases, the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart.” That sure sounds to me like he would encourage his judicial nominees to decide who they want to win and then make the result come out in that direction. That would be the beginning of the end of the rule of law.

John McCain

Bankruptcy Reform

I am a bankruptcy lawyer, so I have some definite opinions about the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. Generally, this statute made the bankruptcy laws more complicated and made bankruptcy more expensive without achieving any significant reform goals. The statute is badly drafted and inconsistent, such that a debtor can be forced to file chapter 13 because payments on 401k loans are not excluded from disposable income in chapter 7 even though those same payments are excluded from disposable income in chapter 13. If you are not a bankruptcy lawyer, I don’t expect you to follow this. However, the bottom line is that Congress took something which worked relatively well and made it so complex that it resembled the tax code without any corresponding benefit. Sen. McCain voted for this legislation (like Sen. Biden, but unlike Sen. Obama) and has not shown any interest in revising it. If Sen. McCain cares about ordinary Americans, he could take a stab at making this legislation coherent.

Foreign Policy/Iraq

In many ways, Sen. McCain has been right about Iraq. He was against torture and he warned against going in with too few troops and no plan for how to manage the country after the shooting stopped. In those areas, he was right to differ from the Bush Administration. However, he still maintains that it was the right decision to invade Iraq. I have come to believe that pre-emptive war is a bad idea in 99% of the cases. Any prudent leader would want to be savvy enough to see through Hitler’s promise that he would be satisfied with the Sudetenland or foresee the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. However, in most cases, we won’t have the clarity of vision to recognize a clear and present danger before it strikes. In retrospect, Iraq was a dangerous country governed by an unstable dictator who refused to account for his stocks of chemical weapons. Despite the potential for malice against his own countrymen and his neighbors, Saddam Hussein was relatively penned in. When we invaded, we lost American lives to depose a dangerous dictator. However, we also killed innocent civilians, tortured randomly, installed a regime friendly with Iran and ignited a simmering religious war between Shiite and Sunni. It just goes to show that war is a destructive thing. People get killed, many of them innocents. In the future, we should be aware that if the potential for a dangerous conflict exists in our allies’ back yards and they don’t favor military action, that maybe we should not try to go it alone.

Healthcare

One portion of Sen. McCain’s healthcare plan is inconsistent with the rest of his message. He wants to tax employer provided healthcare benefits. This is bad on so many levels. First of all, it is a tax increase on the middle class. Sen. McCain has railed against his opponent for wanting to raise taxes on the middle class while he is proposing a middle class tax increase himself. Additionally, employer-provided healthcare is one of the few things that works in our system. Why would you discourage it? This is incredibly stupid and will hopefully be reconsidered if Sen. McCain becomes president.

The Palin Pick

I have spent a lot of time defending Sarah Palin to my friends. I do not think that she is a Stepford Candidate and I don’t believe that she is a lobotomized harpy sent by the religious right to destroy America. However, when you get past all of the ridiculous charges that have been thrown at her, there is one that you can’t deny—she is just so gosh darned inexperienced. She has even less experience than Geraldine Ferraro had before being nominated by the Democrats. Two years as governor of a small Western state might be enough to earn a position in the Senate or the cabinet. However, it is not adequate to be president in waiting. Hopefully, Sen. McCain will have excellent health and Gov. Palin will be a quick study. However, if the Republican ticket is elected, Gov. Palin is going to have to spend the next eight years cramming for a test that she is not ready to pass today.

False and Misleading Statements By Both Candidates

This was supposed to be a different campaign, one in which both candidates would take the high road and give America an example of what positive leadership would look like. It hasn’t been and there is plenty of guilt on both sides. Factcheck.org does a good job of keeping track of the whoppers told by both campaigns.

• Both Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin have repeated the claim that Barack Obama voted to raise taxes 94 times. While Sen. Obama has voted to raise taxes some of the time, 23 votes were votes against tax cuts and seven votes would have lowered taxes on most people and raised them for a few.

• Both Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden claim that Sen. McCain has proposed a $4 billion tax cut for oil companies. In fact, Sen. McCain has proposed a general tax cut which would apply to all businesses and does not offer specific benefits to the oil industry.

• In the debate, Gov. Palin said that a $5,000 tax credit for healthcare would be budget neutral. That doesn’t make much sense. To be budget neutral, a tax credit would have to be balanced with a reduction in spending. Since the government is not providing health insurance to individuals at this time, a $5,000 tax credit would cost the government $5,000 per person in foregone tax revenue.

• Sen. Obama claimed that Sen. McCain voted against funding for renewable energy 23 times, while Sen. McCain claimed that he had always voted for funding for renewable energy. According to factcheck.org, Sen. McCain voted against funding for renewable energy 11 times, not 23 times or 0 times.

• Sen. Obama claims that Sen. McCain wants to cut social security benefits in half and that current retirees would have lost money from the drop in the stock market. In fact, Sen McCain supported a lower increase in benefits rather than a decrease. Additionally, he supported President Bush’s plan to allow workers born after 1950 to voluntarily invest their social security contributions. Since workers born in 1950 are not old enough to retire, the benefits of current retirees would not be affected. Additionally, since investment in the stock market would be voluntary, no one would lose money without making a decision to invest in the market.

• Sen . McCain and Sen.Obama accuse each other of consorting with unsavory characters. Sen. Obama has criticized Sen. McCain for his association with Charles Keating, a crooked S & L owner. Sen. McCain did intervene on behalf of Mr. Keating, but did it on a limited basis and has said that it was the worst decision he ever made. Sen. McCain has criticized Sen. Obama for his association with Bill Ayers, a one-time radical who bombed the Pentagon and the Capitol. Sen. Obama was only eight years old when the bombings occurred, so he could not have supported them at the time. On the other hand, Bill Ayers has never repudiated his violent past and has said that he wished he could have done more. He was more than a casual acquaintance of Sen. Obama’s, having hosted a reception for him and serving on a board with him. However, the fact that Sen. Obama associated with a one-time radical does not mean that he currently endorses his past violence.

Only in Austin

This weekend, the firms that I work for hosted a celebration for the 25th anniversary of Barbara Barron and Manny Newburger practicing together, as well as the the 2nd anniversary of Barron, Newburger, Sinsley & Wier, PLLC. We joined several hundred of our friends and clients (some of whom were the same people) for barbecue and country music at the Salt Lick in Driftwood, Texas. What does any of this have to do with bankruptcy? Not much directly. However, it is a reminder to heed Shakespeare’s admonition to “do as adversaries do in law, strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.” (The Taming of the Shrew Act I, Scene 2).

Twenty-five years is a long time. While I wasn’t there for all of it, there is still a strange sensation of waking up in another time and place. Over 25 years, we have gone through the real estate bust/S & L crisis which spawned the RTC, the leveraged buyout bust which gave rise to mega-bankruptcies, credit card defaults leading to personal bankruptcy filings topping 1.6 million, Enron, bankruptcy reform and now the sub-prime mortgage crisis. During that time, newlyweds had children grow up, our hair grew thinner and our waistlines grew larger (at least mine did). The baby boomers who hoped to transform the world now look forward to retirement.

Over the years, we have met a lot of interesting people and many of them were at the festivities. Politicians and judges mingled with real estate developers, reorganized debtors and debt collectors. Lawyers, clerks and support staff drank margaritas together. However, the best story of the night was probably the entertainment (and I am not just talking about Barbara Barron gracefully two-stepping and doing the cha-cha).

The headliner for the evening was Brian Turner and His Redneck Band. Brian is proof that only in Austin, Texas can a Jewish solo practitioner pursue his dream of being a snuff-dipping country music sensation. (While Kinky Friedman is more famous, that’s only because Brian hasn’t been discovered yet). Brian represented a significant bloc of creditors in a contentious chapter 11 case that our firm handled. As we were wrapping up the case, Brian shared one of his CDs with us. His music hits traditional country music themes such as patriotism, fatherhood and failed relationships, but does so with a wry sense of humor.

With songs like “I Miss That Dog More Than You,” “If Love Is Blind Why Do You See My Faults See Clearly” and “If You Won’t Leave Me, I’ll Find Someone Who Will,” Brian harnesses a traditional country music vibe with just a little tongue in cheek. Even his tribute to his father contains the refrain, “So here’s to my dad/ who taught me all my bad habits/ some of my good ones, too/ Like to be a great dad/ believe in your country and never turn my back on you.”

I admire Brian for managing to practice law and pursue his dream as well. Let’s hope that the rest of us can do that as well.