Steinbeck on the Measure of Man

At the end of some of my letters, I sometimes include the following passage from Steinbeck:

“Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there’s time, the bastard Time. The end of life is now not so terribly far away--you can see it the way you see the finish line when you come into the stretch--and your mind says, “Have I worked enough? Have I eaten enough? Have I loved enough?” All of these, of course, are the foundation for man’s greatest curse, and perhaps his greatest glory. “What has my life meant so far, and what can it mean in the time left to me?” And now we’re coming to the wicked, poisoned dart: “What have I contributed to the great ledger? What am I worth?” And this isn’t vanity or ambition. Men seem to be born with a debt they can never pay no matter how hard they try. It piles up ahead of them. Man owes something to man. If he ignores the debt it poisons him, and if he tries to make payments the debt only increases, and the quality of his gift is the measure of the man. -- John Steinbeck from Sweet Thursday

The last two sentences are pure poetry, aren't they?

Funny Stuff My Mom Sez

On voting:

Her: "I don't want my taxes to be raised. Who do I vote for? (showing me Democratic absentee ballot form)

Me: "Then you have to vote Republican."

Her: "No! I won't vote Republican! They take our money and destroy their families. They don't have values or morals. Who was that man who went to Argentina to cheat on his wife?"

Me: "I can't believe Gov. Sanford just raised my taxes."

[P.S. My mom loves Bill Clinton. That man is pure teflon, I tell ya.]

Voting 2010: my mom and I, discussing propositions on the ballot.

Me: Your taxes will go up...

Mom: No!

Me: ...but children's health services will receive more money.

Mom: Wait! This is tricky...

Scolding Me: (English is my mom's second language.)

"You are getting out of the line."

On Pancakes: Saturday morning, 8:00AM.

Me: "Okay, Mom, let's go get some pancakes."

Mom: [excited] "Are we going to IHOP?"

Me: "No, someplace better, called Stacks."

Mom: [incredulously] "Better than IHOP???!!"

Me: [shaking head] "I can't believe you think IHOP is the pinnacle for pancakes."

[Update: she liked Stacks, but didn't think it was significantly better than IHOP.]

On Style:

Me: [On my way out the door, wearing shorts and a t-shirt for my doctor's appointment.]

Mom: "Why don't you wear something nice? People will not respect you dressed like that. Why don't you dress like the Spanish people?"

Me: "Mom, you've never even been to Spain. Sigh."

On Cleanliness:

Mom, checking out my bathroom and unhappy with its uncleanliness:

"How are you going to live with other people? I bet [when it happens] people will complain and the police will come and arrest you."

On X-Mas cards:

Mom: [showing me a proposed holiday card she's written] "Have a blast, happy and wonderful holiday" [sic]

Mom: "So, is it 'holiday' or 'holidays'?"

Me: I can't believe you've written a sentence that is impossible to fix. I bet I can submit this to a record book of some kind.

Dad: It's "holidays."

On X-Mas presents (2010):

Mom: [gives me a mug with the phrase, "Christmas Calories Don't Count."]

Me: I know I collect mugs, so thank you, but this one is for women.

Mom: That's okay, you are getting fat.

On Super Bowl (2011):

Mom: every touchdown is 7 points?
Me: it's 6 points, and if you make a free kick, it's 7.
Mom: you mean if it goes through that thing?
Me: [sigh] Yes. If it goes through the thing, it's an extra point.
Mom: What if it doesn't go through the thing?
Me: Then it's 6 points.
Mom: When is the halftime?
Me: At the half.
Mom: What do you mean the half? The time, or the score?

Bonus:
Mom, on Usher: he stole all his moves from Michael Jackson.

Payback Time, from Mom:

Me, on telephone, leaving someone a message: "I would rather have this [referring to someone who is blunt but passionate] than someone apathetic."

Mom, over-hearing me: "That's not right. It should be 'her,' not 'this.'"

Me: "Unbelievable. You're actually right for once."

Mom, later, texting me: "U should say in face book that I corrected your English. U make fun of my English. now is d pay back time. Let's see what your friends say. I bet they all love me more."

On Nutrition:

Me: "You know how to identify good orange juice, right?"
Mom: "Yes, 'from concentration.'"

On Overeating:

Me: "You're eating too much."
Mom: "Me? What about you? All you do is eat. You're a potato."
Me: "What? A potato?"
Mom: "A potato couch."
Me: [confused] "What's a potato couch?"
Mom: "Someone who sits down and eats all the time."
Me: "You mean 'couch potato'?"
Mom: "Yes, that's what I meant."

On Overeating, Part II:

Mom, unhappy at seeing me eat an entire pint of ice cream: "If there is shortage of food, you will die quickly."

On Idioms:

Repairman [installing kitchen microwave]: "This microwave just needs some elbow grease."

Mom: "Where do I buy that?"

Grandma Edition, shopping together:

Grandma (in Farsi): "Is this blouse good?"

Me (in Farsi): "No. It's terrible. Are you able to see well?"

Grandma: "Yes, I can see very well. I can see all the way over there." (pointing to end of store)

Me: (joking) "Then why can't you see the dress in front of you?"

Grandma: "I am going to hit you."

Not sweet by any name:

Mom: "What smells? Something smells really bad."

Me: [finally noticing a smell]

Mom: "It's a skunk, be careful!"

Me: "Uh, Mom, I think that's marijuana."

Mom: "In the daytime?"

Bonus: why my dad is voting Democrat in 2010: "Bush destroyed America, and now China is going to lead, and most of us will need welfare."

California Lawyer Magazine on Public Pensions

From California Lawyer, "A Thousand Cuts" by Thomas Brum:

In February 2010 the Pew Center on the States reported that, in the next 30 years, state governments would be on the hook for $3.35 trillion for pensions. Two months later the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research reported that California's three main public pension funds had unfunded liabilities of $425 billion. And last October the Milken Institute reported that, by 2013, the combined liabilities of these three funds will be more than 5.5 times larger than total state general fund revenue...

In California, the state constitution protects public pension benefits, like other contracts, from impairment. (Cal. Const., Art. I, § 9.) Described succinctly by the state Supreme Court, "A public employee's pension constitutes an element of compensation, and a vested contractual right to pension benefits accrues upon acceptance of employment." (Betts v. Bd. of Admin., 21 Cal. 3d 859, 863 (1978) (citing Kern v. City of Long Beach, 29 Cal. 2d 848 (1947)).)...

[T]he court noted, "Imprudence...is not unconstitutional." (County of Orange v. Ass'n. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, 2011 WL 227711 at *8.)

More here. Unfortunately, the article doesn't discuss how these government benefits were negotiated. Many people don't know that government workers received their compensation packages behind closed doors--away from the average voter's oversight--due to an exception in the Brown Act for labor negotiations. Thus, government union compensation contracts are not the same as ordinary arms-length contracts. Instead, such contracts are the product of union organizing and using superior organization to get better compensation for themselves. But when compensation is negotiated behind closed doors and in a system where residents/voters must pay whatever is negotiated, it is clear that government unions have an advantage that is not necessarily compatible with the interests of the general public.

Private unions are different. If a GM worker is paid a million dollars a year, it does not necessarily concern me, because I do not have to buy a GM product. I have a choice, and if a private union gives themselves overly generous pay packages, they destroy the company and their own work prospects. No such check and balance exists when government unions negotiate overly generous compensation packages. Taxpayers must pay whatever is negotiated behind their backs, no matter how outrageous. If you say the problem is negligent oversight by politicians, I agree, but when the system is designed to favor politicians who cozy up to government unions, it's hard not to blame government unions as well as the voters. Just my two cents.

Mark Twain on Patriotism

What is patriotism? To me, it's utilizing the freedom to think for yourself and to comment on matters involving your government without fear of reprisal from government employees. Mark Twain seems to agree:

I said that no party held the privilege of dictating to me how I should vote. That if party loyalty was a form of patriotism, I was no patriot, and that I didn’t think I was much of a patriot anyway, for oftener than otherwise what the general body of Americans regarded as the patriotic course was not in accordance with my views; that if there was any valuable difference between being an American and a monarchist it lay in the theory that the American could decide for himself what is patriotic and what isn’t; whereas the king could dictate the monarchist’s patriotism for him–-a decision which was final and must be accepted by the victim; that in my belief I was the only person in the sixty millions–-with Congress and the Administration back of the sixty million–-who was privileged to construct my patriotism for me.

They said “Suppose the country is entering upon a war–-where do you stand then? Do you arrogate yourself the privilege of going your own way in the matter, in the face of the nation?"

“Yes,” I said, “that is my position. If I thought it an unrighteous war I would say so. If I were invited to shoulder a musket in that cause and march under that flag, I would decline. I would not voluntarily march under this country’s flag, nor any other, when it was my private judgment that the country was in the wrong. If the country obliged me to shoulder the musket I could not help myself, but I would never volunteer. To volunteer would be the act of a traitor to myself, and consequently traitor to my country. If I refused to volunteer, I should be called a traitor, I am well aware of that–-but that would not make me at traitor. The unanimous vote of the sixty millions could not make me at traitor. I should still be a patriot, and, in my opinion, the only one in the whole country.

Stirring words. [As seen in Harper's Magazine, April 11, 2011, pp. 35, "Democracy 101," quoting from The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1.]

Bonus: below is Mark Twain's response to a letter regarding a library's removal of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn from the children's section:

"I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn for adults exclusively, and it always distresses me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them.  The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean; I know this by my own experience, and to this day I cherish an unappeasable bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again this side of the grave."

More here. (November 21, 1905, letter to Asa Don Dickinson)

Bonus II (added September 2016): "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." -- Justice Robert H. Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943).  

President Eisenhower on American Pride

President Eisenhower, speech, November 23, 1953:

Why are we proud? We are proud, first of all, because from the beginning of this Nation, a man can walk upright, no matter who he is, or who she is. He can walk upright and meet his friend--or his enemy; and he does not fear that because that enemy may be in a position of great power that he can be suddenly thrown in jail to rot there without charges and with no recourse to justice. We have the habeas corpus act, and we respect it...

It was: meet anyone face to face with whom you disagree. You could not sneak up on him from behind, or do any damage to him, without suffering the penalty of an outraged citizenry. If you met him face to face and took the same risks he did, you could get away with almost anything, as long as the bullet was in the front...In this country, if someone dislikes you, or accuses you, he must come up in front. He cannot hide behind the shadow. He cannot assassinate you or your character from behind, without suffering the penalties an outraged citizenry will impose.

Ladies and gentlemen, the things that make us proud to be Americans are of the soul and of the spirit. They are not the jewels we wear, or the furs we buy, the houses we live in, the standard of living, even, that we have. All these things are wonderful to the esthetic and to the physical senses.

But let us never forget that the deep things that are American are the soul and the spirit.

Full speech here.  Bonus: http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/  

CA Chief Justice George on our Justice System

Chief Justice George, as quoted in California Litigation, Vol. 20, No 1 (Kenneth Babcock, 2007):

The availability of affordable legal assistance even for the middle class is often an illusion, and access to legal assistance for those at the bottom of the economic ladder too frequently is viewed as a luxury totally out of reach. As a result, individuals facing crises that may affect everything from their ability to earn a livelihood to their right to care for their children find themselves required to navigate a legal system that largely is designed for and by specialists in the field--lawyers and judges--or even worse, to stand outside the system, ignorant of or intimidated by the first steps they need to take to avail themselves of its services.

In my humble opinion, more laws do not generally help poor people, because poor people need more money, and more rights do not always or necessarily translate into more money.

[Note on June 22, 2012: to keep things fresh on the home page, I've manually changed the date of this blog post.] 

Judge Wilkinson on America

One of the best articles ever written on any subject is by J. Harvie Wilkinson III, "Toward One America: a Vision in Law." (The Green Bag Almanac and Reader, published 2009; see also 83 NYU Law Review 323)

A 4th Circuit judge laments America's growing divisiveness and presents seven solutions. I'm not going to go into all seven recommendations, but here are some of my favorite parts of the article:

On perspective:

We judges are as a class bereft of acquaintance with the variegated and pluralistic country that we serve.

On the much maligned overreach of the commerce clause:

The silent commerce clause is an indispensable ingredient of national unity.

On community:

Let's restore a constitutional respect for community. It is futile to expect a healthy nation in the absence of a healthy community. Community instills within us the sense that we live for something larger and more meaningful than just ourselves...Communities are built around shared purposes and values, one of which is surely a respect and appreciation for individual rights. But there must likewise be the sense that individuals contribute to, as well as take from, this larger whole of which we as single persons are but parts. To enshrine a sanctity of self in our founding charter without textual or historical warrant may be just as pernicious as the attempt to enshrine the discrimination against those whose personal choices may for good and legitimate reason fail to conform to the majority's own. On many of the great questions of the day, our Constitution is consciously agnostic. Its enumeration of rights is significant, but finite. Its grant of powers to representative government is formidable, but it does not prescribe what substantive ends the exercise of those powers must embody. To bend our Constitution in the direction of autonomy or collectivity is detrimental to our national health.

On polarization:

The search for One America requires less polarization, but not necessarily less partisanship. The two must be distinguished... Partisanship is more of a mixed bag. It can easily proceed too far, but it can also promote vigorous debate and frame electoral choices.

If you get a chance, do look up the full article. Required reading for every American.