Osler's Razor

The job of law enforcement is often just stopping people from doing dangerous things. Sometimes it takes violence to do this, by tackling a man who has stolen property or shooting someone who is about to commit a murder.  Even the execution of warrants is inherently violent: It starts (usually) with knocking down a door and continues as armed officers flood the building and put people forcibly down on the floor until the place is secure.

We expect the police to do each of these things, even though they are all violent.  No on I have heard from advocates barring the police from these activities.

The problem with police violence isn't that it exists at all, but that it exists when it is not accomplishing a goal worthy of the risks that come with violence. For example, shooting a man who is running away is (unless he is threatening others) not worthy of that violence-- the good (stopping his escape) is outweighed by the bad (a summary execution).

The problem is this: within any population of police officers, there are some people who are violent when it isn't necessary to accomplish a worthwhile goal.  Sometimes, too, inherent racial bias is part of the reason this unnecessary violence occurs.

So how do we limit unnecessary police violence?  Here are some concrete ideas:

1)  Better psychological profiling of police applicants.  Because this will limit the pool of potential workers, we will have to (and should) pay them better, as well.

2)  Better accountability systems. This can include body cameras, but it also needs to include better independent oversight.

3)  Identify cultures of abuse.  The Ferguson police department was a mess, and a dangerous one.  It had a culture that drove egregious racial disparities in stops and arrests, for example. Such departments need to be identified and cleaned out by state or national authorities.

4)  Reduce the number of crimes.  Much of the violence in law enforcement relates to narcotics cases, and there are too many of these.  As I have written elsewhere, we need to seek out market solutions that target cash flow rather than labor within narcotics businesses.

5)  Higher expectations.  This seems to be occurring now; the American people are no longer ignoring the stories of violence and death that have long floated just out of the feeble reach of the media and the public imagination.

It's not easy being mayor of Razorland.  (And yes, the "M" on my sash is for "Mark." and is not a trademark violation).  Most recently, I have been inundated with spam using a new technique-- a flood of anonymous comments. I moderate the comments to old posts, so I am getting 50 emails a day about new anonymous comments, even after putting on some "not a bot" controls. 

Generally, I am not a huge fan of anonymous comments. It is too often a refuge of cowards.  Lately, though, I have had some excellent anonymous comments. Nonetheless, at least until the spam flood ceases, I am going to not allow anonymous comments.  You still have other options, so please comment away!

Sorry about that.

And watch out for the Hamburglar.

While watching some videos of the riots in Baltimore-- a terrible thing for that city-- I noticed something fascinating: There were far more people filming what was happening most of the time than there were people doing bad things.  For example, in the video above at about we see a few guys jumping on cars-- and more than a dozen filming it on their phones at different times.

People taking videos with their phones has (and this is a very good thing) led to the documentation of police violence that up to now has hidden in the shadows.  But what does it mean in this context that we have become a nation of documentarians? Does it propel people to action or deter them to know that they are being filmed at every turn?

Good haiku last week, all, but I loved this one from the Waco Friend:

Sitting on the top
of a hand-cranked cream machine
while uncles work the crank

Till the frozen cream
concoction declared ready!
Eat slowly too cold

Too good to rush or
freeze your throat but my
what a summer joy

for an eight year old
at reunion sixty years past
what great memories!

Written by Pete Seeger, popularized by the Byrds:

While I agree with him on many things, on the one I know the most about (clemency), I have been sometimes critical of President Obama, in a wide variety of places-- up to and including the Washington Post (though I have been a bigger supporter lately).

All that aside, I will say this: Michelle Obama is a remarkable first lady.  There are a lot of things I admire about her:

1) As someone who was a very successful lawyer, it has to be a challenge for her to be so completely in her husband's shadow for these eight years. I get the idea that theirs had been a marriage of equals, and I am excited to see that re-emerge once the President's second term ends. In this role, she continues to exhibit the qualities that I try (often unsuccessfully) to model to my law students.

2) I really admire her interactions with the public. She seems warm and smart and engaged. It may be that (like former first lady Hillary Clinton) she is an introvert by nature, but she is wonderful when she does get out among people.

3) Her focus on fitness and nutrition has been great-- and addresses a real need in this country.

4) From what I can tell, she has a certain gravitas that allows her a different role at times than other first ladies have enjoyed. My hunch is that her voice is heard more often than we know within and around the White House, and that may be a good thing.

The first lady is not a politician, per se, but she is a public figure. Which first lady do you think was a great public figure? And what will it be like to have (as we will), a first husband?

I had a wonderful time giving the sermon last weekend at First Covenant Church in Minneapolis.  They have a very high standard there, given the talents of the Senior Minister, Dan Collison.

If you are interested, you can hear the podcast here.

I have gotten back into the groove of writing lately.  I have a book due on July 1 (on the Trial of Jesus), so it is just in the nick of time!  

Two of the people who have been my mentors in other aspects of life have recently started to write publicly, and it's remarkable to watch that unfold.  Both of them bring to their writing the very qualities that have made them so important to me: depth, warmth, passion, and a rugged streak of individualism. It makes me so happy to read what they have been doing, and I learn something each time.

The first of these two is my dad, John Osler, Jr. He has been working with the jazz scene in Detroit for the last several years; he created the poster for last year's Detroit Jazz Festival, has done the same for this year's event, and put together a great book called Detroit Jazz. Not only his photography but his evocative writing appears regularly on the web site for the Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe, which is the Detroit area's epicenter for jazz of late.  A few posts ago, he wrote this:


I was a shy student waiting for a great love to come along when Frank Sinatra’s hit song In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning came along, It sounded like my biography. Sinatra recorded David Mann and Bob Hilliard’s 1955 song at a time when it would have a considerably melancholy effect on my existence. Late at night, after studies, when I was feeling sorry for myself,  I would listen to Frank sing ” you would be hers if only she would call…in the wee small hours of the morning that’s the time you miss her most of all”

Thursday night at the Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe,  Cliff Monear’s Trio were playing requests. A couple asked  for In the Wee Small Hours. It was played without words but it still had the same effect on me. I was swept up in the music completely,  along with all the patrons who had had a lonely heart at some time in their life.  Bassist Jeff Pedroz bowed the story with feeling while Cliff took the group into some more complex thoughts of unrequited love. All this time drummer Stephen Boegehold kept them safely “in the pocket”.


When Cliff took the request for this song, he said that he hadn’t heard the song for twenty years. How then could the trio give a seven minute rendition of the song? I can understand one guy interpreting a tune as he goes along but several guys. How the heck? I asked the band after the set. I got shrugs. When I talked to Cliff after his set about his trio, he looked like a child opening his Easter basket.

That's wonderful stuff.

The other "new writer" (at least in such a public way) is Craig Anderson. He always was wonderful at expressing himself (though sometimes non-verbally, by clubbing someone with a hockey stick, for example), but of late he has turned to writing regularly for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.  It's striking, original work, too.  Most recently, he wrote about his church building a rain garden, beginning with this:

The dreaming begets the imagining, and the imagining begets the reality. Dream it and, with patience, it will happen — and, in turn, others will be drawn to gather. And they will come. As will spring rains.


As an act of both faith and “green church” stewardship, the Church of the Holy Comforter — known fondly as HoCo to parishioners — has installed the first of what the church hopes to be a network of rain gardens situated strategically around the church grounds. The installation, at the corner of Monument Avenue and Staples Mill Road, took place during the third week of March — bracketing the first day of spring.

I love the way that both of these mentors of mine combine the personal, the spiritual/soulful, and the universal grittiness of life when they write.  For them (in different ways), those were the things that informed the way they have always lived; and now, for both, there is a new way to share it.  That is a great thing.

At the top of the homepage (at the moment, anyways), you'll find my story on 4/20.

I don't usually favor anonymous commenters, but this haiku was great!

Not another Bush,
yet neither do I pine for
another Clinton.

Mostly, I love the way this poet uses the verb "pine"….

Today (at 9:30), I am giving the sermon at First Covenant Church in Minneapolis, 810 South 7th Street.    They take preaching pretty seriously there-- Minister Dan Collison is a fantastic preacher, and they give you a full 30 minutes to do the job right.

I give sermons three or four times a year (this is my second of this year), though I am not a minister and was never formally trained in it.  I love doing it, though, and am happy to have the chance to do it now and then.

My secret weapon is this: for nine years, I taught a class called "Oral Advocacy" at Baylor.  My co-teachers were Randall O'Brien and Hulitt Gloer-- two of the best preachers in Texas.  In other words, I got to hear two great preachers show how to give a great sermon year after year.  I will never forget it; there is a wealth of stories from those days.

The single most important thing I learned was this, which Hulitt emphasized:  You have to brood over a sermon.  That is, you can't just bang it out and then tinker with the words.  You have to hold it quietly in your mind soul until it is ready.  He is so right, too.  I find that my better sermons have been the ones where I take his advice: I block it out on Monday or Tuesday, and then think about until Friday. It becomes deeper and better and more real in those days.

There is something else, too… those brooding days themselves are deeper and better and more real. I think, in a way, this brooding is a way of inviting in the Holy Spirit.  If you think you can control the whole thing, own it, you aren't allowing in any space for that.  It's like anything else: it is bettered by allowing for blessed imperfections.

I saw this video over at the Green Momster, and I can't stop watching it...

This week, let's haiku about one or another of the many, many people who might run for President!  As evidenced by yesterday's post, I kind of have that on my brain. Here is a non-exhaustive list:

Joe Biden
Jeb Bush
Ben Carson
Lincoln Chafee
Chris Christie
Hillary Clinton
Ted Cruz
Day Gravis
Carly Fiorina
Mike Huckabee
Bobby Jindal
John Kasich
Jimmy McMillen
Martin O'Malley
Rand Paul
Rick Perry
Marco Rubio
Bernie Sanders
Rick Santorum
Vermin Supreme
Donald Trump
Scott Walker
Jim Webb

Here, I will go first:

Donald Trump, Oh please!
Please exercise your precious
Right to privacy!

Now it is your turn! Just make it 5 syllables/7 syllables/5 syllables, and have some fun!

This Sunday, I'll be giving the sermon at First Covenant Church in Minneapolis, on the trial of Jesus and modern criminal law.  Abby Rapoport did a great job describing one of my previous sermons there, and I always love going back to that warm, welcoming place. The church is located at 810 South 7th Street in Minneapolis, right across the street from the new Metrodome which is halfway-built.  The service starts at 9:30, and there will be a discussion of race and the law after the service at 11.

I'm thinking that I'll keep things fresh by working in some liturgical dance, borrowing some moves from the Crystal Light Aerobic Champions:

On Sunday, Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy for president by releasing this video. It announces not only her candidacy, but what will be the principle theme of her run: prosperity for the middle class. The images and stories chosen for the video aren't accidental; they are the product of thorough study. It's very well done.

I have friends on every side of the Hillary Clinton candidacy, from fervent supporters to stern opponents. Those on the extreme puzzle me a little, since it seems likely that Clinton would be a centrist like her husband was a the end of his term.

No one I know is as familiar with the Clintons as Ron Fournier, who has followed them as a member of the press since they were in Arkansas. I was fascinated by his piece in yesterday's National Journal, titled Of Two Minds on Hillary Clinton. Here is how that dead-on piece begins:

Nearly four of every 10 Americans say they "definitely" won't vote for Hillary Clinton if she wins the Democratic nomination, according to a Bloomberg Politics poll, roughly the same number (35 percent) who "definitely" or "probably" will support her. That leaves 25 percent who "might or might not voter for her."

Undecided. Up for grabs. On the fence. Whatever cliché you assign to it, I'm part of the one-fourth coalition—millions of Americans who, despite everything we know about Clinton (strike that: because of everything we know about her), are of two minds.

Mind 1: Outside the public eye, she seems funny, warm, smart, vulnerable, and authentic. An Everywoman. When will she show America the real Hillary?


Mind 2: The public eye is the only one we've got. What it sees is forced and guarded, and there's that gnawing sense of entitlement exhibited in her paid speeches, conflicts of interest, and email shenanigans. A pol. What if this is the real Hillary?

Lots of great haiku last week, but this one from my dad really hit me:

A city whose purpose 
is gone.. still can get cheap beer
in Superior.

And then I also loved the Medievalist's very true take:

I'm Minnesotan,
I've nothing to say about
Those easterner types.

On Friday, I was enmeshed in everything that goes with putting on an academic symposium.  I did the introductions for all the speakers, opened and closed the morning session, and then had a lunchtime debate with Margaret Colgate Love, sponsored by UST's Murphy Institute. It all went pretty well, I think.

There were a lot of great presenters-- Amy Baron-Evans, P.S. Ruckman, Adam Stevenson, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), Nekema Levy-Pounds, and Margy Love.  It was the last one that made the biggest impact on me, though.

Steven Chanenson is a professor at Villanova and the chair of the Pennsylvania Sentencing Commission. Like me, he was mentored by Dan Freed, and Steve's writing has influenced my own thinking for a long time.  His presentation on Friday was titled "The Clemency Curmudgeon."

In the talk, he described a hypothetical discussion on a park bench with the Clemency Curmudgeon, who asked all the right questions about the pardon power as it is being used right now.  This curmudgeon, it seems, isn't buying the euphoria about President Obama's actions-- and isn't sure it would be right to use clemency in the way Obama has hinted he might.  This Curmudgeon even questioned the use of the phrase "Mass Incarceration" to describe the present situation.  After all, what other kind of incarceration is there?

While my own work was part of this Curmudgeon's critique, it was hard to dismiss his points.  I'll be thinking about it for a long time-- especially the parts that were dead-on-- and I can't wait to see the printed version in the Law Journal. Steve's was perhaps the most important talk of all.

That's one of the great things about the academy: We make room for intelligent curmudgeons (even fictional ones). Asking hard questions is a part of the process, and should be.

It occurs to me that perhaps we too rarely make room for Christian Curmudgeons within our own discussions of faith. We would have things to learn from that guy on the bench.

My plan for the blog today was to feature a video of a cute bunny eating a carrot, but I ran into a problem: Bunnies don't really look that cute when they eat a carrot.  It just doesn't seem to work out that way, for some reason.

So, as a substitute, here is a video of people from the 80's singing "We Are the World." It (oddly) features both Bob Dylan and Cindy Lauper-- two people who sometimes look like a bunny eating a carrot. Ray Charles really steals the show, though.



Actually, it is kind of fun to try and spot all of the following in that video:

Soloists (in order of appearance) Lionel Richie Stevie Wonder Paul Simon Kenny Rogers James Ingram Tina Turner Billy Joel Michael Jackson Diana Ross Dionne Warwick Willie Nelson Al Jarreau Bruce Springsteen Kenny Loggins Steve Perry Daryl Hall Huey Lewis Cyndi Lauper Kim Carnes Bob Dylan Ray Charles (Also playing Piano and Keyboards)

Chorus (alphabetically) Dan Aykroyd Harry Belafonte Lindsey Buckingham Mario Cipollina Johnny Colla Sheila E. Bob Geldof Bill Gibson Chris Hayes Sean Hopper Jackie Jackson La Toya Jackson Marlon Jackson Randy Jackson Tito Jackson Waylon Jennings Bette Midler John Oates Jeffrey Osborne Anita Pointer June Pointer Ruth Pointer Smokey Robinson

Until this shooting, there have people who have pretended that this doesn't happen-- that a white police officer shoots a black man, and then (apparently) tries to cover his tracks by staging a self-defense scenario.

Now, there can be no pretending.  And there should be no pretending, either, that this is the only time.

The officer has been charged with murder, which is appropriate and right. But… how did we get to this point in the first place-- where a police officer thinks, even for a moment, that shooting eight times is the right thing to do?

We know some of the answer to that.  Centuries of racism is part of it.  Police non-accountability is another. But what else?

The final four was pretty epic, and I was glued to the TV for the final last night.  Wisconsin and Duke was a pretty epic matchup, after all, and I loved watching the Badgers beat Kentucky in the semifinals.

Mostly, though, I was looking for Bucky the Badger. How can you not love Bucky? Next to Goldy the Gopher, he is the most fun Big 10 mascot, after all. Sadly, he didn't seem to make it to the floor very often during the game.

Now I have to turn my attention to baseball, which mostly just confuses me. Every time I think I understand it, something new crops up-- i.e., stealing first base. Who knew?

But, in several months, college football will re-appear and make things ok again...

I love haiku that tell a story-- which is a challenge in such few words.  Still, Mary Senneka did this beautifully last week:

Houses are torn down.
Plants rescued from friend's gardens.
I plant memories.

And I knew our resident gardener, Christine, would have something good to say:

Dirt beneath my nails
I raise my hands to my nose
Inhale, awaken

The carrots poke green
as orange roots reach deep, deeper
In the sleeping soil

The soil warms, I sow
cosmos, zinnias, pink, blue
seeds pluck my heart strings

Easter is the heart of Christianity: All of the hope and love and joy this faith is capable comes out now, if we are at our best.

It was an amazing week.  President Obama granted 22 commutations. I wrote a piece about it for the Huffington Post, which you can read here.  Here is how it ends:

It befits the morality of our nation that the pardon power be used. The framers of the Constitution intended it, and it is the rare moral system, religious or not, that shuts out any access to mercy. In a Christian-majority nation, it should matter to many that Jesus granted clemency (to the woman about to be stoned) and was wrongfully denied it (by Pilate).

I am not impartial in all of this, of course. Part of my teaching involves running a clinic for clemency-seekers. Each week I see my mailbox fill up with brown envelopes covered with stamps and carefully-crafted letters spelling out my name and address. They write to me because they think I can help them; sometimes, maybe, I can. Often I pause to survey the outside of the envelope, to look at the stamps. Each stamp costs an hour's wages in prison. If I see twelve stamps, which is not unusual, that is a day and a half of work, just for those thumb-sized squares. When I open the envelope, inside is a life story, poured out. It is often heartbreaking. Sometimes I can't bear to slip my finger beneath the fold to unseal it because I have had enough tragedy for that day.

What happens next is important. My students research the case, find family members, and visit a far-off prison to meet the client. They come back changed people, often, having seen something they had never tried to imagine. Then we work on the petition, to tell the story that goes beyond the worst thing that person ever did, the moment that defined them in a court order concisely called a Judgment.
The last part, and the most moving, is this: I type the cover letter. The first words I write, on the address line, is "The President of the United States, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue." It is a letter to the most powerful man on Earth. And sometimes, at Lent, he writes back.

Easter weekend is the heart of Spring-- it embodies renewal and hope and startling, glorious surprises.

It always makes me want to plant things that will then spring forth from the earth, full of color and light and complexity.  I will, too.  I go to the garden center and buy a flat of flowers for my window boxes, then set them in just right with a trowel.  I end up a total mess, of course, but it's not about me, right?

So let's haiku about that this week-- what it is you have planted (if you live in the South) or think you will be planting (if you live in the North).

Here, I will go first:

I like reds and whites
Bunched together in rows
Flag full of beauty.

Now it is your turn!  Just use the 5/7/5 syllable formula and have some fun!

I've spent a lot of the last few days talking to the press about the recent commutations by President Obama. I got calls from Yahoo News and ProPublica and the NY Times and a bunch of others from as far away as Australia.  I think the quote that worked out the best was this, from the San Francisco Chronicle: "Finally, the administration is demonstrating how pardon power should be used, with, as Osler put it, "the most powerful person in the world freeing the least powerful person in the world."

Dealing with the press can be tricky. In addressing the continuing messiness in Indiana, Governor Pence gave a press conference a few days ago that was sometimes compelling and sometimes just odd. While saying that the religious liberty law there needs to be "clarified," he seemed to very much take offense at the press treatment the law has received.  He referred to "mischaracterizations" and worse by people who reported on the law, saying it allowed discrimination.

Was the press unfair to Indiana and the law?