Osler's Razor

Christine, I have no idea what you are talking about here (but I kind of want to know):

Yum, Bang Bang Turkey
Who thought a Brit could concoct
such flavorful food????

Meanwhile, I think Gavin lives in my world:

Main course, then sandwich
Evolution of the bird
Will be soup Sunday

It worries me that the Medievalist has so much turkey that it lasts three months:

Thanksgiving turkey,
January sandwiches,
So very boring.

And IPLawGuy just seems confused:

I made turkey
I used my grill
Also I cooked a ham and ate it.

Finally, Renee probably wins:

Magnificent Fowl
Vowed never to sequel as
Hot dish.Et up he

Was,to make way for
Magnificent steak,succulent
Chops. But as they sat

Thankful for football now,they
Vowed to never forget his
Exquisite moistness.

My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. I love it, most of all, because of the spiritual value at its core: Thankfulness. It is a universal spiritual value, of course, not limited to people who are Christian or those who claim a faith tradition at all.

Yet, it is a spiritual value in the sense that it pulls our spirit towards something other than ourselves. It's a gently, powerful thing, thankfulness-- it turns our attention away from our needs and disadvantages, and towards the good things in our lives. To be grateful is to recognize that the world has good in it, and that we share in that. It's a recognition of bounty.

One irony I have noticed is that it is sometimes those who have the most who find it the hardest to truly give thanks. And, in that, they are missing out on a deep gift of the spirit.

Looking back a the year so far, it looks like I have saved only one project for the last month: I need to, for the first time in my life, try to eat some fruitcake.

This stuff has about the worst reputation of any food out there-- people really hate it. Yet, it continues to be a product that people buy and (apparently) eat.

Anyone have a tip or two for my year-capping project?

Earlier this week, I worked with Mike Romano, Thea Johnson, and Milena Nelson Blake at Stanford to place this piece by Kimberly Richardson at the Washington Post.  Kimberly was just released from prison through one of President Obama's clemency grants. Here is part of what she has to say:

Today, I am back with my family and living in my mother’s home. I got a job making sandwiches at a sub shop. On the wall above the dining room table is the framed letter that the president wrote to me to tell me that I was to be freed. In that letter, he said, “I am granting your application because you have demonstrated the potential to turn your life around. Now it is up to you to make the most of this opportunity.” I am so deeply thankful to him for that opportunity.

In a way, isn't that true of all of us? It is up to us to make the most of our opportunities.

As many of you know, my colleague and friend Nekima Levy-Pounds has led protests here after the shooting of Jamar Clark by police on November 15. Last night, several white men shot five of the protesters-- unarmed protesters-- after showing up with masks and bulletproof vests.

Then, today, the Chicago police released the dash cam video you can see above. In it (starting at about the five minute mark) you see the police encounter LaQuan McDonald, a child of 17. He was in the street holding a knife. As he walked away, he was shot 16 times by one officer, Jason Van Dyke.

I have friends and relatives who question the need to peacefully protest in the way that Black Lives Matter has, by raising their voices in several cities. These who question the protestor's motives are wrong. There is righteous anger being expressed, and these events make clear that their core assertion is correct: That black lives are threatened by racism in America, and unless they insist on it those in power will not act or care.

The media coverage of these two events enshroud a pair of wrongs that may go unnoticed.

First, in the Chicago murder it is outrageous that no charges were brought until a judge ordered that this video be made public. The Cook County Prosecutor, Anita Alvarez, sat on the case for over a year even when she had possession of this evidence and the ability to interview and examine all involved. That's abominable, immoral, and repulsive.

Second, in the Minneapolis shooting, it matters that the event happened literally beside the precinct house. These white agitators/counter-protesters had apparently shown up before and their rhetoric reflected a white supremacist outlook. Some people take issue with them being referred to as "white supremacists," but if that doesn't describe people who put on bulletproof vests to go confront peaceful black protesters with guns, who DOES it describe?  In volatile situations like that, it is the role of the police to prevent violence between counter-protesters and protesters. Yet, there appears to have been no one in uniform playing that role.

Protest is an American right, and sometimes an imperative. Shooting unarmed protesters or teenagers who are walking away down the street (even if they have a knife) is not. There are not "two sides" to this issue with some kind of moral equivalence.

I know people who devote great energy and passion to things like college football, moot court, and their pets, yet many of these same people question the energy and passion protesters devote to the sanctity of human life. I am not one of those who feels that such protesters are misguided-- I am more inclined to feel that those who have turned their passions to football might be on the wrong track.

Even with the controversy that goes with it, I admire and support the moral voices of those like Nekima who have led peaceful protests.

The blessing of the harvest happens around the world signaling that the growing season is over and one should think about hunkering down for the winter. I always start the holiday season by thanking whoever it was that decided to have us celebrate Thanksgiving on a Thursday, guaranteeing us a four day holiday. One smart cookie. This gives us three days to recover, to visit with family and to renew old friendships.

Thanksgiving  is a straightforward name for a holiday.  It is a command and an opportunity. We are given this day to be with our family or friends and to express our appreciation for our good fortune. I am always comforted and I am truly thankful when I look around after dinner and see a well fed family warmed by good feelings for one another.

I've known Kitty Cornwell for a long time-- since freshman year in college (though I haven't seen her in a few decades or so). And all these years later, she is writing great haiku! Here was her contribution:

Thanksgiving dinner
then Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Nightmares for a week.

Through the course of my life, I have been a part of dozens of liturgical styles, ranging from the minimalism of Quaker meeting to the intricacies of high Episcopal services.

I suppose we all have a style that suits us best; for me, I am more at home in a service that focuses on reflection and insight, and less on recitation.  Still, that does not mean that one is wrong and another is right.  One of the pleasures of the faith is that we can enjoy them all as part of one faith.

Which style suits you best? Do you find that in your home church?

Right now, the news is confusing and sad. The events in Paris are just awful, and that is only one of several related to ISIS.  

Sometimes, when things are this grim, I like to check in on the unusual events often found in Waco. And the Waco Tribune Herald did not disappoint:

When Jack Harwell was sheriff of McLennan County, folks affectionately referred to the county jail as the “Harwell Hilton.”

Saturday morning, a drunken Oklahoma Sooners fan who thought he was at the Waco Hilton but instead was found sleeping in the McLennan County Courthouse got to spend the rest of the day at the “Harwell Hilton,” deputies said.

Deputies responding to a burglar alarm at the courthouse about 8:15 a.m. Saturday found Harold Anthony Schroeder, 35, of Oklahoma City, curled up between the counsel rail and the first-row seats in the 54th State District Courtroom.

Wearing a crimson Oklahoma Sooners shirt, a groggy Schroeder sat on a bench in the courthouse rotunda and tried to explain to deputies that he thought he was at the Hilton.


Deputies noted in reports that Schroeder smelled strongly of alcohol.

Nice animal haiku, all…

Like the Medievalist and his gerbil:

Jeffrey the gerbil,
He ate lots of celery,
Big feet, great jumper.

Or Christine and her, uh, jumping animal of some kind:

Lily Belle can jump
just like on a trampoline
four paws off the floor.

And finally, Renee's tale of her beloved Romeo:

Misgiving mornings
I wake and hold him, Snuffling
Pufferbelly...My couage comes.

Born knowing how to
Love,dogs' time here is short. There
Is not much for them

To learn here. Kiss,wag
Kiss,a few treats,snooze,dinner,wag,
Chew toy,chase ball.Kiss.

Last week, I went over to St. Paul to see a Division III football game between my school, St. Thomas, and Carleton (a school located 45 minutes south of here, in Northfield). St. Thomas is (within Division III) a powerhouse, currently 9-0 and ranked #4 in the nation.  Carleton… not so much. They have won a single game this year and have suffered a number of blowouts, including a 59-0 loss at home to St. John's.

Going into the game, St. Thomas knew that they were much more powerful than Carleton. Last year, a less talented two-loss St. Thomas team won by a ridiculous score of 83-7. The difference between the teams was obvious just by looking at the sidelines-- St. Thomas had two or three times more players.  In Division III you can watch a game (often for free) standing right behind the bench, and for a while I did exactly that. The Carleton players definitely had the aura of people who had been beaten down.

Given this disparity, it troubled me that St. Thomas seemed intent on running up the score. Yes, they put in subs in the second half, and the toying-with-you play shown above occurred when Carleton (somehow) was up 3-0 before giving up 80 consecutive points to lose by 80-3.

But… St. Thomas elected to make an onside kick when they were up 30-3, which they successfully converted, scoring again quickly.  Long after that, they were calling long pass plays which were uniformly successful as well.  I began to feel ashamed for my school, even as the Carleton squad doggedly did their best.

When a coach teaches students (and they are students) to grind a defeated rival into a deeper state of humiliation, he is teaching a value. It's a value that very well will inform the actions of those young men the rest of their lives.

Does that matter?

I think that it does. Much of the injustice in my field comes from prosecutors (who are often former athletes like myself) who push for the highest sentence possible, regardless of whether it solves a problem or is accomplishing anything beyond humiliation of the defendant. Like the St. Thomas coaches, they not only want to win, they want to win big, because that is a mark of their own worth and pride.

The results are horrifying. I represent a man who is serving life on a non-violent drug charge, despite being a penniless beggar at the time-- someone who was helping a dealer so he could get some crack for himself. Life in prison, without parole.  He had the temerity to go to trial-- which is something like the temerity of Carleton in kicking a field goal-- and the reaction was the same: to grind him into the dust, to humiliate and destroy him.

Most coaches will tell you that the most important thing to them is the values they teach their players. It is something that St. Thomas needs to take seriously. To win the conference (which they did, in that game) but lose your soul is not a worthwhile pursuit, particularly at a university informed by the teachings of Christ.

Recently, I was paying for a box of live crickets at PetsMart, and had this conversation with the cashier:

Cashier: Would you like to donate $1 to homeless pets?

Me: What would a homeless pet do with $1?

Cashier:  Probably buy food and things.

Me: If it's homeless, is it a pet? Isn't that a feral animal? Should we trust feral animals with money? Won't they buy drugs?

Cashier (handing me change and cutting me off): Ok, well, thanks for shopping at PetsMart!

I regret my smart alecky-ness; sometimes I should not think out loud, I guess. Thinking more clearly about it, I doubt that PetsMart gives the money directly to the "homeless pets."

At any rate, let's haiku about pets and other animals today… here, I will go first:

My cricket-eater
Is Ash the Lizard; Found out
They live to thirty.

Now it is your turn! Just use the 5/7/5 syllable formula, and have some fun!  (I am especially curious to learn more about the Medievalist's pet, which I think is a kangaroo or something).

Earlier this week, I was in Washington working to push through a sentencing reform bill that recently passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 15-5 vote. It has several provisions-- dealing with mandatory minimums, retroactivity for prior reforms, and elimination of life without parole for juveniles-- that I have pressed for many years. Now there is some hope.

Traveling between the offices of Sen. McConnell and Fienstein and Congressmen McCarthy and Chaffetz, I was in remarkable company. In the picture above (taken by Jody Kent Lavy) I am in the super-cute Senate subway with three men. On the far right is Aqeela Shirrells. His son was murdered in Los Angeles, and since that tragedy he has done remarkable work in that city to reduce violence. Next to me is Glen Mitchell, who also lost his son to murder. In the middle is Ellis Curry, who was convicted of involvement in a murder, did his time, and since has become a welder and valuable member of his community in Jacksonville. Not coincidentally, the person Ellis Curry was convicted of killing was Glen Mitchell's son, Jeff.

There was something deeply humbling about working with people for whom these stories run so deep. I felt out of place making my usual policy arguments, but in a way they fit very well with the stories of the men beside me.  I hope that telling those stories to the people who can create change will matter. Either way, it certainly mattered to me.

… is To Honor Veterans, Stop Executing Them. It is co-authored by one of my wonderful former students, Joshua London, who now works with Ryan Else in defending veterans accused of crime.

Yesterday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch got a letter from me, Yale's Kate Stith, and Ohio State's Doug Berman. You can see the text of the letter here.

The letter, which was mostly the work of Kate Stith, urges the AG to press for a more uniform use of enhancements by prosecutors. That may sound mundane, but when I look at our clemency cases it becomes very real.  Over and over, it is the same situation: prosecutors used these enhancements to drive up sentences against low-level defendants who refused to cooperate against others or chose to go to trial.

Will writing a letter matter? Maybe. What we hope for is that it will become a part of the AG's agenda for discussion. That is the first step to getting things changed.

What a good week for haiku! I loved so much of it, and worried about Anonymous backing up a truck, but the most evocative was from the Duchess:

A face full of paint
Blindened by kleig,dependent
On memory. Act!

Well, it looks like my parents are keeping themselves busy. 80 doesn't look bad!  I love this video about my dad's work:



Meanwhile, my mom was the subject of this great piece in the local paper. A few years after a hip replacement, she is walking to downtown Detroit and back with her friend Kathy Frakes…

Yesterday, I got a helpful email from LinkedIn, suggesting "Top Job Picks for You!", despite the fact that I'm pretty happy with the job I've got.  Here is their list of top job picks for me:

Personal Trainer/Strength Coach Discover Strength Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area 13 days ago ›

Superintendent of Schools Minneapolis Public Schools Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area 22 days ago ›

Assistant or Associate Professor of Sport Management University of Minnesota Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area 27 days ago ›

Service Policy Manager Xcel Energy Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area 1 day ago ›

Faculty / Senior Fellow / James J. Renier Chair in the Management of Security Technologies Technological Leadership Institute - University of Minnesota Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area 24 days ago ›

Public Relations Management Supervisor broadhead. Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area 1 day ago ›

Clinical Utilization Management Specialist Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area 20 days ago Of course, I would be terrible at each and every one of these jobs. Also, how do "Superintendent of schools," utility company customer service and "personal trainer" end up on the same list?  Anyways, let's haiku about alternative-reality employment, whether good or bad. Here, I will go first: Bad scenario: "Superintendent Osler" Test scores plummet. Now it is your turn! Just make it 5 syllable/7 syllables/5 syllables, and have some fun!

A report by a Nobel-winning economist and a collaborator has revealed a strange anomaly: Since the late 1990's, the death rate has gone up for white men between the ages of 45-54. That's my age group, but the increase in death rates is accounted for by those with low levels of education. A similar rise is found in no other groups, nor in other countries, as generally health outcomes improve over time in the absence of a disruption such as war.

The cause of these deaths is identified, too: The increase is driven by the number of suicides, overdoses, and health problems caused primarily by alcohol and drug use. In short, they are self-inflicted.

Of course, there are explanations flying around about what caused this.  Charles Murray believes that it is caused by the lack of a strong work ethic-- that people are "goofing off." (isn't that supposed to be millenials, not their dads?). In Murray's view, the welfare state has created the problem.  His thesis is undercut by the fact that the precise opposite outcome is observed in nations with a much stronger dose of socialism than we have, such as Sweden.

The American Prospect article linked above describes an important observation made by the report authors: the rise in death coincides with the wide availability of opiates such as OxyContin.  It also coincides with the rise in income inequality in our nation, driven in part by the dismantling of unions and the decimation of American manufacturing in favor of cheaper labor in China.

I wonder… will the fact that OxyContin may be increasing death rates receive the same analysis and response that created the spread of crack in the 1980's?

People from other places are probably thinking "Big whoop! Don't they have other kinds of ice cream down there? The answer is "not really." There is a remarkable devotion to Blue Bell, at least in Central Texas.

When I lived there, I ate a lot of Blue Bell, and even visited the plant in Brenham where most of it is made.  In the end, I thought it was great, but I wondered at times if it really was great or two things produced that effect: everyone saying it was great, and not comparing it with other products. After all, it is ice cream, and how can you mess that up?

Wow! Lots of good stuff this week on the (admittedly bizarre) topic of tacos and politicians. You rose to the challenge! First, there was this from Sleepy Walleye:

Burrito. Taco
Combine and eat too many:
Burraco Bomba!

Megan Willome had a good idea, too:

Dear Prez Candidate,
One question will earn my vote:
fave taco and why?

Oh, and the Medievalist!

Let tacos debate,
Jalapeños never lie,
Crunchy picante.

Very early on Saturday morning, at about 3 a.m., I heard a noise in my kitchen. It was a very specific noise, too: that of a person eating a bag of chips.

Rustle rustle rustle
{silence}
Rustle rustle rustle
{silence}
Rustle rustle rustle

The obvious image leapt to my mind: a man in my kitchen, casually eating chips before making his way out of the house (presumably with some stuff).

I listened some more, now wide awake. I could be in the kitchen in just a few seconds if I ran, and that is what I did-- stopping to flip on the lights. As I approached the room, I thought that I heard some skittering. Looking into the kitchen, there was no one; just an open bag of Tostidos leaning against the breadbox.  Whoever had been eating the chips was still in the house.

Quietly, I crept from room to room, flipping on lights and checking in corners. Nothing. Flummoxed, I flopped down on the couch and thought.

Only then did it occur to me to look inside the bag of chips. And there he was: a tiny brown mouse looking up at me as his paws furiously tried to run up the side of the bag.

I certainly did not want a mouse in my house, and he was already in a bag, so I simply took the bag and walked outside on the back patio. The bricks were cold under my bare feet; Minnesota is like that.  The ground was a little wet, and there was utter silence.

In my hand was a Tostitos bag with a live mouse inside. I didn't have a plan, though I ran through a few options. If I let the mouse go, I knew he would find his way back into the house. If I crushed him in the bag, it would be relatively easy; I wouldn't even see the blood or the broken body. Finally, I could just put him in the trash can in the sealed bag and assume he would die, super-villian style.

As I worked through these options, the mouse leapt from the bag to freedom-- a mad, furious leap from three feet up to the cold bricks-- and scrambled away beyond the barbecue grill and the chiminea.  Now I just had an empty bag. I stayed out there for a bit, thinking about the mouse. In his own way, he was a brave little guy. He had lived most of his life outside, eating nuts and seeds and hiding from cats and hawks.  It got cold, and he found a way in and then found a way to the top of the counter. He peered into a bag of chips and jumped in, with no plan on how to get out. And when he had a brief, stark chance for freedom, he leapt into the darkness and landed on his own four paws.

It could have been a man in the house, an insouciant thief.  I could have crushed the mouse, killed it instantly, or sealed the bag to be his prison until he died. In the end, I did not choose to let him go. He chose to go. But of the options, that was the best.