The Problem with Whores

Another whore is coming out with a book about her famous former clientele. This happens with a surprising regularity (Heidi Fleiss anyone?). I mean what kind of profession is whoring anyway? This time, a former Tommy LaSorda whore details her encounters.

Which brings me to the following question: Isn't there some sort of hooker code being broken here? Wouldn't the discussion of former or current clients be strictly forbidden? Shouldn't it be? In the name of maintaining some sort of semblance of whoring credibility? At least with the potential consumer?

Isn't a hooker's exposing, for lack of a better term, her list of clientele tantamount to a magician giving away the secrets to his or her tricks? Or like Barry Bonds giving up his roid supplier? Or a reporter giving up an anonymous source?

Is there no hooker code of conduct? Do code abiding whores ostrasize those who break the sacred vows of their field? Are membership priveledges revoked?

I guess when you're already engaged in what can at best be described as a fringe profession, it's difficult to do something to further damage your name and reputation, no?

But I digress, "Secrets of a Hollywood SuperMadam" on bookshelves now!!!!

In Defense of The Golden Boy

Bias aside, I really cannot understand much of changes to Brady Quinn's draft status since his collegiate career ended with January's Sugar Bowl. While he hasn't done anything to diminish his stature, JeMarcus Russell, who has skyrocketed past him to the top of first round projections, has gained 10-15 lbs since the Sugar Bowl. His status is based largely on "upside." He has a rocket arm, he's mobile, and he's 6'6'' and 265 lbs. "Upside" apparently doesn't encorporate a dimension of "self-control" however.

As John Clayton and Steven A. Smith astutely pointed out over the weekend, the teams that pass on Quinn will likely feel a remorse similar to the teams that passed on Matt Leinhart. Couldn't agree more.

Interesting notes from the NFL Combine:

Calvin Johnson (WR, Georgia Tech) ran a 4.35. This is especially ridiculous when you consider he's 6 and a half feet tall and 240 lbs.

Adrian Peterson (RB, Oklahoma) ran a 4.38. I would kill for him to magically fall into the Giants lap late in the first round. This will not happen.

(I've always been strangely fascinated with 40 times. As is often noted, they're not fool proof predictors of NFL success..... but they fascinate me anyway.)

Double Standards

The Offense: Pulling genetalia out in public.

Penalty for Men: Jail, public scrutiny, "sex offender" label.

Penalty for Woman: Rehab, crew cut.

Tim Hardaway is an Idiot....

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=jackson/070222&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab2pos1


.....And so is Scoop Jackson (mostly because I emailed him about a year ago about a retarded story he wrote and he never wrote back.)

Close to Home

I moved to Wheaton, Illinois at the beginning of eighth grade. The day we got there from New Jersey, I met and became fast friends with my new neighbors, all boys of the same age, when they came calling after having heard a new kid had moved into the neighborhood.

Kevin Landeck was one of these three guys. He ALWAYS wore a fitted Notre Dame hat. It didn't matter if we were in school, playing football, eating lunch, riding bikes, or "rumbling" (what we called turning the lights off at sleepovers and kicking the living shit out of eachother until someone got hurt). He was one of those people who actually looked weird when the hat came off; his red hair feathery and permanently flattened by the cap...

Once....I went outside and over to Kevin's house to see if he was around. As I stepped onto his yard something from high above lept out of a tree, knocking me to the ground, and scaring me almost to death. It was Kevin...

"When you're livin' in a vaaaaaan.......down by the river!" Although slight in stature when we were in eighth grade, Kevin had a dead-on impression of Chris Farley's Matt Foley.

Kevin's football career, or the three years for which I lived in Wheaton and played with him, was characterized more by quiet determination than by God given ability and talent....

Ultimately though, Kevin was just a really great kid.



Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune:

Family mourns death of Wheaton soldierBy Russell Working Tribune staff reporterPublished February 6, 2007, 8:28 PM CST

Four days after his son's death, Richard Landeck Tuesday found himself reflecting on phone calls and text messages exchanged with a son fighting half a world away.Landeck struggled with the dark thought that his son, Kevin, was sent to Iraq under rules of engagement that kept him from effectively fighting the enemy.

"He told me, 'We go down the road in our Humvees, and there are roadside bombs going off all around us,'" Richard Landeck said from his Wheaton home. "He said, 'Dad, quite honestly, we're scared. What I wanted to do is to scare them ... Since we own the night with our night vision goggles, I wanted to take a few of our guys, go out at night and watch and see who's planting these bombs, and take them out. The military denied me permission to do that. Why are they doing that?'""I said, 'I can't answer that, Kevin. I don't know.'"Richard and Vicki Landeck's son, a 26-year-old Wheaton Warrenville South High School graduate, died Friday when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb near Baghdad, the family said.The Pentagon had not confirmed the death by Tuesday afternoon, and a spokeswoman said she could not comment on the case. Kevin Landeck's family said he was promoted posthumously from first lieutenant to captain. He served in the 10th Mountain Division based at Ft. Drum, N.Y.Kevin Landeck's wife, Bethany, who is a second lieutenant in the National Guard, and his sister, Jennifer Landeck, joined other family members in Wheaton on a street where yellow and red-white-and-blue ribbons were tied around tree trunks.The Army always seemed to be Kevin Landeck's calling, his sister said. In old Halloween photos, he was dressed as a soldier. From the time he was a boy, he loved joining neighborhood kids in squirt-gun fights in the yard. As a teenager he joined his father and friends in paintball games, and he showed some of the commanding presence that would later make him excel in the Army."We'd split up into groups," Richard Landeck said. "He always wanted to be the leader and formulate a plan: 'Let's go capture the flag. Let's go flank this way, and you guys go that way, and you guys go up the middle.' And it was always fun watching him make his plans."In one of the earliest videos the family has of Kevin Landeck, he was eating Cheerios with his teddy bear, Jennifer Landeck said. He shook his finger at the stuffed toy and said, "No, no, Teddy. You can't have any Cheerios."When Bethany asked her sister-in-law if there was anything of Kevin's that she wanted, Jennifer asked for the teddy bear. Then she started crying."So she brought that to me today," Jennifer Landeck said. "Teddy's never leaving my side."In high school, Kevin Landeck was a good-natured student who kept competing in the pole vault even though he wasn't one of the top contenders, said his coach and psychology teacher, Darryl Fitts. His quiet determination is what Fitts remembers."That spoke volumes to me, that he never stopped working," he said.Fitts, whose stepson is in the Army and has served in Afghanistan and Iraq, said he didn't know his former student had enlisted. But now, certain rituals will take on a new meaning, he said."When I watch the national anthem at the football games or basketball games, I always have thought about the sacrifices people have made in war," Fitts said. "Well, now it's really got a face to it for me. I can't imagine myself standing at a Pledge of Allegiance or the national anthem for the rest of my life and not thinking of Kevin."Kevin Landeck received his bachelor's degree in sociology at Purdue University in 2004 and met his wife in the ROTC, or Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. He wanted to work for the FBI and knew military experience was good preparation for that.But Richard Landeck said his son was frustrated at the way soldiers had to respond to the dangers at checkpoints. When a car sped toward them, they had to hold their fire, and instead use hand signals, then warning shots, then try shooting out the tires, Kevin Landeck told his father."I said, 'Wait a minute, this is a car coming at you 50, 60, 70 m.p.h. and you're supposed to go through all these motions?'"Richard Landeck has not been sleeping soundly of late, and last Thursday night, he was up in the dark hours and saw his daughter instant-messaging her brother in Iraq while e-mailing him video of good wishes from family and friends. But she came out to find her father."He wants to talk to you," she said.Richard Landeck spent 20 minutes online with his son. Then he recalls writing, "Well, Kevin, I've got to get up and go to work in a couple of hours. I'm going to try to get a little sleep here. Stay safe, and I'll talk to you soon."Kevin typed, "I'll talk to you soon. I love you."His father said, "My last words to him were, 'I love you, too.'"

Jury Duty III- Get to the Point!

Eventually, the blonde who had shown up an hour and fifteen minutes late, and whose cell phone rang while the court officer took attendance, sat beside me. The jury had been selected. "Who shows up an hour and fifteen minutes late for jury duty?" I wondered practically aloud as she took her seat.....

There were three charges to be deliberated upon:
1. Assault with a dangerous weapon (in this case, a gun capable of firing 7, twenty-two caliber bullets).
2. Possession of a firearm without a license.
3. Unlawful discharge of said weapon.

From the testimonies of various members of the O'Boston Police Department, the fact that a shooting had taken place became crystal clear by the time the victim of the shooting in question took the stand. Who done it, on the other hand, remained to be seen or even discussed.

I expected a homeless looking man to enter. A man suiting the "neighborhood junkie" description. As a heavy set gentlemen wearing diamond earrings, sporting a mustache, corn-rows, baggy jeans, a Ralph Lauren shirt, and immaculately clean Nike high-tops, limped into the courtroom and up to the witness stand, I was not surprised. In fact, I scoffed at the inaccuracy of my own expectation.

As he was cross-examined by a young assistant DA, his checkered past was confirmed. The victim had been shot before. He had, in fact, struggled with addiction throughout his adult life. He was even on probation at the time of the incident. Moreover, he had slipped up on that fateful day. As the assistant DA would remind us throughout the trial, these things did not make him the deserving victim of a shooting.

Mr. Jackson had been drinking 22's of Heineken and blowing coke all day at a park in Boston. Out of beer, he had walked, with a friend, from the park to that friend's apartment to get money for more beer. While the friend went upstairs, our victim remained on the front stoop. Another associate of the victim, ironically enough headed to the liquor store himself, had been summoned to the stoop where the two were engaged in conversation.

Moments later two "black youths" would emerge on bicycles from an adjacent alley. Both wearing bandanas over their faces, they put their bikes down on the curb and took steps toward Mr. Jackson. By the time his gaze had been drawn away from his conversation in their direction, shots were being fired.

"All I really saw was the pop and the barrel of the gun." Admittedly no stranger to this sort of circumstance, Mr. Jackson turned away, fell to the stairs and tried to make himself as small of a target as possible. Seven shots were fired; a fact confirmed by testimony from the O'Boston ballistics unit. One shot went through the heal of his sneaker and lodged in his foot.

Throughout his testimony, during which defense attorney and DA alike had to remind Mr. Jackson to speak up, I looked over to where the defendant sat. He wore the same expression of which I had taken notice upon entering the courtroom hours earlier. It never changed.

At one point Mr. Jackson was asked to point out and describe the man who shot him, if he was in fact present in the courtroom. Mr. Jackson's eyes shot to the ground. Obviously uncomfortable with what he had been asked to do, he reluctantly pointed to the defendant, though never looking in his direction.

As we adjourned for the day, I expected the prosecution to produce the gun at some point the following day. They never did. Moreover, Mr. Jackson hadn't pulled the defendant out of a lineup until 15 days after the shooting. Having told the police at the scene he would not be able to pick the assailant out of a lineup, Mr. Jackson was in the hospital for the next 10 days, presumably being treated for his gunshot wound and cocaine withdrawl. Days later, from the apartment of a family member, Mr. Jackson saw on the street below a youth whom he believed to be his shooter. His cousin confirmed the name of the defendant as he rode by. It was only at this point he went to the police confident enough to pick his attacker out of a lineup.

After the judge's having explained procedurally how we were to arrive at and deliver the verdict, I stood and filed out of the courtroom certain we'd be re-emerging shortly with a verdict of not guilty. How confident could any of us have been that the boy Mr. Jackson had picked out of the lineup was the same boy he'd seen on the sidewalk AND the same boy who had shot him 15 days prior?

First, we systematically examined all of the evidence piece by piece. As one of my peers noted, "We owe it to Mr. Jackson."

As we tore off corners of yellow legal paper on which we were to deliver our initial verdicts, I sighed, fatigued though satisfied we had done our civic duty. I was proud to have served in a jury on which race had not been an issue. A jury that took its duty very seriously.

"Not guilty....Not guilty......Not guilty.......Guilty..........Guilty......Not guilty," the jury foreperson read through her brogue.

My eyes shot around the room, Who are they? Who didn't understand 'beyond a reasonable doubt'?

Three hours later, we had the necessary six votes. Coincidence or not, both reluctant jurors were foreign born. One, an Irish woman who had six months ago become an American citizen, worked in a rehab clinic. One of her reasons for her initial verdict, in fact, was the hyperawareness that comes with cocaine use- a symptom she had experience with first-hand. "It's a stimulant she authoritatively told the rest of us." Never mind the potentially confounding effects when mixed with alcohol. The other, a Cuban woman, had moved to the United States as a child. A practicing psychotherapist and lesbian, "It is very possible that Mr. Jackson could have accurately recognized and identified his attacker upon seeing him on the street some two weeks later." Well yeah, that's great but was this enough to throw someone in jail?

We talked about our biases. "What if Mr. Jackson had been white?" Someone offered.

"We'd have delivered a verdict of not guilty an hour ago," I replied, trying to hide my contempt for the direction of our conversation."

He could have done it. He looks like he might have." Someone else added.

As we approached our third hour of deliberation I grew frustrated, opting instead of continuing to work to explain the meaning of "beyond a reasonable doubt", for silence and a look out the window. Eventually, however, reason and objectivity reigned. We notified the court officer and were brought into back into the courtroom.

As the verdicts were read, I stared at the defendant. I was looking for something. Anything. I had not seen a single sign of human emotion in the hours upon hours I had spent in his presence. This did not change though. Not at all. I suppose, on some level, I wanted to be able to tell from him that he realized and appreciated that an all white jury had ultimately been objective enough not to declare him guilty on the basis of race, appearance, and neighborhood. As became so apparent in deliberations, a guilty verdict would have been just that.

Satisfied, though disappointed, we once again filed out of the courtroom and into our room. We were to wait there for the judge who wanted to thank us personally for fulfilling our civic duty.

"Any questions?... About any part of the process?" He asked.

"The defendant just gets to go home now, right?" I offered."No. He's actually serving time for an entirely separate incident."

Jury Duty (...continued...)

Each of us had been given a card on which a number was printed. After politely asking that we stand and raise our right hands, he asked, "Do you know the defendant?" and "Are you more inclined to find a policeman's testimony truthful than a member of the general population?" amongst others. He then summoned potential jurors in numeric order.

Before being admitted into the jury box, one would be asked, "Did you answer 'yes' to any of the questions we posed?"

Those who had, were called over to the side of the judge's bench for a whispered conversation between the soon to be excused juror, the defense attorney, prosecutor, and judge. Curiosity ran rampant during these conversations. This entire process was alien to me. As such, I wanted the entire experience. What the hell were they talking about?

Eventually my number was called. As I took my seat in the jury box, I was a mixture of excitement, uncertainty, and dissapointment. Only one seat remained unfilled.

"Number 37," the judge offered.

An African woman dressed in African garb approached the bench hurriedly and without a word. As the judge's voice immediately shrank to a whisper, a court officer went and got a glass of water and brought it to the woman. As she drank, her hand trembled with fear. Curious and sympathetic at the time, I am pretty sure now that she simply didn't speak English and was nervous about the entire process. Moments later she was gently dismissed.

Eventually, the blonde who had shown up an hour and fifteen minutes late, and whose cell phone rang while the court officer took attendance, sat beside me. The jury had been selected. "Who shows up an hour and fifteen minutes late for jury duty," I wondered indignantly as she took her seat.

Jury Duty

After gathering my things as they came through the metal detector, I put my watch back on and looked straight up to the roof of the 9 floor Sulfolk County District Courhouse. This wasn't what I had expected. This courhouse not only looked brand new, it was brand new.

"Third floor?" I asked the security guard seated a few feet to my left.

"Fourth," he responded. No coffee makes Seamus a dull-witted boy.

I walked over to the elevator and waited....still unsure of what to expect.

In a large waiting room aptly designated "Jury Pool", I sat with some of my peers and read. Most read in fact. Some stared off into space. One particularly well-dressed gentlman worked on a shiny laptop computer. Another, seated in front of me, read the Wall Street Journal. A college student had a frenzied text message conversation from her cell phone. From time to time, the court officer who had checked each of us in, that sat in the front of the room behind a desk, stood and, accompanied by a tragically unfunny joke, tried to explain to us what we could expect out of the day. Intermintent forced laughter would soon again fall silent as everyone went back to what had previously occupied their attention.

An outdated instructional video regarding our civic duty, a 45 minute break, and some nervousness about the state of affairs in my stomach that kept me from buying a Dunkin Donuts coffee, later, I found myself in a nexus of time. When I looked up from my book, seated beside me, I found a pensive Abraham Lincoln. Beside him sat a now/formerly extinct link in the chain of human evolution.

"Ok, they're requesting a jury in one of the courtrooms. Please gather your belongings as I am unable to lock the door," the court officer directed. "And besides, some of you won't be coming back," he added while simultaneously laughing at an apparent double meaning.

As I sat in the jury pool in the back of the courtroom, I took note of the defendent. My peer, as I would be reminded on more than one occasion by various court personnel, was wearing baggy khacki pants that sat just below his ass. A white button down shirt was just long enough for most of it to be tucked in. A black tie went down around the belt line only it looked to be much shorter because of the height at which he wore his pants. He was young. Maybe 17, maybe 19. His vacant expression distinctly indicated absolutely nothing. I saw no fear, no anger, no resignation. I saw nothing. This was something that would occupy my attention for much of the trial. His hair was in a poofy pony tail. From a police photo the assistant DA would soon hand me, it was apparent he usually wore it in corn rows. Behind the defense sat members of the Boston Police Department. As would later be confirmed, their collective lineage could easily be traced back to a little island just west of England. This was already no secret, however, upon first glance. My attention was briefly rattled as the man beside me \nrepositioned his rear end on his seat. The stench of a poorly wiped ass hit my nose like a mack truck. Instantly, I stopped breathing and turned away. I'd learned a valuable lesson already. Guy next to you moves, hold your breath and turn your head.....TO BE CONTINUED.

An Inconvenient Deciphering of the Truth

Saw An Inconvenient Truth this past weekend. Mr. Gore makes a convincing argument. Scary stuff if it's true.

An opinion column from an "expert."

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm

A blog regarding the afore-linked "expert."

http://worldofspin.blogspot.com/2004/05/good-dr-ball-gets-another-hit-for-big.html

This is just a snapshot of the difficulty I've had reaching a conclusion or final judgement on the subject.