Ingmar Bergman's thoroughly enjoyable 1975 movie version of Mozart's The Magic Flute is in Swedish and necessary takes liberties with the German libretto. Further liberties are taken with the English subtitles. In the first act, when the Three Ladies cut Papageno some slack and unlock his lying mouth, the subtitles have them singing this:

The strong are different than the weak, in that they think before they speak.

Quite true. Look, everyone has Microsoft moments when their brain experiences the blue screen/red ring of death and shuts down. The difference between people who avoid (on the petty scale) embarrassing themselves or (on the large scale) getting themselves into bad trouble is that sensible people shut up until their brain reboots. This is part of the sensibility informing my favorite advice to clients, which is: when in doubt or confusion or stress or trouble, shut up.

Amusing case in point: yesterday Katrina was at a book fair with the kids. A mother meets her, and asks which kids are hers. Katrina points out Abby, who is obviously Asian. Other Mother looks perplexed; you can see the Microsoft Blue Screen of Death reflected in her eyes. Is she Korean, she asks? Yes, says Katrina. Is your husband Asian, she inquires? No, says Katrina, thus ignoring my standing offer (diamond tennis bracelet if she answers that question "I don't know, it was dark"). Further confusion on expression of Other Mother, who then ignores my advice and keeps talking through the brain freeze — looking at my very white, very Northern-European-origin wife, she asks "are YOU Korean?"

Katrina was very polite to her and explained at this point that Abby was adopted. The brain rebooted. Katrina scrupulously avoided eye-rolling or laughter, displaying merely one of the traits that makes her a better person than I.

So: shutting up, it's not just for clients any more.

[Note that I am fully aware I routinely fail to follow my own advice.]

Update: The attorney responds in the comments.

Second Update: I've removed the attorney's name. See the end of the post for why.

Our friends and colleagues Mark Bennett of Defending People and Scott Greenfield of Simple Justice are tireless critics of crass legal marketing, which is a topic we also cover. Bennett repeats repeats this mantra over and over:

When you outsource your marketing, you outsource your ethics and your reputation.

Now, granted, I don't know if Mark is repeating it for emphasis or because, like my 92-year-old grandmother, he has forgotten that he already said it several times. But Mark is dead right. It remains an apt observation of which all attorneys should take note. All attorneys.

I'm looking at you, attorney in New York.

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150 years ago today, the sort of person that our current mayor Gavin Newsom would try to imprison (ie homeless) put a small notice in the San Francisco Bulletin proclaiming himself Norton I, Emperor of the United States acting on "the peremptory request of a large majority of the citizens." The editor printed it as a joke, but in San Francisco it stuck.

Dressed in a uniform given to him by the presiding General of the Presidio, he owned the City along with his two stray mutts, Bummer and Lazarus. Restaurants competed to have him dine there (gratis, of course. One doesn't charge an Emperor), they saved seats at the theatre for him and he even kept correspondence with other heads of State. Heck, Mark Twain wrote the obituary for Bummer!

Norton (real name Joshua Norton) had come to the City during the Gold Rush. He made a fortune in real estate and then lost it. He lived in a boarding house in a seedy neighborhood for 50 cents a night. But San Franciscans have always loved a character, and they embraced Norton as their true ruler. Today there are still restaurants, stores and historical sites all over the City recognizing him. When he died in 1880, his funeral procession was two miles long!

A few years ago, there was a movement to name the Bay Bridge after Emperor Norton, since he had issued numerous proclamations calling for a bridge to be built between San Francisco and Oakland. Of course, he also wrote procalamtions calling for the forced dissolution of Congress, saying it was a "remedy for the evil complained of." He also banned the use of the "abominable word" "Frisco" (and here, here!) under penalty of a $25 fine and produced his own currency.

So, on this the anniversary of our ruler, I suggest we all have a drink in the Emperor's honor. He was truly a San Francisco original. Robert Louis Stevension said it well: "In what other city, would a harmless madman who supposed himself emperor … been so fostered and encouraged?" Hail Norton I!

Some of the methods government agents use to separate the criminals from the non-criminals are reliable. For instance, seeing them commit crimes, or using actual non-fabricated evidence.

Other times, government agents like to use short cuts. Sometimes those short cuts are bogus pseudo-scientific programs, like the TSA's "Behavior Detection System" and suchlike. Racial and cultural profiling can be a variation on this — especially when it is conducted in a generalized, clumsy manner.

Take, for instance, Smoky the Bear warning us that people who drink Mexican beer might be drug dealers.

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White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, whose mom is a lovely woman but who seems a bit out of his depth as most Press Secretaries do, raises a valuable point about Republican hypocrisy, and an even more valuable point about Democratic hypocrisy:

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And you get a cookie, or cupcake, of your choice, courtesy of me.  NO GOOGLING!

More stringent security measures.  Universal electronic surveillance.  No-knock laws. Stop-and-frisk laws. Government inspection of first class mail. Automatic fingerprinting, photographing, blood tests, and urinalysis of any person arrested before he is even charged with a crime.  A law making it unlawful to resist even unlawful arrest.  Laws establishing detention camps for possible subversives.  Gun control laws.  Restrictions on travel. The bombings, you see, establish the need for such laws in the public mind. Instead of realizing that there is a conspiracy, conducted by a handful of men, the people reason—or are manipulated into reasoning—that the entire populace must have its freedom restricted in order to protect the public. The people agree that they themselves can't be trusted.

The book from which this passage derives is still classified as "science fiction" by bookstores and libraries, though it's older than 95% of what you'll find on such shelves.  So old that I had to change two words to keep it timely.

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As I've said before, I think orthodoxy to political movements and political parties is a recipe for stupid behavior. When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail; when you are invested in being a Republican/Democrat/conservative/progressive/whatever, everything looks like one of the bugaboos of that particular ideology. (By the way, I am not suggesting that I am immune to this problem.)

Case in point: the Telegraph runs a piece about an upcoming movie called Creation about Charles Darwin. It looks terrific. This is the Telegraph's uncritical thesis:

However, US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.

Liberal blogs rushed to take the story at face value. The story was a nail to their hammer: it portrayed mainstream America — and religion — as intolerant and willfully ignorant.

Such critics, by and large, did not engage in critical scrutiny of the Telegraph's thesis or of the message that the film's producers were trying to promote. Fortunately, some people did. Take increasingly prominent science-fiction author and commentator John Scalzi, who writes a great blog. Scalzi is to the left of me; he's by no stretch of the imagination a conservative or someone sympathetic to pro-creationist anti-Darwinist sentiment. But he's also usually not an orthodox thinker. So he penned an awesome take-down of credulously accepting the premise that the film can't find a distributor because Americans are anti-science idiots:

Alternately, and leaving aside any discussion of the actual quality of the film, it may be that a quiet story about the difficult relationship between an increasingly agnostic 19th Century British scientist and his increasingly devout wife, thrown into sharp relief by the death of their beloved 10-year-old daughter, performed by mid-list stars, is not exactly the sort of film that’s going to draw in a huge winter holiday crowd, regardless of whether that scientist happens to be Darwin or not, and that these facts are rather more pertinent, from a potential distributor’s point of view.

Read the whole thing; I especially like his vision of the Will-Smith-vehicle Darwin biopic that would get distributed easily. Scalzi is enough of a skeptic that he suggests the same thing I immediately suspected — that this "halp halp Americans are idiots" notion is clever marketing at the movie's target audience. (That target audience, I submit, probably includes a sizable segment of people whose self-esteem is premised on being smarter, better people than the unwashed hordes of Middle America.) I frequently disagree with Scalzi's conclusions, but this openness to nuance is why I like to read him.

Credit is also due to frequent critic of religion and proponent of science P.Z. Myers, who also recognized that the film's situation might also not be all about American hostility to science.

As for the commentators who took it at face value — well, one has to wonder whether, in the days of William Castle's B-movie advertisements, they would have bought the advertised insurance policies in case they died of fright during the film:

Macabre (1958): A certificate for a $1,000 life insurance policy from Lloyd's of London was given to each customer in case he/she should die of fright during the film. Showings also had fake nurses stationed in the lobbies and hearses parked outside the theater.

Another great moment for the "most liberal President ever", as today the Obama administration announced that it supported extending several of the more onerous provisions of the Patriot Act, most importantly the business records and roving wiretap sections. In a magnaimous mood, the administration said that it would be open to considering more privacy protection, but only if it didn't weaken the effectiveness of the law. Well, thanks for making that so clear.

I suppose we should be happy that they are at least willing to consider changing things if we complain a lot, as opposed to Bush who brought the Patriot Act down from the mountain on stone tablets not to be altered. Still, I would think that (especially the wiretap rules) would fall under Obama's calls for more open and trustworthy government. Especially since he talked so much about it during the campaign (although strangely not so much now..)

Where exactly is the point that guaranteeing my personal freedoms becomes inconvenient for the Patriot Act?

Announcing a new feature at Popehat in which we, experienced consultants in the minimization and mitigation of risk, offer our advice free of charge to employers and corporations looking to reduce exposure to loss and litigation.

For our first case, let's examine the facts alleged in a suit filed by Babette Perry, a pharmaceutical technician of Mount Laurel Pennsylvania, against her employer Hampton Behavioral Health Center, and its parent company Universal Health Services, Inc.

Concerned about a recent wave of robberies perpetrated by oxycontin fiends against health clinics with access to the addictive narcotic, Hampton devised what risk managers might call a "readiness test," in which employees are drilled and put through mock or simulated crisis, in order to assess their preparation and to allow the company to improve its response to such a crisis.  On December 24, 2007, Ms. Perry alleges that she was the subject of such a test.

Now "readiness tests," in general, are a useful tool in avoidance of risk.  For instance in a pharmacy, such as that run by Hampton, the danger of break-in or robbery by oxycontin fiends is an ever-present risk.  Preparing employees to deal with such an emergency improves safety for the employees and the company, like a fire drill in a school or continuing education for professionals.

Where the test went astray was in its implementation.  While not all drills and such require that the worker be given advance notice (again, imagine a fire drill), that's typically a good idea when the drill involves sending a "gunman" into an employee's workspace, waving what appears to be an actual firearm.

Point one, and it's important to emphasize this: never direct your workers to point firearms, even unloaded or mock firearms, at other workers, without at least providing some advance warning that no one is in danger of actually being shot.

When the "gunman" announces that he has taken a hostage, well, that's even better reason to give advance notice that a drill might occur.  Even moreso when the "hostage" is a fellow employee, who is in on the exercise or drill.

Point two:  Unless your business is one where dealing with the threat of kidnapping and execution of hostages is a common occurrence, such as Navy SEALS, the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, or SWAT squads, it's probably best to leave such especially vivid touches out of one's emergency preparation simulations.

And finally, even if the job calls for interaction with armed, crazed drug abusers and the rescue of hostages, cutting off phone access to the building, as allegedly happened in Ms. Perry's case, might actually enhance one's exposure to risk.  Now generally workers who are threatened with lawless insurrection and hostage-taking are expected to call the authorities.  But as Hampton's exercise proceeded, Ms. Perry was unable to do so because she had no telephone access.  Under the circumstances, she might have felt compelled to act violently, injuring her fellow employee the "gunman" to protect her fellow employee the "hostage."  A tragedy might have ensued.

Point three: When devising corporate readiness exercises such as a mock armed invasion, one must not only be sure to leave workers with the training required to deal with such a crisis, but the tools.  Such as a telephone.

Fortunately no tragedy ensued as a result of Hampton's perhaps too vigorous readiness exercises.  No one was injured or killed.  Hampton fully explained the purpose of its test afterward, and Ms. Perry suffered only an alleged mild case of panic, emotional disturbance, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.  But there can be no doubt that she is now a better pharmaceutical technician for the experience, fully prepared to protect her employer's interests in the event of an armed robbery and hostage-taking by frenzied drug addicts.

Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer.

My earlier post about Josh Wexler's run-in with a cop — and the consequences of filing a complaint against a cop — reminded me of an old news story from 2006.

An undercover team from a CBS affiliate in Miami went to various police stations, asked for a complaint form, and secretly videotaped the results. Sometimes they got the form without a problem. Sometimes the department had no form, and no clear process to make a complaint. But other times, the reaction illustrated the sense of entitlement and hubris that some people in authority carry around with them.

Some of the most choice exchanges after the jump.

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You know, there are power-mad assholes in every profession. There are power-mad assholes working at Starbucks, and at Barnes & Noble. But if you encounter a power-mad asshole at Starbucks, you might get yelled at for ordering an unnecessarily prolix drink. If you encounter a power-mad asshole at Barnes & Noble, some hipster dick in black horn-rims might roll his eyes at you when you buy "Twilight" for your niece's birthday. If, on the other hand, you encounter a power-mad asshole who is a cop, it is entirely possible that you will wind up with a ticket if you are lucky, and handcuffed, tazed, or even dead if you are not.

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It's time for the Road to Popehat, the feature in which we examine our traffic logs for the searches that brought you here, and then ask Joe Wilson to shout "MORE MENTAL HEALTH COVERAGE!"

Some recent searches:

how to get a kangaroo to stop humping you: This is exactly why I always write the safe word on my arm with a sharpie.

comments on humping nude sex: Um . . . "hooray?"

can a sexual predator file sexual harassment: I'd advise against taking that one contingency.

popehat ken "real name" Heavens. I'm being investigated. Sort of.

what's [sic] England going to be part of Germany? At least the food would improve.

ass speakers: As if the jackass teenagers in my neighborhood don't make enough noise already.

act like an ass hat day We call those weekdays here.

can anyone fully serve a 4060 year prison sentence? We'll wait here while you try.

When I was an Assistant United States Attorney, there were a few tasks that absolutely nobody wanted. Nobody wanted to appear in front of certain federal judges if they could avoid it, because those judges were pathologically mean or pants-wettingly crazy. Nobody wanted to take a alien smuggling call from the INS, which would invariably call the office and announce that they had taken down a smuggling drop house and captured 60 people and that they wanted 56 of them charged as coyotes and the other four treated as material witness pollos. (Proper response: "I'm sorry, but could you please arrange for someone from a different federal agency to go count again for you?") Nobody wanted to take over a case just before trial, because if someone was palming it off just before trial, it was in lousy shape.

But one thing — mere annoyance that it was — loomed larger and more feared than any of these: ticket Wednesdays.

See, AUSAs like to think they are prosecuting the most important cases in America. But in truth, it's not all civil rights schemes and organized crime and massive Ponzi schemes. It's not even all immigration fraud and bank robbery and one-kilo dope deals. It's also tickets. People get hit with tickets every day on federal property. People roll through the stop sign at the VA. They start campfires where they aren't supposed to in the national parks. They drink on the loading dock at the Social Security Administration building. And, like Andrew Sullivan, sometimes they get caught smoking a joint on federal property. On "ticket Wednesday," which happened about once a month, all those petty cases got dumped in front of some hapless magistrate, and some hapless federal prosecutor got sent downstairs to handle them all. For that morning — on really awful occasions, that whole day — some federal prosecutor who is used to prosecuting big serious federal cases (and developing an epic ego as a result) has to litigate traffic tickets. The results are not pretty.

For Andrew Sullivan, the result was a dismissal. Patrick today wrote a characteristically excellent thinking piece about how the Andrew Sullivan case reveals that justice is not actually equal in America. I'm not going to write anything that profound. I'm going to tell you what prosecuting petty shit in magistrate court looks like.

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Query: say you use an outside IT company for your IT needs. Say one of your favorite guys from the IT company is a casting-call pencil-necked geek who would weigh 110 pounds sopping wet. Say you send him to a client's office to make copies of all of the disk drives, suspecting that a federal investigation may soon blossom into a search warrant, during which the feds will probably break some computers and disappear others. Say you brief him on the task and send him off.

Say that, as luck would have it, he's carrying a stack of computer materials out of the client's office when the FBI arrives to execute a search warrant, and as a result gets surrounded by eight burly men and women in raid jackets with their hands on their Sig Sauers and no real grasp of their own crippling authority issues, and subjected to about three hours of interrogation in the back of a G-ride.

Of course you pay the bill and pay his full hourly rate for the time he spent "assisting" the FBI.

But do you send some sort of tip as well?