Ciceronian Review

Somebody's Thinking

This looks interesting.  See you there.

TUESDAY, JULY 19th
THE SELF MADE MAN
7PM - City Library, 210 E 400 South

Dear Salt Lake Cine Lovers,

Is it ever rational to choose death? On Tuesday, we will explore this controversial question with THE SELF MADE MAN, part of our Diverse Voices partnership with KUED and the City Library.

On Independence Day at Stern Ranch in central California, 77-year-old solar-energy pioneer Bob Stern finds out he is seriously ill... possibly dying. Meanwhile, an elderly in-law is slowly declining on artificial life support in a hospital. Bob decides to cheat that fate and take his own life. His family tries to stop him. But first, Bob sets up a video camera. Daughter Susan Stern ("Barbie Nation," P.O.V. 1998) tells the story of her father's quirky, inspiring life and the difficult end-of-life choices faced by an aging population. Part King Lear, part Western, "The Self-Made Man" is a true-life family drama about a controversial issue: Should we control how we die? This is a co-presentation with the Independent Television Service (ITVS).

There will be a panel discussion after the film with Maureen Henry, a local attorney specializing in end of life care and planned living and Jay Jacobsem, head of Medical Ethics at LDS Hospital.

Geralyn and Kathryn

For more program information, www.slcfilmcenter.org

Uplink

Links have been updated to reflect current daily reading, excuding regularly published journals.  A few have been deleted and a number added. I have not added to links to which I make irregular visits -- Right Coast, for example. 

Honest Abe in Shame

This is shameful.  For Mr. Lindgren, editorials constitute reports, obvious fabrications are truth.  He can't even make a plausible case on the legal points, which is remarkable as he is a lawyer.  For example, outside southern Utah, saying X's wife is a CIA agent pretty well identifies one specific person.

Update:
The link should now work.  There is an amusing coomment to Lindgren in the comments to post by a adifferent author on evolution.  See the comments here.

As I recall, Lindgren also thought the Swift Boat liars were something other than liars.  I once recommended an article of his for publication -- I am afraid to go re-read it for fear of discovering a terrible error.   

Justice and Process

The Utah Supreme Court handed down an extremely interesting decision on ethics today.   The situation involved is uncommon.  J sued TDC (insurer) and D (physician) for medical malpractice, and prevailed.  (There is a prior, depressing, decision stripping J of much of the award in enforcement of damage cap statute.)  TDC has sued D to rescind the insurance contract and D has disappeared.  J, for obvious reasons, does not want D stripped of insurance (as then there will be no recovery at all), and successfully prevented a default and summary judgment against D by TDC.  However, along the way, J got the court to appoint counsel for D.  D counsel asked the Supreme Court if such an appointment is permissible, as the client has never consented  and is unavailable for consultation.  Supreme Court says yes.

Agee/Rove

It may be worth recalling the context leading to enactment of the statute criminalizing disclosure of covert agent identities.  Wasn't always so.  The statute is largely a reaction to a couple of books published by Phillip Agee.  Mr. Agee, who was once himself a covert agent as I recall, found over time that he could not participate in the activities of the CIA with respect to a number of countries.  In any event, he published a list of covert agents of the CIA together with (at least some) of their postings.  Because Agee's list was based on correlation of public information sources, there was no legal response available.  (That he did this with very limited resources and based exclusively on public information sources suggests a number of intriguing conclusions.)  In response, Congress passed the legislation at issue in the Rove/Plame affair.  In context, the aim of the legislation was to make criminal the identification and disclosure of covert agent identities, however that information was learned.  There was concern for and language to prevent interference with subsequent reporting of news.  Whatever the technicalities of drafting, it is clear enough that Rove should be subject to prosecution if the email story is accurate.  What he did is pretty close to what Agee did, after all.

Mesmer is the Man

I watch more television when I get downhearted.  There is something encouraging about the mindlessness of television.  I don't mean the reality shows, etc., but the critically acclaimed shows and big productions.  Two examples.  I have been watching on dvr Grey's Anatomy, which has gotten a good deal of praise.  I've seen three or four episodes, and each one provokes the same line of thought:  Why does anyone think any of this is good?  The characters are run of the mill type-casting, the plots are predictable from the time each character appears in each show.

Or take Empire.  Why replace the history with made-up silliness?  The history, as best we can discern it, is a very interesting story.  Octavian was not a handsome athlete, he was a wimpy fat boy.  There is a tremendous amount of sex, of all kinds.  There are great set-piece battles to be played out, and fortuitous heroics turning the tide.  There is social and class conflict and betrayals.  Why muck it up with a ridiculous gladiator plot line? 

I also watched the recent Arthur movie over the weekend.  I love the ending -- announcing that people in Britain will ever after be free says Arthur, as everyone kneels to him as king. 

God Says

You may recall the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping.  We are now host to the final pre-trial wrangling, some of it unusually interesting.  Today's paper reports on the difficulties the judge is having with experts.  (There is some question whether Mitchell is competent to stand trial.)  There is also, for the law inclined, a good demonstration of why Utah needs reform of its rule concerning expert testimony.

The prosecution's expert claims Mitchell's bizarre religious ideas are no different from those held by thousands of Mormon fundamentalists who practice polygamy.

   Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Kent Morgan noted that Utah polygamists have killed in cold blood, and also have raped and married off 14-year-old girls.

   Morgan said Mitchell, too, sought to do "unspeakable evil" based on deeply held religious beliefs.

Hmm.  Well that is not reassuring.  But, then consider this:

Defense attorney Trease said her experts were better qualified and that their diagnoses were backed by scientific studies that compared groups with deeply held religious beliefs to people with religious delusions.

   The studies showed the group members had pleasant, positive outlooks, where the delusional people were, like Mitchell, negative, fearful and anxious.

    Trease also noted that psychologist Jennifer Skeem was the only expert to have spoken with Mitchell, who last year took a vow of silence and now refuses to speak to his defense team.

Now that is an interesting expert -- a vow of silence following examination.  Wonder if she refunded the fee.  But wait, there is more:

   The prosecution's expert, psychiatrist Noel Gardner, claims to be an authority on differentiating extreme religious beliefs from delusions because he was raised in a family of religious fundamentalists.

Hello.
 

London Calling

A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London
by Dylan Thomas
Never until the mankind making Bird beast and flower Fathering and all humbling darkness Tells with silence the last light breaking And the still hour Is come of the sea tumbling in harness And I must enter again the round Zion of the water bead And the synagogue of the ear of corn Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound Or sow my salt seed In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn The majesty and burning of the child's death. I shall not murder The mankind of her going with a grave truth Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath With any further Elegy of innocence and youth. Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter, Robed in the long friends, The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother, Secret by the unmourning water Of the riding Thames. After the first death, there is no other.
From The Poems of Dylan Thomas, published by New Directions. Copyright © 1952, 1953 Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1937, 1945, 1955, 1962, 1966, 1967 the Trustees for the Copyrights of Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1938, 1939, 1943, 1946, 1971 New Directions Publishing Corp. Used with permission.

So God Says

You may recall the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping.  The pre-trial proceedings of the alleged kidnapper, Mr. Mitchell, are in full swing.  The current battles concern expert testimony on Mitchell's competency to stand trial.  Some interesting bits:

The prosecution's expert claims Mitchell's bizarre religious ideas are no different from those held by thousands of Mormon fundamentalists who practice polygamy.

   Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Kent Morgan noted that Utah polygamists have killed in cold blood, and also have raped and married off 14-year-old girls.

   Morgan said Mitchell, too, sought to do "unspeakable evil" based on deeply held religious beliefs.

Hmm.  But wait, there is more:

The prosecution's expert, psychiatrist Noel Gardner, claims to be an authority on differentiating extreme religious beliefs from delusions because he was raised in a family of religious fundamentalists.

Now that is an interesting claim -- and why Utah needs reform of its rules concerning expert testimony.  A final bit of oddity for you:

  Trease also noted that psychologist Jennifer Skeem was the only expert to have spoken with Mitchell, who last year took a vow of silence and now refuses to speak to his defense team.

No wonder the judge is troubled.
 

Metamorphosis

One way to support the arts is to commission works.  Over the next several weeks I intend to post pieces of written work I have commissioned. 

I.  Why We Want to Change

The first crack
the one that lets the light in
changes air
to something charged
as if power lines
silver visible against the light cloud
the blue beyond the rest of everything
as if that marked a change
we could count on
something new, transportation, real travel
traveling light as if newly accountable.

We want the body to tell us secrets.
It fights.
The way
the tiny silver needles grew nerves
that time.
Memory records
the bare scalp
the extremities, an accord, singing.
What travels in the body
along what?
Color as a channel or a clue, blue
silver.  The nerves sing high.
We look for light.
All we know is, twist this, it burns.  Walk
it tears.

           EL Corley