Exciting New Project: Filibustery from Newsbound

Filibustery: Episode One from Newsbound on Vimeo.

Filibustery is the first endeavor of Newsbound, a new voice in the news media environment that wants to slow down and take a deeper look into the issues behind the headlines.  Filibustery is a series of short video presentations examining the US Senate's filibuster, its history and its current abuse.  I provided the original illustrations for the video.

The inaugural episode is up and running now.  Stay tuned for further updates and new episodes exploring the filibuster in great detail and other issues in the news.

You can subscribe directly to the Filibustery site, follow it on Twitter and Facebook, and sign-up on Newsbound for updates.

What is this "Standing" Business?

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeal heard oral arguments in the Prop. 8 case yesterday.  If you heard or read any of the news reports, you likely heard about the issue of "standing."  In a case that raises big meaty constitutional, philosophical, and moral issues surrounding marriage--same-sex marriage in particular--you might be surprised that the key issue appears to be basically procedural.

So what is this whole "standing" thing, anyway?  Basically, "standing" means that a party to a law suit actually has an interest in the controversy; i.e. they actually suffered an injury because of another party's action.  It's not enough to simply not like something, or to simply be offended by something someone else does.  You have to actually be injured in some way.

Why does this matter?  At the top, it's about practicality.  Lawsuits consume a lot of time, energy, and money--none of which are limitless--so the legal system has to create some method of limiting the number of potential lawsuits.  If we could all sue anyone simply because we didn't like what they were doing, the courts would be even more backlogged than they already are.  The important cases would get lost in the mess; collective injustice being the result because the courts' ability to redress genuine wrongs would be essentially nonexistent.

That would be bad enough on its own, but there is a deeper issue at work as well.  Standing is also about liberty.  If everyone could sue without showing standing--proving they suffered a real injury--then no one could live freely.  Your personal liberty should not be curtailed unless the exercise of that liberty harms others.

Consider the standing issue in the Prop. 8 appeal.  Supporters of Prop. 8 brought suit to keep same-sex couples from marrying.  The court wants to know how same sex marriage actually harms anyone?  Clearly, if there is a fundamental right to marry that the people of California cannot deny same-sex couples, those same-sex couples are injured by Prop. 8's enforcement.  The same cannot be said of people who oppose same-sex marriage.  Sure, they may not approve but that is thin ice in terms of injury.  Essentially, the court is asking Prop. 8 defenders, "where's the beef?"

Watching the Giants in the Mission

Folsom Street Fair: Pluralism Baby

Last weekend was San Francisco's Folsom Street Fair.  For the uninitiated, Folsom is a celebration of the leather arts.

My wife and I were on our way to the East Bay during the Fair and passed this Auntie buying fruit while some fair-goers waited for the walk signal.  Two guys in assless chaps and leather cod-pieces didn't faze her at all.  I love San Francisco.

Superfans - US Soccer Fan Fails Part 1

Believe it or not, his outfit is the least of his problems.

Happy as I am that the US managed a tie against England on Saturday, it makes me a bit worried.  There was a certain type of US soccer fan that was bad enough before.  Now?  I'm getting worried.

It can only get worse from here.  Superfans were bad enough when the US never won anything important.  No matter how tiny and inept the other team was, these guys would celebrate like we won the World Cup itself.  If you didn't get excited that we outscored Guam, they'd accuse you of personally holding back the American soccer program.

The worst was that they'd always get excited that we qualified for the Cup.  We play in CONCACAF, guys.  Mexico is good but the rest?  Not so much.  It's like bragging about how you were first in your class in kindergarten.  Nicely done; everyone else was eating paste.

If the US manages to make it into the next round, it's all over.

California and Arizona's Laws Compared

It was pointed out to me that California has a law on its books similar to Arizona's new immigration statute.  This was pretty surprising, so I looked it up.  Well . . . they're similar, but only in the broadest sense.

Bikes & Rules of Recognition

Apparently there is a big split among bike commuting advocates about traffic laws. While everyone agrees that the current rules of the road in most cities are designed to benefit drivers at everyone else's expense, one group claims bikers should follow the current rules while another holds that to do that adds up to treason against the entire bicycle community.

The dissenters' argument boils down to this: bikes are different than cars and need their own, bike-specific traffic laws; since they don't have those, the current laws are invalid; since the current laws are invalid, cyclists shouldn't follow them. Well, that sounds fine at first - especially because it rips off some old fashioned American political rhetoric - but there's a big difference between "invalid" laws that are unjust (e.g. segregation) and those that are invalid merely because they could be better.

The really bad principle behind the argument that bikers shouldn't follow the traffic laws is that only cyclists are considered capable of determining whether traffic laws are valid. No dice, friends. If you don't like the current rules, agitate to change them - but I missed the memo giving Critical Mass a veto over traffic laws.

Real Americans

Frank Rich's editorial in the Sunday Times was one of the better bits so far about the recent torrent of race baiting from GOP barkers. The upshot of Rich's thinking is that righty-whitey accusations and rants indicate deep anxiety about their soon-to-be minority status.

There's a lot more to it than that, of course. Sure, some people are surely struggling with Big Questions about What Their Country Means; experiences other than Mayberry-certified stories now carry the President's and the Supreme Court's stamp of authority. But some of the vitriol seems motivated by a pure instinct that white folk must not cede their place at the top of the pack.

The Hearings That Weren't

If you haven't heard any of This American Life's coverage of the financial crisis, check it out. Teaming up with the folks from Planet Money, TAL does a great job. Their most recent broadcast deals with the government regulators and the credit rating companies. Both function - or are supposed to function - as gatekeepers. During the last decade or so, they did anything but.

If the latest episode doesn't clarify why some level of legal literacy is important in a democracy, I don't know what will. For years, under Democratic and Republican administrations and Congresses, American kept saying they wanted less regulation. Based on their anger these days, it doesn't seem like they knew what they were asking for. But they got it, in spades.