Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court

Two weeks ago, Amy Bach spoke at Busboys and Poets, DC's famed progressive cafe-bookstore, about ordinary injustice. Such banal injustice is the brand of American justice that goes in county and local courtrooms that chooses expediency over justice when it comes to most minor crimes. Bach outlined her theory that the adversarial system lacks checks and balances on attorneys and judges. The incentives are misplaced so that it's not worth it for defense lawyers to fight for their clients, or for prosecutors to prosecute unwinnable cases. Although defense lawyers and prosecutors are supposed to oppose each other in court, it is generally easier to cooperate at the expense of defendants and victims. Bach was promoting her book, Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court. In it, she builds her case against ordinary injustice by profiling a public defender who didn't defend, a judge who didn't judge, and a prosecutor who didn't prosecute.

The public defender's story stands out the most. Bach focuses on Robert Surrency, the public defender of Greene County, Georgia. On the first day that Bach arrived in this courtroom, she saw a throng of people waving papers at their state appointed attorney, Surrency. It was clear that Surrency had no idea who his clients were. This was because Surrency had a huge caseload. Since most counties are left to decide how to fund indigent defense, there is no nationally used system. Greene County happened to use a system where a public defense contract goes out to the lowest bidder. That year, Surrency bid the lowers for all public defense cases. This means he had his case load on top of his regular full time job. Needless to say, he did not have time to carefully examine each case. Instead, it made sense for him to plea bargain his clients as quickly as possible, whether or not that gave them the best outcome.

The prosecutor's story in Quitman County Mississippi struck a similar chord. Bach found that over the past two decades, nearly all domestic violence cases had been dropped because the prosecutor's investigator deemed these to be the least winnable cases. Juries notoriously feel unsympathetic towards domestic violence victims. In addition, the victims themselves often refused to testify against their abusers. Again, it made sense for the prosecutor -- an elected official-- to simply shove these cases away in a drawer and focus his attention on the big media cases.

Bach's chief insight is that both of these above examples could be mitigated with oversight. The current system doesn't provide incentives for lawyers to check each others work, but the average citizen could check lawyers' work with the right public data. Bach suggests for people to demand information on the number of guilty pleas without an attorney present, the public defender's typical caseload, the numbers and types of cases that go unprosecuted, and the bails and number of days spent in jail for those charged with crimes. With these data, Bach bets that patterns would emerge, holding key players accountable.

Which is more voyeuristic: In Treatment or Dexter?

Netflix is a wonderful thing. Thanks to its no late-fee policy and streaming video, I've been able to watch two shows this year that had been hidden behind the HBO/Showtime wall for me in the past: In Treatment and Dexter. In Treatment is an HBO show that follows a psychiatrist, Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) and four of his patients. When in season, it airs Monday through Friday, with each patient visiting Paul on each day, followed by Paul visiting his own therapist (Dianne Wiest) on Friday. Ninety-nine percent of the action takes place inside Paul's office; the show is entirely dialogue. In contrast, Showtime's Dexter is about a blood spatter specialist who's also a serial killer. Except he only kills other murderers. The action takes place at bloody crime scene and the streets of Miami. In other words, you'd expect In Treatment to appeal to middle age academic types, and Dexter to appeal to gore-loving teenagers. More in the first category than the second, I expected to enjoy In Treatment for its psychological revelations. But after nearly finishing the first season of In Treatment, and the first three seasons of Dexter, I must confess that both satisfies one's voyeuristic interest in others' psychological failings.

In Treatment starts off slowly, with characters contextualizing their existence to Paul. But after the first couple of weeks, Paul starts to unravel their lies and hidden pasts. We come to understand why a gorgeous young doctor has a thing for older men, why a married woman wants to be treated badly by her husband, why an Airforce pilot leaves his wife. Along the way, we also see Paul's marriage disintegrate as he learns of his wife's affair, and confronts his own feelings for one of his patients. Sometimes when a patient misses an appointment, we are treated to an epic fight between Paul and his wife instead. The show is driven by dialogue, but you gradually see how powerful this dialogue is. The verbal abuse that the couple who sees Paul for marriage counseling heap on each other is akin to Antichrist-like physical abuse. Paul's cringe-worthy fights with his wife recall your last epic battle just like how an actor's on screen wound reminds you of that time you needed stitches. In this way, In Treatment exposes raw psychological wounds that make you feel almost shameful for intruding.

Beyond its body count and Michael Hall's astounding acts of killing, Dexter is at its heart a psychological show. In contrast to In Treatment, however, Dexter invites the viewer to explore Dexter Morgan's persona through his thoughtful voiceovers. Dexter tells us he's a "monster," someone who has no feelings. He "needs" to kill. Luckily, his adopted father recognized this need early on and taught him a code to only kill other serial killers. This concept, which could expose Dexter to many plot holes, is remarkably believable due to Dexter's rich psychological development. In the first season, he grapples with his true identity; in the second, he grapples with his adopted father's shadow; in the third, he grapples with sharing himself with others. Even though the other characters are blind to Dexter's true self, the audience feels like Dexter's true confidante. Despite the many dead bodies and other gruesome shenanigans, Dexter does not seek to provide gratuitous grossness.

Separately, both In Treatment and Dexter provide artful depictions of people. Together, they show that this can be done artfully with two very different concepts.

Summertime - Most Innovative Novel of the Year...So Far

One imagines that there comes a time in any reputable novelist's life when he/she (mostly he) thinks that he can get away with anything. They can experiment with all those forms and conceits that a publisher would have refused to publish earlier in their lives. As a result, the public gets a few terrible prose works inflicted on them. Works that we're compelled to read because of the writer's reputation, but works which then leave a terrible taste in the mouth. I'm thinking late Philip Roth. Both 2008's Indignation and 2009's The Humbling were self-indulgent pieces about Roth-like characters that obsessed over death. Indignation is written from the perspective of a young man who dies during the Korean War. He is looking at his past and all the failures that resulted in him getting drafted. The Humbling's about an older actor who has lost his virility--in all senses of the word. Both novels are short, brutal, and gratuitous, basically warning the reader that death comes to us all.

This year, J.M. Coetzee, another well-respected, older writer, shows that a dead protagonist can be done well. His latest novel, Summertime, is the third in a trilogy of novels/memoirs about a character named J.M. Coetzee. This one covers his life as a young adult, before he has written his first book. The book's main innovation is that it takes place after Coetzee has died. Rather, it's told from the perspective of his biographer who goes around the world interviewing people who knew Coetzee in the 1970's. The book opens and closes with chapters of Coetzee's diary from the era. In between, it contains five interviews: His cousin Margot, 3 romantic interests, and an academic colleague.

Each interview sheds light on a different aspect of Coetzee's character. While some are more admiring of Coetzee than others, each humbles him. Margot tells us that Coetzee lacked the manliness she expected in South African men. Julia, a married woman with whom Coetzee had an affair, derides him for being emotionally out of touch while making love. Indeed, the running theme is that Coetzee is not a great man. His prose is perfectly tuned; each interviewee is given a unique voice, making all their pronouncements believable.

At the same time, Coetzee's mere ordinariness makes his writing accomplishments that much greater. It leaves the reader wondering how the socially awkward thirty year old became a Nobel prize winner. Unfortunately, Summertime is supposed to be the last of the trilogy, but I would have been happy to read more.

Why you should watch Food Inc

Any good progressive these days knows of the slew of food awareness media put out by the likes of Michael Pollan and Jonathan Safran Foer. Pollan's books The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, and Safran Foer's Eating Animals cover some of the same territory. In a nutshell, factory farming is evil, and we should eat less meat. While Safran Foer actively promotes vegetarianism in contrast to Pollan, both writers employ some similar arguments including the health argument, the environmental argument, and the animal welfare argument.

The recent documentary, Food Inc, which contains extensive commentary from Michael Pollan, then should be expected to echo many of the same arguments that Pollan has made elsewhere. I decided to watch it as a member of the choir to which it preaches, rather than as a student looking for new lessons.

Food Inc surprised me by actually touching on more concrete arguments than theoretical arguments for animal welfare or environmentalism. Instead, it focuses on individual people and their stories. As the title suggests, the main argument for being more conscious about food decisions that Food Inc promotes is that food has become hijacked by a corporate industry that doesn't care about individuals. Companies like Monsanta, Tyson, and Cargill exploit the American consumer, the American government, and their own workers. The documentary opens with a segment on chicken farming. Although I'm pretty knowledgeable of the terrible conditions for chickens and the incredibly unnatural rate at which they are made to grow these days, I had no idea the extent to which individuals farmers are taken advantage of. According to Food Inc, a typically chicken farmer must take out $500,000 in loans, only to make $18,000 a year from Tyson/Purdue. Of course, Purdue controls all the prices and requires farmers to upgrade to expensive equipment in order to maintain their contracts. A woman interviewed in the film loses her contract after failing to upgrade to a close-aired chicken house. It's akin to the sharecropping system.

Other individual stories include a man who is sued by Monsanto for attempting to help farmers infringe on Monsanto's patents. Though Monsanto knows they can't win the case, they know it will hurt the farmers more in legal fees. We also meet a Latino family that shows that it's impossible for them to rationalize paying more money for produce when Burger King's Dollar Menu is more filling. Then there's Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, a actual non-factory farm. We see him killing chickens in a humane way as he tells the camera how the USDA tried to shut him down for slaughtering chickens in the open air.

Ultimately, Food Inc doesn't call for vegetarianism, but for greater transparency. This is something Americans should demand of any industry or institution.

Weekend Restaurant Round-up I

After trying four restaurants for the first time this past weekend, the bf suggested that I do a weekend food summary on this blog. Like many twenty-somethings with full time jobs, I do most of my food venturing on weekends. This weekend was especially packed due to the Georgetown-UConn men’s basketball game on Saturday. I didn’t try any food there, so will spare you on the details of pretzels, hotdogs, and various other overpriced fried delicacies.

After the game (anti-climactic, by the way), Mike and I met up with his high school friends at RFD (Regional Food and Drink) bar at Gallery Place/Chinatown. I was impressed by the large space and the beer selection for a bona fide sports bar with TV’s everywhere you look. I was less impressed by the huge crowd of college students. But this may have been an anomaly, as the game did just get out. We only stayed for one drink, so I don’t have much to say, but they had a good selection of craft brews on tap. My Founder’s Pale Ale was excellent.

Three hours later, I found myself at Brasserie Beck on 11^th and K with a group of friends. We were drawn by the special happy hour they are doing for the entire month of January. From 5-7 every day, all their draft beers are half off. This means that the Bavic pilsner is now $2.50 and the Christmas Ale is now $6.00. This was a great opportunity to try some brews I would normally not get. My Christmas Ale was a robust mix of malts and hops and winter spices that left the taste of anise lingering in my mouth. My second beer, the 1810 Oktoberfest, was slightly disappointing due to an unexpectedly sour taste. But the chorizo and fennel moules frites that we shared as a group were delicious. There was just the right amount of chorizo and the fennel did not overpower the dish. Even though we were a group of seven hogging a huge section of the bar area, the service was very nice and not a bit condescending. We felt comfortable to linger, though we were soon off to our respective engagements.

My engagement was dinner at Oyamel with Mike. This is a place we'd been trying to go to for a while now, but were last thwarted by the snomg before Christmas. Going along with Tyler Cowen's recommendations, we got the stuffed pablano with pork, a black rice dish, the grasshopper taco, a barbeque pork taco, and a grilled lamb chop special. The pablano was the best item we got. The pepper was just stuffed with pine nuts and a creamy goat cheese. Some pomegranate seeds added a nice touch. The grasshopper was something I'd wanted to try for a while, and it was much more acidic than I'd expected. Slightly disappointing was the rice, which was much too salty. Oyamel was excellent overall, though. Looking forward to trying their sister restaurant across the street, Jaleo.

After this Saturday fest, Sunday's dinner came as a major disappointment. Through DCist, I had found out that Scion Restaurant in Dupont was hosting a tasting of the Sierra Nevada-Dogfish Head collaboration brew, Life and Limb. $12 for a six ounce sample of that plus two food pairings, we were told. We were also told to arrive early as there would be many people, and that there would be Sierra Nevada and Dogfish reps on hand. So, while we got there early as told, we still had to wait in the bar for 20 minutes until we could sit...at the bar. Second, there were absolutely no reps of any kind to be seen. Third, the "pairings" with the Life and Limb were merely braised pork belly and a scoop of chocolate mousse -- i.e. two pretty unimpressive food items. The Life and Limb was great, though not really something I'd drink normally. It tasted like a dubbel with some added hops.

Even though this was already off to a shaky start, Mike and I let our laziness get the better of us and decided to stay for dinner. This went no better. My glass of water was dirty from the pitcher, which had some fragments of margarita mix in it. When I pointed this out to a waiter, he took the glass away without bringing another back. Our main courses were slightly better, but did not make up for the poor experience. I got the burger, which is apparently the only thing worth having, but made the mistake of getting it with a pasta salad on the side that tasted like it came out of a giant tub. Mike got goat cheese pumpkin ravioli, which was a fair choice. Anyway, I guess the lesson learned here is not to a single beer event lure you to places you never would have gone to otherwise.

Self-conscious memoirs: no thanks

Reading best of lists last month, I noticed that Michael Greenberg's "Beg Borrow Steal: A Writer's Life" showed up many times. At first this was a good sign. Finally something I hadn't heard of before that I might truly enjoy. But as I turned the pages of this collection of Greenberg's columns from the Times Literary Supplement, it became increasingly clear that this was not something that I would enjoy. Greenberg writes with a wincingly high level of self-consciousness. For most of his life, before the publication of his well-received memoir Hurry Down Sunshine, Greenberg knew what he looked like to most people. He was a struggling writer slash high school drop-out. This becomes apparent in his writing. While Greenberg is frank about all his exploits, he also has a way of suggesting that he is nobler than others who may be wealthier or more respected by society. For instance, the book begins with an anecdote about Greenberg's refusal to join his father's business of scrap metal. Right off the bat: "My old man was like Zeus's father Cronos: he couldn't bear the idea that any of his children might surpass him." Thus, Greenberg's escape to the writer's life is a noble fuck-you to his father, as his life is a fuck-you to society.

But is it really glamorous to live in government subsidized housing, to try to rent your room on Craigslist in order to make more money, to hold on to a dog that bites children, to have an established publisher tell you that your work is everything he hates about fiction, to obsessively check your Amazon rank? Or is it just irresponsible?

Perhaps the reason for its high praise is that so many other writers identify with Greenberg. But as a younger, cynical reader, I can't forgive his indulgence.

When a Play Tries Too Hard

One thing I really like about DC is its totally accessible theater scene. The reputable theaters can nearly be counted on one hand, and I live a block away from one of them. Many theaters here gladly offer discount tickets for those of us under 30 or 35, which makes the theater extremely affordable as well. But of course, this all comes with a huge downside: DC is no New York. Shows arrive here long after their debuts. Good revivals are often bought up well in advance, as in the case of Cate Blanchett's Streetcar Named Desire. Nonetheless, the affordability meant that I was able to see two interesting productions recently: As You Like It at the Shakespeare Theatre, and the Arena Stage's The Fantasticks at the Lincoln Theatre.

Both of these productions featured new twists on class stories, but only one of them pulls it off. This production of As You Like It takes place over the course of three hundred years. That’s right – three hundred. The movie begins in Shakespearean time in England, where Rosalind decides to follow a main she loves, Orlando, into the forest of Arden. The next scene quickly moves to 18th century America, and then America during the Civil War, and then the American West, before concluding in jazz age America. This is because the forest of Arden equals “Classic American cinema” in this production. This staging not only makes the play incredibly confusing in the first half, it also makes the characterization completely inconsistent. In one scene they have British accents, in the next they have Southern antebellum accents. It’s difficult to believe in the character when the character changes basic traits like this every twenty minutes.

The Arena Stage’s production of The Fantasticks is a more successful rendering. The Fantasticks, which ran off Broadway from1960 to 2002 straight is about the importance of nostalgia. Essentially, two young lovers experience a fall from innocence when the narrator of the play separates them and exposes them to the real world. In the original version, the narrator, El Gallo, is a mysterious bandit. The new version at the Lincoln Theatre portrays El Gallo as more of a friendly magician. As the BF pointed out, this change is effectively made because it is consistent, even if it makes the show more child-like than one might prefer.

Needless to say, As You Like It with its myriad sets and costume changes was more elaborate than The Fantasticks. But at the same time, the Shakespeare production defined trying too hard.