Gladstone's Case of the Week

Case of the Week
“15 Years Isn’t Long Enough To Figure Out If A Trial Was Fair”
By James Gladstone
Volume 1 Part 2
December 13, 2008

This week’s Case of the Week is on vacation while the Brethren – and Justice Ginsburg – are on Holiday. Should the Court take on any emergency cases, your trusty correspondent will return before the Court reopens in January. If not, Happy Holidays.

Camping Never Seemed So Inviting… A Buffy Movie Review of Australia

Camping Never Seemed So Inviting…

By Nan St. George

“’Just because it is, doesn’t mean it should be.’” Lady Sarah Ashley in Australia

As a longtime fan of Nicole Kidman I was greatly looking forward to the spectacle that is Baz Lurhman’s Australia. I knew it would be long and over-the-top as all of Lurhman’s films tend to be—and it has been seven years since Moulin Rouge, so I was sure his extravagant impulses have been long bottled and itching to escape. The main problem is that Australia is three different movies played in one long running time. There is the prickly romance ala The African Queen between Kidman’s Lady Sarah Ashley and Hugh Jackman’s “Drover.” (That’s the only moniker we get for Jackman—he never gets a real name even as time passes and he and Lady Sarah form an unofficial family with the Aboriginal boy, Nullah, played wonderfully by Brandon Walters …. He is simply “the Drover.”) The second movie is an adventure tale of a dangerous cattle drive across the great expanse of Northwestern Australia to get to the port of Darwin. The third is the saga of a half-Aboriginal boy and the history of Australia’s shameful practice of forcibly taking these children from their Aboriginal mothers and sent to “Mission Island” in order to “breed” the white side of their fathers and suppress the influence of their mothers.

There are echoes of what might have been in the trek across the outback. Lady Sarah and the Drover put together a ragtag group that includes Nullah, Nullah’s grandmother, an alcoholic accountant, and Chinese cook. A genuinely thrilling undertaking for them all, the drove illustrates the beauty and danger of Australia. But as the most impressive set piece of the movie is also the saddest, it is hard to truly love any section of the movie.

Australia is hemmed in by endless clichés, the most glaring being the father of young Nullah, the overseer of “Faraway Downs,” (the ranch owned by Kidman) who is so evil it is unfortunate that his mustache is not long enough to twirl. It is never explained why this man (played by David Wenham of Lord of the Rings fame) is quite so malevolent. There is a bit of exposition describing his family and that they have worked “Faraway Downs” for generations. But that’s it. The Australian actor Bryan Brown is mostly wasted in his role as the rancher competing against Kidman for a lucrative war contract.

Kidman is cringingly stiff at the beginning of the film, but warms up as her character falls in love with both Drover and Nullah. Jackman is more memorable in that he plays essentially the perfect man—one who cries beautifully, rescues children and cracks his whip with equal élan.

The old-fashioned sentimentality of the movie would be more enjoyable if it wasn’t dotted with sadness every 30 minutes, or if Lurhman had focused on one of the three stories running through the film—preferably to Jackman sudsing himself up and giving himself a sponge bath in the outback— we would have had an enjoyable Christmas movie. But instead he tried for epic tragedy to be spread amongst his epic cheese. And cheese + tears aren’t very festive.

Another One Bites the Dust

Gov. Blagojevic, the gov. of Illinois, was arrested this morning and charged with corruption for trying to profit off the Obama-Senate appointment.

Does everyone who enters politics turn to crap? They should call Political Science the Science of figuring out why all politics is a giant sham.

Obama, you better not have made a fool of me this year. I bought all your audacity of hope, change we can believe in, army of teachers, etc. rhetorical political crap. I emailed everyone I knew trying to convince them you weren't just another Bill Clinton. Don't make me regret it.

I'm more than a little worried with this whole I love my enemies political BS you've eaten up since Nov. 4th. Tell me Lieberman, Clinton, and Gates love is a good sign of your humbleness, not a sign of the inevitable "I need to get myself re-elected/journey to the center of American politics" predictability. I still have hope for you, but please don't turn that hope into hopeless pessimism.

Merry Christmas from Dominick the Donkey

Thanks to Uncle George for sending today's Holiday folly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok5rOO2v2dU&eurl=http://www.mahalo.com/Do

The Rise of David Gregory!

This morning, Tom Brokaw announced on Meet the Press that David Gregory will be the new moderator of Meet the Press. What do we think about this choice? I like David, but I think that Tim Russert would have been rooting for Chuck Todd. Check out the new poll to weigh-in on this one.

Case of the Week: “15 Years Isn’t Long Enough To Figure Out If A Trial Was Fair”

In a first non-Lorelai contribution to Flatlander Follies, we welcome James Gladstone to our weekend dialogue. Cheers James!

Case of the Week

“15 Years Isn’t Long Enough To Figure Out If A Trial Was Fair”

By James Gladstone

Volume 1 Part 1

December 6, 2008

My name is Gladstone. James Gladstone. I shall contribute to this fine Blog http://flatlanderfollies.blogspot.com/ every Saturday and muse about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions of that week by selecting a singular case of interest. It will not necessarily be the most discussed in the media – rather, it will be whatever strikes my fancy.

This week’s Case is an easy one to select as the Court issued but one published opinion, it being Hedgpeth v Pulido, 555 US _____ (2008). (Before starting, let me point out that there was a human victim in this case, a 21 year old named Ramon Flores. That is a cold fact, along with the fact that he was murdered in May 1992 at a Shell station in San Mateo, California. Another fact is that $150 was taken from the station’s cash register.)

Hedgpeth presents two oddities in that it is a PER CURIAM decision, but with a dissenting opinion.

“Per curiam” is Latin for “the Court as a whole” and is usually a brief and unanimous decision involving a case in which there is little to argue about. It is unsigned – so the actual author of the text takes no bow for a job well (or poorly) done.

But sometimes there is a dissenting opinion attached to which authorship is claimed (don’t ask how can a decision be one by the Court as a whole when everyone does not agree?). One not versed in the law might have reason to remember a case called Bush v Gore in which their were multiple signed opinions but no one signed on to claim authorship of the decisive opinion itself – and of course, there is little wonder why.

But I digress.

Hedgpeth is an example of why nine lawyers should never be put in charge of anything that requires a simple explanation.

Mr. Hedgpeth himself is the California Warden who is holding one Michael Pulido in custody. Pulido was convicted of murder – in fact felony murder – which is normally proven by showing that a murder occurred while the perpetrator was performing a felony. This often happens, as all Law and Order fans know, when a couple of robbers are interrupted and one murders a victim – the non-shooter is responsible under the felony murder doctrine.

Well, in this case, then 16 year old Michael Pulido was convicted of robbing a gas station during which the attendant, the unfortunate Ramon Flores, was shot dead. Pulido said he had no idea what his uncle was up to until he heard a shot, went in the station, appraised the situation, and then was ordered by his armed Uncle (Michael Aragon) to empty the cash register. The Uncle – surprise-surprise – said it was Pulido who did the dirty. The Police apparently agreed because Uncle Mike has never been charged with anything in connection with the case.

Now usually this is the type of thing juries are hired to iron out. The question for the jury should be not only who pulled the trigger but also, if the jury believed that Pulido did not, whether he was in on the heist before the shooting. No sane person would think that little Michael should be convicted if a jury believed he did not shoot the victim and he did not know of the heist ahead of time – right?

Well, sort of. At the trial it seems the judge made a mistake (or two). He told the jury that even if they did not find that Pulido was the shooter, they could convict him of felony-murder if they found he was in cahoots with his Uncle on the robbery ahead of time or if they found he made the plan to rob the cash register after the murder. The judge not only verbally told the jury this, but also gave them written (form) instructions

regarding the law of felony-murder, but incorrectly used the word ‘either’ instead of ‘and’.

Well, little Michael was convicted of felony murder after the jury said they could not determine he was the shooter. Their finding of guilt did not say whether Michael knew of the robbery ahead of time. They just determined he committed the robbery either before or after the murder. Everyone involved admits that under California law, this is error.

So this is when we get a bunch of lawyers involved. The unnamed Per Curiam court says the lower court must now reconsider its ruling that Pulido deserves a new trial by determining whether the faulty instructions were “harmless error” - thereby holding it error for the lower Courts to just automatically give Pulido a new trial.

The plain meaning to anyone but a lawyer is that the six conservative members of the Supreme Court would really, really, really like to find a way to keep Pulido in jail for the rest of his life without a chance for parole (his original sentence) but just couldn’t find a way to do so without deciding that if you have a jury of 12 and six think you did something wrong and six think you did something else wrong, then that counts as unanimous.

The lessons?

1. Don’t go for a ride with your uncle when you need to stop for gas.

And if you do, expect the police to believe your uncle’s version.

2. Don’t expect that an unfair trial will get fixed anytime soon – even if any sane person concludes it is unfair.

3. Do expect the Bush Court to give Gladstone, James Gladstone, more ammunition in weeks to come.

Things not to do at Your Thesis Defense

---

1. "Ladies and Gentlemen, please rise for the singing of our National Anthem..."
2. "Charge the mound" when a professor beans you with a high fast question.
3. Describe parts of your thesis using interpretive dance.
4. Stage your own death/suicide.
5. Lead the specators in a Wave.
6. Have a sing-a-long.
7. "You call that a question? How did they make you a professor?"
8. Have bodyguards outside the room to "discourage" certain professors from sitting in.
9. Puppet show.
10. Group prayer.
11. Sell T-shirts to recoup the cost of copying, binding, etc.
12. Mime.
13. Hold a Tupperware party.
14. Have a bikini-clad model be in charge of changing the overheads.
15. Charge a cover and check for ID.
16. "Anybody else as drunk as I am?"
17. Smoke machines, dramatic lighting, pyrotechnics...
18. Use a Super Soaker to point at people.
19. Surreptitioulsy fill the room with laughing gas.
20. Door prizes and a raffle.
21. "Please phrase your question in the form of an answer..."
22. Present your entire talk in iambic pentameter.
23. Whine piteously, beg, cry...
24. Switch halfway through your talk to Pig Latin.
25. Table dance (you or an exotic dancer).
26. Fashion show.
27. "I'd like to thank the Academy..."
28. Pass the collection basket.
29. Two-drink minimum.
30. Black tie only.
31. Incite a revolt.
32. Release a flock of doves.
33. "And now a reading from the Book of Mormon..."
34. "There will be a short quiz after my presentation..."
35. "Professor Robinson, will you marry me?"
36. Bring your pet boa.
37. Tell ghost stories.
38. Do a "show and tell".
39. Food fight.
40. Challenge a professor to a duel.
    
41. Halftime show.
42. "Duck, duck, duck, duck... GOOSE!"
43. "OK - which one of you farted?"
44. Sell those big foam "We're number #1 (sic)" hands.
45. Pass out souvenier matchbooks.
46. "Tag - you're it!"
47. Hang a pinata over the table and have a strolling mariachi band.
48. Make each professor remove an item of clothing for each question he asks.
49. Rent a billboard on the highway proclaiming "Thanks for passing me Professors X,Y, and Z" - before your defense happens.
50. Have a make-your-own-sundae table during the defense.
51. Throw a masquerade defense, complete with bobbing for apples and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.
52. Use a Greek Chorus to highlight important points.
53. "The responsorial psalm can be found on page 124 of the thesis..."
54. Tap dance.
55. "I'm sorry Professor Smith, I didn't say 'Simon says any questions?' You're out."
56. Flex and show off those massive pecs.
57. Dress in top hat and tails.
58. Hold a pre-defense pep rally, complete with cheerleaders, pep band, and a bonfire.
59. Detonate a small nuclear device in the room or threaten to.
60. Shadow puppets.
61. Show slides of your last vacation.
62. "OK, everybody - heads down on the desk until you show me you can behave."
63. Have everyone pose for a group photo.
64. Laugh maniacally.
65. Start speaking in tongues.
66. Explode.
67. Implode.
68. Spontaneously combust.
69. Answer every question with a question.
70. Moon everyone in the room after you are done.
71. "Laugh, will you? Well, they laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Einstein..."
72. Hand out 3-D glasses.
73. Go into labor.
    
74. Give your entire speech in a "Marvin Martian" accent.
75. "I don't know - I didn't write this."
76. Before your defense, build trapdoors underneath all the seats.
77. Swing in through the window, yelling a la Tarzan.
78. Hang a disco ball in the center of the room. John Travolta pose optional.
79. "I could answer that, but then I'd have to kill you."
80. Hide.
81. Get a friend to ask the first question. Draw a blank-loaded gun and "shoot" him. Have him make a great scene of dying (fake blood helps). Turn to the stunned audience and ask "any other wise-cracks?"
82. Same as the last one, except use real bullets.
83. "Well, I saw it on the internet, so I figured it might be a good idea..."
84. Wear clown makeup, a clown wig, clown shoes, and a clown nose. And nothing else.
85. Use the words "marginalized", "empowerment", and "patriarchy".
86. Play Thesis Mad Libs.
87. Invite your parents. Especially if they are fond of fawning over you. ("We always knew he was such an intelligent child")
88. Flash "APPLAUSE" and "LAUGHTER" signs.
89. Mosh pit.
90. Have cheerleaders. ("Gimme an 'A'!!")
91. Claim political asylum.
92. Hang a sign that says "Thank you for not asking questions"
93. Use a TelePromTer
94. "Take my husband - please!"
95. Refuse to answer questions unless they phrase the question as a limerick.
96. Have everyone bring wine glasses. When they clink the glasses with a spoon, you have to kiss your thesis, or your advisor.
97. Offer a toast.
98. Firewalk
99. Play drinking thesis games. Drink for each overhead. Drink for each question. Chug for each awkward pause. This goes for the audience as well.
100. Swoop in with a cape and tights, Superman style.
101. Stand on the table.
102. "You think this defense was bad? Let me read this list to show you what I could have done..."

From http://people.msoe.edu/~taylor/humor/defense.htm, with edits by L. Granger.

Happy Thanksgiving from Your Friends at the Follies!

This year we have a lot to me thankful for. Happy Holidays from our Friends to Yours.

Special thanks to our supporters and readers. Thanks to you, we are now on Google's search engines, in record time I may add.

Texas is for Lovers?

Was anyone else perplexed by this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/us/24sex.html?_r=1&em?

As someone who's spent the last three months researching the religious right of this country, I was a bit surprised by this. I mean, I just sort of figured that Devout Christians were more you know, but than I thought of Sarah and Bristol Palin, and I thought, well, who knows? Of course, than you get to the bottom of the article, and it all makes sense again... the idea is to copulate often so that your husband won't cheat on you!!! Now I get it! Now this is the traditional gender role oriented nature of the religious right that I am used to.

So, while I found the article interesting, annoying, but a good read, I was seriously DISTURBED by Tucker Carlson's response to it in today's Daily Beast: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-11-25/the-christian-sexual-awakening/



Ah, Tucker. You are so quick to blame Liberals for everything. Of course we mock the Evangelicals. I don't ask Phyllis Schlafly and Jerry Falwell to say the ridiculous crap they say. And, I'm sorry, this freaky pastor's speech is mockable. Tucker's third to last paragraph is particularly icky and so not worthy to quote in my blog directly. It's icky because Tucker is supposed to be a campaign correspondent (whatever that means), NOT a sex therapist. He's not writing anything ground-breaking here either. So glad that guy and his bow-tie get fired on a yearly basis.


Some of the more amusing reader comments to Tucker's article:

• funkychicken
  Sex is good? Wow, this groundbreaking! Once again Tucker and the Repubs are way ahead of the cultural-curve. Yeah.
• muddog
  As usual Tucker "White Lie's" his way......Christians have better sex, NOT!!!. They may have more unprotected sex, I.E. higher birth rate but that does not mean they enjoy it. I live in RURAL Oregon and I read the NYT's, so save the usual LA / NY are the only people reading it BS.Having some creepy Evageleical tell his "Flock" to have more sex is beyound SICK, can you imagine sitting in the pew's next to some "Conservative" as the preacher talks about sex!!?? LOL!!!!Sorry Tucker, you will need more than this to make the Evangelicals more, um should we say, Hip / Human / Real / Warm blooded.
• bitter-bierce
  Tucker, if you feel the need to write crap like this, I think there's a vacancy on the Thomas Road Baptist Church newsletter (read Falwell)
• statusquomustgo
  I really don't give a crap about Christian sex Tucker you really have DISINTIGRATED into the low of the low
• AND MY PERSONAL FAVE, which Fuffa will particularly enjoy: barky2
  we can see how the unprotected sex worked so well with the palin children.
  

Thoughts on Tucker and the Creepy Crazy Pastor?

HULU

So a friend of mine, ironically pseudonymed Hulu, introduced me to http://www.hulu.com/ a few months ago. It is a great site with tons of full television episodes and popular clips of shows, for those of us who only have a few minutes to spare, but still need an entertainment break.

More importantly, the site offers the first two seasons of Buffy and Angel. Unfortunately, this means that the best Buffy episode ever, "Once More with Feeling" is not available, which is why you should get Netflix, the next best thing to free entertainment on Hulu. Queue Buffy Season 6, Disk 3 or 4.

Lieberman Must Go!

Buffy passed this along to me awhile back. It's quite fun, and very appropriate with today's current events in mind. I for one would have booted that traitor out of his chairmanships (all of them!) immediately. What a little Napoleon. Seriously, can CT not find anyone better to elect (no offense Canada)? How can his CT constituents continually elect such a whiny, sniveling, Severus Snape of a man? Joe Must GO!

Ellen and Chris Matthews

As many of you know, I have a love-hate relationship with Chris Matthews. I find his enthusiasm for Politics intoxicating, but at the same time I find him repulsively sexist and arrogant.

I did a piece for Luigi's blog on the media, sexism, and HRC, where I referred to Matthews as
my favorite News-Ego and Today's Worst Sexist in the World.

Thanks to Ellen DeGeneres, a favorite of "She's Not Nancy" and Chappie, for ragging on a fellow that doesn't enjoy having the joke on him. Context for those of you who didn't see this: Back in March, Matthews "accidentally" groped Ellen while dancing with her during his big entrance. This is a youtube click on some of Ellen's best moments mocking Chris. It's a bit long, but totally worth it. You will laugh out loud in your office. I promise.

Shameless Plug!!!

Dear Readers,

There are not very many of you right now, and I need your help to make this project a success! Please send this link (www.flatlanderfollies.blogspot.com) around to your friends (but, remember we have noms de guerre, so don't let our identities slip), post it in your bookmarked pages so you remember to check it, make comments, send me stuff to post. Why the urgency for a "fun" blog?

I blame Google. Google is the Harvard of web browsers and they make you go through hell and back to get yourself on their engines. I just spent an hour reading dork blogs that taught be how to set-up site-feeds and site-maps and all the other bologna Google wants you to do before you're accepted into their browser. Anyway, studies show that if you don't get into Google within 7 days of blog life, it can take years! So click, click, click. Obviously this is our rain-maker as Fuffa likes to say, so traffic is our first step to the first million.

Salut!

I <3 Arianna, <3 the next Arianna?!?!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/23/saturday-night-live-does_n_145796.html

My favorite line: George Bush helping Barack Obama is like the arsonist who burns down your house asking 'do you need help moving?'"

Happy Birthday Brit!

So, you may or may not know that the birthday of Britney Spears is right around the corner. I don't know about you, but I'm excited. Birtney is normal again and her new CD is actually really good. I haven't been able to get Womanizer out of my head all day. Anyway, in Brit Brit's new interview with Rolling Stone Mag she admits that Jayden James uses F-bombs!!!!

On her two sons Sean and Jayden: "Every time they come to visit me, I think about how they're such special people… [But they] are starting to learn words like 'stupid,' and Preston says the f-word now sometimes. He doesn't get it from us. He must get it from his daddy. I say it, but not around my kids."

My sister Fuffa and I have a running guess that Jayden is special all right.

But those poor kids. Too bad Brit went crazy, and they were left with KFed to learn how to use F-bombs at the age of three. This story leave me wondering why Jayden swears and Sean Preston doesn't. Anyway, Happy Bday Britney! Stay un-crazy please!

This Week's Ultimate Folly: Twilight

Enough with Twilight, I want Buffy or Angel back. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d_jT0-kpFE&feature=related

The Rachel Maddow Show

http://www.newsweek.com/id/170385?from=rss
So, I'm a bit of a Rachel Maddow fan. Ok, I'm a big Rachel Maddow fan. I enjoy her honesty, her politics, her intellect. It's nice to have a pundit on tv who actually knows what she's talking about. And it doesn't hurt that she's a liberal. I appreciate the fact that she, like me, is wondering what the hell Obama is thinking post-election. Giving Leiberman a pat on the back after sleeping with the enemy, filling his Cabinet with Clintonites...

Anyway, check out this newsweek article on Maddow. Fun follies I enjoyed: Rachel is scared of ghosts, she is very emotional (I heard that many super smart people have this problem), and she only eats one time per day. Ok, I can't really relate with her on that last one. One meal per day?

Another interesting folly: Rachel used to play Iran with her brother as a kid. The Shaw was the bad guy. She said she was a "weird, strange kid." Does anyone remember when me and Bela Salva used to play WWII in the closet? I wouldn't describe Bela and I as weird.

And did I mention she's a PhD? How does the Lorelai Granger Show sound?

The Joy of Capucha

If only all French citizens were this charming: http://vimeo.com/2113477?pg=embed&sec=2113477

This video is 4-5 minutes to watch, but if you have the time, it will make you laugh and put you in a more light-hearted mental place.

Thanks to Regina for passing this one on to me.

Shirt Woot

My friend Canada sent me this link awhile back: http://shirt.woot.com/

It's a really neat site and worth checking back every so often. Those of you who know Kilgor know he loves his funny t-shirts, so it's a great place to find the next OB-GYN Kenobi tee.

Outdated - Say it Ain't So Luigi!

As promised, here is my blog that was rejected by Luigi for his blog. Do I think it's worthy of publication? You betcha!

What to do with ourselves? I mean, most of you contributors still have a purpose, so your job security with the editor is sound. But what about me? My life and blood in this blog revolves around politics and gender issues. Not only did the election end, but the lead woman in GOP American Politics went back to Alaska! I’m a lost woman, friends. (I think it is particularly ironic that this foreshadowing about job security in the other blog turned out to be true.)

Well, not entirely so. Us 1982 born democrats calling for change came out on the winning side for only the 2^nd time in our lifetimes on Tuesday, November 4th. It was quite the scene. Writers and pundits better than me analyzed this one better than I ever could. All I can tell you is that I was prouder than I have ever been of my country that day. I was brought back to my college days in France during my semester abroad when I felt inclined to reject my nationality and hide the scars of the Bush administration under a fake, Canadian identity. Call me unpatriotic, but I got tired of explaining that not all Americans want to invade countries under bad intelligence and reject diplomacy. How many college juniors will now talk eagerly abroad of their country that elected an African American president only a few decades after racial tensions almost tore our country apart?

All politics aside, it is difficult to dislike Barack Obama. He has an oratorical gift that is rare, powerful, and inspiring. He has a unifying spirit that links us together in a way that is unheard of in our lifetimes. He loves his wife. I may be alone here, but when he thanked the love of his life and his best friend – I cried - screw it, I was already sobbing. He’s intellectual, but not condescending. I think the best thing about Obama is his honesty – he understands that we have serious problems that we face, but he wants to include the American people in the dialogue. That’s something we haven’t had in a very long time.

If I come away with anything from the hours I spent in front of MSNBC this election cycle, it will not be the rise of my favorite Rachel Maddow (although, that is up there), it will be the images on the screen after 11:00 pm on November 4^th. I saw people of all ages, races, and backgrounds cheering together, crying together. I myself was moved to tears throughout the evening. We really do all rise and fall together in one way or another, regardless of party. When Obama spoke of the bipartisan spirit of the Republican Party of Lincoln, I damn near thought about joining (I mean not really, but maybe). Here’s to our moment.

On a less serious note, what will we be missing now that the mavericky maverick Sarah Palin is back in Alaska?

• Todd Palin!!! The First Dude!!! I like to think of him as a laconic pet puppy. It’s nice to see a House Husband on the national stage and all, but can this guy utter more than a couple syllables at a time? And what was the deal with his concession speech stone face? That was almost as awkward as John and Cindy McCain not looking or touching each other.

• Update! Apparently, Sarah Palin has not heard that the election ended. Or she just things it’s time to start campaigning for 2012. So the reality drama continues! I have to admit it, I just can’t stop watching her on her media tour. It’s a bad reality television show folks! Sarah at home. Sarah playing governor. Sarah giving the President-Elect advice!? Who needs funny blogs when you have Sarah!!.

• You betcha. Gosh by golly. Well, up here in Alaska…, It’s gotta be, I’m a maverick…. Ah the Palinisms…

Flatlander #1

I just re-read the Federalist Papers, so the title of this post is a play on Publius. Basically, in this post, I'm going to set the stage for things to come.

First, I need to mention that this blog uses pseudonyms only. This is an open-blog, so in an effort to protect the present and future job-security of all contributors or people mentioned, we use noms de guerre (not unlike Madison and Hamilton did). Please respect this rule #1 and follow the pseudonyms in any comments or contributions you may make.

I need to thank a few very important people for their help pushing me to finally creating this blog.

• First, my friend Puget, who works like a maniac and still has time to do yoga and go for runs started a blog a month or so ago. Her blog is great, and I realized today that I will come out of the chains of GREs, Stats, and Thesis that have been holding me back since June and start doing the stuff I want to do! Thanks Puget - you are an inspiration! Yoga (might) be next for me.

• My other friend Luigi has a highly successful blog that I have been contributing to for the past year or so. I almost quit contributing when he implied that some digs I got on digg.com for an article I wrote for him were created by me (instead of other people enjoying the post). Recently, he failed to post a post-election Palin piece I did b/c it was "outdated." Rather than get mad, it pushed me to finally make the solo move. Luigi is a great person and a talented writer and we've been friends for so long he can get away with stuff like this. I still might contribute to his blog under the condition that he actually post what I write. Thanks for letting me in the door, Luigi Bradlee .

• My husband Kilgor who has been telling me everyday that I should just stop worrying so much about school/work stuff and start a blog. He is the best husband for many reasons, including the fact that he actually thinks Flatlander Follies will be the next Huffington Post.

• All the family members out there!!! My family is probably responsible for 75 percent of what's in my head at any given moment.
  

• Extra special thanks to my sister Fuffa. Thanks to her, I am pretty much a Sarah Palin expert. She is also responsible for the blog name. She's great with Hamlet, alliteration, and many other things as we will see as this blog develops. She is the FF blog expert.
  

• My movie knowledge is only sophisticated because of my other sister Buffy. Who else was allowed to watch the Crying Game or all those China Beach episodes at the age of 7? And my mom and dad, Claire and Jamie, saved me the painful fate of growing up to be anything other than a Dutiful Democrat. !

So what the hell will this blog be about? Well, as the name implies, it will be about the follies of flatlanders. A flatlander is the negative slang for a non-native Vermonter or visitor. They are known for all sorts of follies, like driving half the speed limit on Route 4 and stopping at every gift shop on the way to clog the ski slopes. The name of the blog is really a play on words for discussing follies of all kinds, the annoying and the foolish in addition to the fanciful.

• Political Science. One thing I really want to tackle, is the popular question I get, "What the hell is Political Science and what the hell do you want to do with that?" Before you think this is a yawn, here's a teaser: throughout residency interviews last year, Kilgor consistently got the question, "So, she wants to be President or something?" And that was from a lot of really smart people, so I think it's a question worth clearing up

• Politics of course!! One thing that Political Science actually tends not to be about is Current Events, and this is a big love of all contributors to Flatlander Follies.

• MOVIES!!! Us FFs tend to have a broad cinematic palate ranging from Shrek 2 to Reds (these are shout outs to Fuffa and Buffy, respectively).

• Television, not the reality kind, which I admit I enjoy, but the good TV (e.g. Madmen, Buffy (the fictional one on television), Angel, and other shows that inevitably get canceled prematurely.)

• Books - admittedly this is not something that I do enough of with my leisure time b/c of required reading, but other FFs can fill in here

• Music - my sister Buffy and I went to an amazing concert this fall - more to come on that one.

• Medicine -- the two FF Doctors have really good stories worth sharing with the readership

• Baseball of course - the real and the fantasy kind

• East Coast vs. West Coast (for Puget and Hulu)

• Feminism

• The Media - I am a huge fan of Maureen Dowd, Huffington, and Rachel Maddow

• Food (duh)

• Maybe exercise (see part about yoga above)

So, I hope you'll come back for more! I'm really excited about future blogs! Please make comments and send contributions to lorelai.granger@gmail.com.