Book review on Deborama's Books - Borkmann's Point, by Håkan Nesser

My quiet return to blogging is heralded by a nice cozy book review.

See above post....Also see Occupirate

I am inspired by teaching my friend CJ Sparrow how to blog on his new blog, Occupirate, to renew my own blogging. So, first I will try to make a Deborama's Books post with the review every time I register a book on Bookcrossing (and I will also try to register every book I read on Bookcrossing.) Later, I will do some serious political blogging here. I have been saving it up, so I have a lot to say.

H.R. 347: The Strange History of the Bill with the Confusingly Euphemistic Title

The Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act.*

One of the few liberal media sources to cover the bill called it the anti-Occupy bill, but internal Occupy-related media seem to be largely ignoring it. The Tea Party is outraged by it, but nobody else thinks it’s aimed at the Tea Party. The Senate passed it unanimously and Obama signed it, but the few constitutional experts to review it are adamant that it’s unconstitutionally vague. Even the House, over two votes, could only muster three votes against it. And what is the bit in the title about “Grounds Improvement”?  Is that some kind of sick joke?

The bill in question carries the official title of The Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011. It passed 399 to 3 in the House in 2011, was amended and then passed unanimously by the Senate in 2012, then the amended version passed the House 388 to 3 in 2012. President Obama signed it on March 8, 2012.  The “Grounds Improvement” riddle is solved by reading the introduction, or by more careful explication in the blog post from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund “H.R. 347: Get the Truth on the New ‘Protest Law’”.  As the introduction to the bill itself explains, it is an act …To correct and simplify the drafting of section 1752 (relating to restricted buildings or grounds) of title 18, United States Code.  So it’s not the grounds being “improved”, it’s the original law, which was enacted in 1971 and then substantially amended in 2006.

What many of the more hysterical postings about the passage of H.R. 347 fail to note is that the dangerously vague and overreaching language they are objecting to was present at least from 2006. But there was one noticeable “improvement” that is a new departure. Despite blog posts to the contrary, the act does NOT make infringements that were previously misdemeanors now felonies and it does NOT add new scope to the powers of either the Secret Service or the Department of Homeland Security. These constitutional failings and likely infringements of First Amendment rights were already present in the 2006 rewrite to the federal code. What the act does empower, potentially, is the easier prosecution of a defendant who has committed one of the proscribed acts.

The most significant change was to remove the words “willfully and” before “knowingly” in the description of the crimes in the 2006 act. What this means is, if the law itself or this change to the law is not struck down as unconstitutional, that a protester, for example, does not need to be proven to have known that their alleged trespass was illegal.  As the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund explains, “As amended, a conviction arguably only requires proof that a person ‘knowingly entered’ a certain area. This is an effort to lower the bar for prosecutors who would, arguably, no longer have to prove that a person knew his conduct was unlawful.” Or, as the Senate bill sponsor Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said, it will “improve the law enforcement tools available to the Secret Service in its attempts to protect the President, the Vice President, and others on a day-to-day basis by closing loopholes in the current federal law.” Loopholes?  Tools? An interesting spin.

This law has not really been tested for constitutionality yet, whether we are talking about the new “improved” version where you don’t even need to know the action was forbidden by the law, or the original law itself. Those commenters who realize that H.R. 347 is an amendment to a law that was already a “bad law” in the words of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund point to its vagueness and potential for abuse. A self-described Constitutional scholar associated with the Tea Party, KrisAnne Hall, although she does not mention that the language she is concerned about was part of the 2006 law and not newly introduced in H.R.347, does make a very important first amendment point in this article quoted extensively by the Gainesville Tea Party

The protected right of the people peaceably to assemble is something that has fundamental and historical foundations.  Our founders established a clear “no trespassing sign” in our first amendment to keep the government away from this fundamental right.  “Congress shall make no law abridging…the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”    Legislation in the Congress seems to be treading on the grounds of this constitutionally restricted territory.

…

The right to orderly conduct government is NOT a Constitutionally protected right. However we DO have the right to free speech and the right to peaceably assemble.  Our Constitution establishes the fundamental principle rights to speech and assembly are held by the people and the government must protect these rights, not limit them.

But again, this language was pre-existing in the U. S. Code. And although several constitutional scholars agree that it is but one of several flaws in the existing law, it needs to be tested before one can assert absolutely that it is against First Amendment rights.

And perhaps it will be very soon. When the 2006 law was written, the country was under a Republican administration. There had been no credit crisis, no austerity push (indeed, Federal spending was at an unprecedented high, mainly due to the war in Iraq) and there was no Tea Party. When the 2011 amendment, H.R. 347, was first proposed in 2011, it may have been directed at the Tea Party. But more likely it was in anticipation of both major parties’ upcoming national conventions, of a flood of Republican presedential contenders under Secret Service protection, and also in remembrance of highly volatile protests at G8, G20, NATO and other world “summit” meetings. It certainly could not have been the “anti-Occupy” bill, because OWS had not happened yet.

But it may be Occupy that tests it, for the next NSSE or “National Special Security Event” (this is one circumstance that can invoke the law, and includes all of the above as well as one recent Super Bowl) is the NATO Summit meeting in May in Chicago. And Occupy movements and affinity groups around the country and the world are even now planning an overwhelming and highly committed protest presence at this event, in most cases quite unaware of the constitutional challenge potentially hanging over their actions. 

*This article was originally written for print publication in a small Occupy newsletter but for complex reasons was never published there. I have changed it slightly to embed the links.

A Book Review on my books blog - The Polish Officer by Alan Furst

(Copy of a post on Deborama's Book Reviews and Store) Well, it's not often I review and blog a book I have only read one chapter of. In fact, it's not often I review and blog books at all anymore. And maybe I am more jetlagged and culture-shocked than I thought I was, or maybe it really was that good. I just read the first chapter of The Polish Officer by Alan Furst, entitled The Pilawa Local. I was in tears. It made me wish I was Polish. And to all my Polish friends, my God, you come from a noble people, and I am heartily sorry if ever in my careless youth I retold or even laughed at a Polack joke, no matter how good-natured.

The problem with social media

Well, I am on Google+, have been there a while. Definitely still on Facebook, where truthfully most of my online "activity" occurs. My problem with social media vs. old-fashioned blogging (funny that something becomes really old-fashioned in about 7 years) is one I have not heard expressed a lot. I really took to blogging, because it's sort of like being a self-published author and sort of like being an amateur journalist and sort of like keeping a diary. Social media, even if you post frequently and participate enthusiastically, is nothing like that.

Here's the thing. I just last week submitted my (£900!) application for naturalization as a British citizen. I had to recreate my travel journal for the last 5 years for the proof of residency section. Now obviously the passport is the first place to check. But as an American, I didn't always get a stamp on entering the US, and amongst my UK stamps and one Spain stamp and two Ireland stamps, they are not all that legible. So back when I was posting regularly here, I had a record of my travels, all nicely dated and indexed. But as I lazily moved over to Facebook, well it might be there somewhere, but it's almost impossible to look up and the only way to access it is to page backward literally forever (or however long FB keeps them, and frankly, my paging finger got tired.)

Here's another little gripe that may be almost unique to me: I am on this app for sharing blogs on FB, so this post will go there automatically (I think; of course, FB does keep changing stuff.) But to cross-post to Google+ is a major hassle, and you do wonder if it's worth it.

Blogger and mainly this blog is now an aide memoire for me, and also a memory lane trip, having recorded a lot of major events in my life, like Thanksgivings spent with family, death of most of our pets, birthdays I got to celebrate with Savannah, especially nice meals I cooked or books I read. But from about 2007 onwards, I just haven't been posting enough, and there are gaps in the record. Of course, it's a cop-out for me to blame FB, let alone Google. I just need to proper-blog more.

Deborama...

This blog seems to be more and more about obituaries these days. I don't know if it's a sign of my age, or just the fact that it's so easy to post on Facebook that I only post here when I have something personal to say.

Deborama...

... you don't see any posts for weeks, and then three come along at once!

Blogkeeping - my holiday

This is definitely the longest I have gone without blogging. Also the longest I have gone without a holiday. The last time I was abroad was Thanksgiving 2007. The only trip I took in all of 2008 was a one-day trip to Portmeiron, not even staying overnight. I am determined not to let 2009 go by the same way. I just got back Friday evening from a six-day trip to "the North" (where we do what we want!) I have reviewed and journalled the trip in more detail at Deborama's Kitchen, so check it out there.
Part of the reason I didn't travel is that last year everyone in my far-flung family was in a state of flux. My older younger sister and her husband, one at a time, have temporarily abandoned the family homestead in Gulfport and set up house in Kansas. This has left my aged Ps behind in a little duplex bungalow they built mainly for them. So now my younger younger sister, an academic in Hattiesburg and her husband, a realtor, are buying a second home in Hattiesburg and moving the aged Ps there. My daughter has split with her ex-partner, father of grand-daughter Savannah. My son is still with his partner, who graduated last year from her PG Architecture course and got a job in her field - just as the property market crashed. My son's company was sold and he was offered a less attractive job than he had, but of course he's going to take it for the stability. But no benefits, no holiday, and the stability is not real stability, as nothing is these days. Both my kids have two extra sidelines for income: Aimee is a web designer for her main job, and also teaches web design and is a photographer. Carey works for an online game company, and does painting and web design free-lancing. I am so proud that I raised two smart, hard-working, creative and above all resilient kids. And like all parents and grand-parents, I pray things don't get too much worse before they get better.
I have been meaning to do a blog on here called "The Fifteen Year Depression of 2008 - 2023." I would say keep an eye out for it, but it may not happen. (The blog that is; I am pretty sure about the depression.)

Blogkeeping and My Life

I haven't posted for a while here. Some personal changes are happening in the Deborama household. DH and I just got back from Manchester yesterday where DH had a gastric band operation. This was the first time he had ever had surgery of any kind, so it was rather fraught for me leading up to it (and probably for him too, but since he's British, there is no way to tell.) But he came through it just fine. He was a little grey in the face for the first hour I saw him, as he was waking up fully. (This was a good two or three hours after his operation, but they kept him in recovery and then put him into an ICU due to his sleep apnoea. I arrived at the hospital as he was just waking up, but they stuck me in a private room saying they would wait and give him a chance to "settle" before I could see him. The same nurse said this to me, along with "just 10 more minutes" about four times, and I was just about to explode with a very American "Settle, schmettle!" before she finally sensed my mounting anxiety and escorted me to his bedside.)
DH spent the night in the ICU (although he was very well, and hardly merited the extra care, but it was apparently hospital policy) and I spent the night in a Travelodge near Manchester airport. But now we're home. DH had lost an amazing five stones (70 pounds) in the six months preceding his operation. He is now expecting to lose perhaps another 100 pounds or so with the help of the gastric band.
Meanwhile, Deborama has been attending clandestine (it's a long story) Slimming World meetings and I have lost a stone since joining, having lost about 10 pounds before, for a total of about 25 pounds since I was at my heaviest. I joined a small local gym last May and I have been attending quite faithfully, an average of three or more days per week. I was very frustrated to not lose any weight in the first five months of this regimen, as I was not really regulating my diet at all, but hoping that building some muscle would cause metabolic changes that would "kick-start" a weight loss and give me some incentive to give up my beloved breakfast of an unsweetened latte and a croissant, my frequent cereal bar snacks and my occasional (but probably more frequent than I cared to admit) late night scoop of ice cream. I think it was around November of last year that I all but gave up the croissants and very slowly and painfully lost the 10 pounds, and when the Slimming World invitation came in January I decided I must bite the bullet and face the fact that at my age I need to do both diet-control and regular exercise; the days of "effortless" weight-loss are now well and truly past.
Now this is the last personal or diet-related post you will see in the main Deborama blog. I am doing a mini-relaunch, and I am going to confine the Deborama posts to serious news, comments on the world at large, religion, philosophy and ethics, sexual politics, the environment, humour and culture. The one exception will be photos and news of our birds. I will post these on Facebook or Flickr, with a link from here.
Simultaneously, I am going to relaunch my other two Deborama sub-logs. Deborama's Kitchen will become my new Diet Blog (keeping the name, though) and any personal journalling will be there, along with its usual fare (although it has been nothing at all for a year or more) of recipes, food politics and food-related news.
Deborama's Books is going to get the third relaunch/make-over. I plan for it to be more joined up with another of my recently neglected passions, Bookcrossing. I am hoping to get back into attending the Bookcrossing meetups, and now that I have a study (I was using the dining room table, in an open plan room with lounge with its almost always-on telly, another excuse or reason for the lack of blogging going on) I have huge backlog of books to register on Bookcrossing. Also, I have been planning to add some movie and television reviews to the books blog, as well as reviewing the books I have read but failed to mention over the past three years.
I know myself, so I don't expect this will happen overnight, or even all that quickly. If I achieve the three goals set out above within six weeks I will be satisfied (and if I fail to do it in that time, chances are it won't happen, so I had better get cracking.)

Blogkeeping

It has been more than three weeks since I posted a blog. Where does the time go? I will try to do a catch-up, but it may take more than one.

There have been some notable deaths - Anthony Minghella, who was too young, and Paul Scofield who was so old I didn't know he was still alive. (Great actor though.) Arthur C. Clarke. More banks have gone to the wall, and there has been a little farce with the Bank of England.

The Democrats Abroad primary votes came in and Obama got about 2/3 of our votes, Clinton the remaining 1/3. That was a couple of weeks ago. The race has been absorbing my attention, but I don't have anything major to add to the buzz. But what a buzz it is over here! The Brits just cannot believe they're not allowed to participate, just cannot believe how long it takes and cannot understand why our elections are so much more thrilling and interesting than theirs. But even though I have nothing much to say myself, I will share some of my favourite commentary by others:
Gary Younge on "the speech"
Ian Williams on Samantha Power
Sasha Abramsky on Hilary Clinton
Paul Krugman on the economy as election issue
Maureen Dowd on Hilary the Terminator

Blogkeeping and my life - 2008, election year

This is my first blog of 2008 and it's already the 8th. Not so good, I know. Blogs do wither and die, and even though this one has had its ups and downs, and is definitely in a slow period now, I don't want to let it die. It's not because I'm tired of it, or don't know what to say; it's purely a matter of lack of time, being tired in the evening, having other things that I don't want to do but have to do. But enough whining. Let me tell you all what I have been up to.
For one thing, I am all absorbed in and excited about the 2008 presidential election. Oh, yeah, not very original. So is half the planet. The BBC, honest to God, it's almost all they talk about. The Guardian is in hog-heaven.
Although I am supporting Obama, I am almost as happy about Edwards. I would not mind it he won the presidency at all, especially given that Obama is very young and could run and win again. And I am not thrilled that Clinton is having such a rough time. Sure, I would like the US to have a woman leader. But - well, there are so many "but"s with Mrs. Clinton. I wish she would bow out and just start grooming Chelsea for 2016.
I have been following the events in Pakistan. And those in Kenya.
I have just started a boot camp exercise class on Sundays. More on that later.
I was very happy to see the Richey guy finally get out of prison today.
I still have tons of pictures from my November holiday to put online somewhere.
I have been hanging out at Facebook, exploring ScotsCafe and Sagazone, and I went to one "new" meetup - of American ex-pats in Nottingham (maybe more on that later too).

Blogkeeping - catch-up

Wikipedia's image of the day - the Hawthorne Bridge in Portland OR (I've been there!)

I have been in a fog. Too many things competing for my attention. Almost every day at work, except the days when I have been really busy, I see a few things I ought to, want to, blog about and I email myself a link (or two or ten) and then I don't do any blogging in the evening. To be fair, my computer keeps turning itself off. There have been some family issues, and I have been fighting off a cold, probably due to stress caused by all of the above. But still . . . I'll start with the silly, move through the serious, and hopefully something sublime will turn up.

In the Onion, "Entire Family Projects Neuroses Onto Their Innocent Dog" is priceless.

Received in an email (I'm sure it's on the web somewhere):

The entire city council of Ashland, Ore., has decided to enter relationship
counseling. The catalyst was Councilman David Chapman's telling Councilman
Eric Navickas to "shut your f...ing mouth" during last week's meeting,
though Navickas had previously called the city's mayor "a Nazi," and
tensions have generally been running high. Taxpayers will pay $37,000 for
the council's five months of therapy, which "may seem like a lot of money,"
said City Administrator Martha Bennett, "But if the council doesn't function, the city doesn't function."

The Vatican has had a bit of a rethink about the Knights Templars.

I was thrilled to bits that Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for Literature, even though, yes, it was a bit overdue.

The Guardian Society section today profiled Edgar Cahn, the founder of "time banking", a sophisticated form of bartering and valuing social contributions as much as commercial ones.

And finally, how about that England rugby team, eh? Watched all the games so far except the first one (I was out). (I guess this is going to be the sublime bit.) In related news, facebook has a new Jonny Wilkinson Appreciation Society site.

Blogkeeping and my life - a visit, a website and a resolution

Yes, yes, I missed Wednesday again. Now for the excuses. First, my life was disrupted a bit, but in a good way, by the visit last week of my sister, her husband and her son. It's a complicated tale so I won't go all into it, but I took some time off work, I wore myself to a frazzle and I had a good time. It is quite painful to me being thousands of miles from my family, so these brief visits are far more idealized and - well - enjoyable than family visits are to normal people who at least live on the same continent as the rest of their kin. Or so I believe, based on my memories of when I was a normal person. But my sister is partly responsible for excuse number two as well. I took her to my new gym, where I have been struggling to attain a goal of three times a week. She suggested that I would probably not see much fitness change unless I went for five times a week, which makes a bit of sense to me, so I now am on a resolution to strive for that. My job keeps me away from home about 11 hours a day, and then there is still all the little tasks involved in keeping me, the husband and the house up and running - hygiene, laundry, shopping, filling and emptying the dishwasher, doing at least a minimal share of the cooking. There are newspapers and blogs to read, parrots to talk to. Basically what I am saying is that I am running out of time in the day. Anyway, on to excuse number three. Which has two parts. Part 3A - my sister and I were talking about memories and stories, and how she is trying to get our parents to write down some as keepsakes for the future, for our kids. And we had this brilliant idea to set up a website for the family and post short articles of our various memories and stories. A meetup group I am involved with (another big time sucker, if you let it be, as I just spent four hours last night going to a meetup and had to ditch the gym!) has recently moved from our paid sponsor site to a free site called me.com. Now this website is not perfect; its interfaces and applications are chaotic and sometimes unpredictable, and I think it has ideas above its station, if you know what I mean. But it's free, and I mostly find these things are what you choose to make them (and are capable of making them.) So I am spending a bit of my precious "free" time administering this site. Excuse 3B is Facebook. I never planned to get addicted to it, but it is very seductive. Anyway, I am doing something else as the WWW, just after this (although you will see it before this, due to the magic of blogging.) Amongst the many worthy things I meant to blog, and didn't and quite possibly won't, are-

• the bridge collapse in my hometown of Minneapolis, which I have been following obsessively
• the foot and mouth outbreak, and especially a very affecting and poignant piece from a PTSD suffering slaughterman, which I now cannot find a link for
• the latest developments in my chosen focus areas of world news and politics: Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Nicaragua and the US presidential race
• the trapped coal miners in America
• the monsoon floods in South Asia

Blogkeeping again

Well, I am back from Minneapolis and I had a good time and accomplished most of what I intended to do there. I saw my daughter Aimee graduate from the U of M, I saw a lot of friends, I went to Walker Church and I saw the May Day parade. Sorry I didn't blog. I had only a few opportunities to get on the internet and mostly just checked e-mails when I did. I am lost without the internet. I do joke about it, but I was amazed to discover what a crutch it has become to my ability to plan, think and do anything.

Blogkeeping and my life - Minneapolis, May Day and Graduation

I will be away from Monday and I am not taking my laptop this time. Shame, really, because all the motels have free wifi, but for a number of reasons, mostly tediously technical, I am not taking it.
My trip has two main purposes: first, Aimee is graduating from the U of M after many years of world-wide learning and creating. Second, I will attend the May Day Parade in Powderhorn Park, one of the high-holy days of "my" Minneapolis. I will miss the Deborama's WWW of May the 4th. Sorry about that. Don't leave me! I am not going away for good. And who knows, I may even get a blog in from there.

Blogkeeping - a new blog is born

DH's eloquent challenge to the continued existence of the Trident missile system
Today, DH wrote a long and passionate e-mail to our MP about the forthcoming vote on renewing (or not) the Trident missile programme. He sent me a copy of it, and reader, I was blowed away. I had no idea he could write, or argue, like this. He said (also something of a surprise) that he would not object to my posting it on the blog. But I decided it was too good for the ephemeral glimmer of being a Deborama post. I decided he needed his own blog, even if that was the only post he ever did, and I had to set it up AND post it for him. So that is what I have done. I hereby introduce you to The Ramage Letters, a new blog, and here is a quote from "the letter":

I would deplore Conservative support for renewal of Trident in this coming week for the main reason that the decision does not have to be taken this week, this year or this parliament. At the very least, the decision should wait for the current and discredited Prime Minister to leave office, and ideally it would form part of a manifesto commitment in the next general election, thereby giving the British people the opportunity to have say in matters in which, as I say, parliament has a dreadfully meek and compliant record. A referendum would be the ideal solution, since I imagine the average MP to be at least as clueless about the real substantive issues as the average citizen.

Although my main objection to the vote is that it is needless at this time, before you – and other MPs – take a position I hope you have answered the following questions and are prepared to publish your answers after the vote:

At whom are we likely to launch these weapons? What state/quasi-state or geographic area? a) I assume that Europe (including Russia), the Americas, Japan, China and the antipodes are not and are never likely to be viable targets, either because they are always likely to remain allies or are simply too powerful for us to drop a nuclear weapon inside their borders. So that leaves territory in the wider Middle East, Africa or parts of Asia as viable targets for our nuclear weapons because they are too weak to hit back. Surely the world is sick and tired of having the American Bully strutting the globe: do we want really want to have a weapon we can only deploy against the weak and defenceless (when the Americans let us)? Shame on us if we do.

Blogkeeping

I have another post on Deborama's Book Reviews and Store, inspired by a Guardian article on the question of Britain's GLA (greatest living author).

My life

So I went to see Cats, with my friends from a local Meetup.com group. There were five of us; we all loved it. I have had "Memory" going through my head all day. While I was out the ceiling fell in in the spare bedroom, ruining a few books and getting a whole bunch of books, clothes and other items damp and dirty. The house is a tip. Oh, well, c'est la vie.
So Haloscan has a wonderfully easy interface for adding your comments into your New Blogger (formerly known as Beta) format. It didn't entirely work, but I think that's my fault not theirs (and partly Blogger's) because I kept changing whether or not Blogger comments are allowed and/or shown, and Haloscan says that there is an incompatibility with Blogger comments and other third-party comments. So old comments show with the posts starting about 4 months ago and before; for the last 4 months, some have a link so you can add comments and some don't. However, there are old comments for some of those posts, which I can access on Haloscan's site, so they're still there, they just don't display on the posts. I think there may be a laborious manual way to get them back, but I am not promising I am ever going to do it.
Blogkeeping alert: I have actually put up a new post on Deborama's Book Reviews and Store! I am ashamed to say, I have not done that for well over a year. It's not a book review but at least it's a post.

Blogkeeping

So, have you noticed the change in Deborama? Yes, I have finally siezed the nettle and converted my blog template to the new Blogger "page layout" format. I did not like any of the Blogger-provided templates, though, but through a Google Group dedicated to sharing info on using the new Blogger I found a site selling very reasonably priced and attractive templates, so I bought one. (Link at the bottom of the page, as per T&C.) I used the same font and a roughly similar colour scheme to try to ease the transition, but I really like the ease of "adding widgets" and I especially like the three column format. So I'm pretty happy with it. Feedback would be appreciated. Oh, yeah, the Haloscan comments are absent, I hope only temporarily. As soon as I have time. . .
I'm off to see Cats in Nottingham now.

Blogkeeping

Check out the new look at Deborama's Kitchen or just the latest post there, on the economics of fine restaurants in small markets (it's more interesting than it sounds.)
I am still laboriously going through my old posts (I've got nearly four years of them) and titling and categorising and deleting dead links. When I finish this, I am changing to a new Blogger template and the archives will (hopefully) re-appear, along with a category index.