Caminsky's World

RIP, JoePa

2012-01-22T12:04:00.001-05:00

It's impossible to live in this world without experiencing sadness, or seeing tragedies unfolding before your eyes. In the case of Joe Paterno, his end came not with the adulation he richly deserved, but with a closing act marred by his ousting from the job he loved for dealing with the reported the crimes of another in a way that others rightly deemed legal but "inappropriate" --- and which he, himself, would have handled differently as a fifty-year old in command of all his faculties, instead of the aging giant he was when he he was confronted with the scandal.

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At the end of my life I'd rather be judged and remembered for my accomplishments when I was in my prime, rather than for my failures as I reached my end. Forgotten in the search for scapegoats in this case was the fact that the real villain in the story of Paterno's Fall was the child molester, not the old man who actually followed the law, but lacked the mental acuity to follow through by himself.

The same can't be said for the assistant coach, and perhaps not for the whole rest of the PSU athletic establishment. But if the final ledger for Joe Paterno is the number of kids he helped, set against his failures, I think the net result is better than most fallible human beings ever manage, including those who were most vocal in calling for his scalp. And we would be better people to remember him as the living legend who inspired generations of athletes and students, rather than the fading old man he was at the end.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel Clouds of Darkness, the compelling third volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The Path of Great Nations

2011-07-31T11:44:00.000-04:00

Our ongoing debt crisis is raising tempers throughout our political chattering class. Hidden away, however, are several underlying trends that are threatening to crack our political fault lines in ways that should send shudders through our collective consciousness. Instead, it will likely lead to boredom within a matter of weeks, as most people return to their own lives in hopes that the Future will take care of itself. Unfortunately, the cliff we occasionally sense ourselves approaching isn't terribly far away, and we're still heading toward it.

A friend of mine recently commented that Capitalism was, in many ways, an extreme form of economics in that only the financially strong survive. He is, of course, right in many ways, though his prescription (a more socialistic economy and political structure) strikes me as completely wrong.

Cruel as it is, Capitalism seems to reflect the Darwinian world in which we live, where the strongest, most adaptable survive. Socialism, on the other hand, recalls to mind Churchill's observation to the effect that Capitalism was the unequal sharing of prosperity, while Communism was the equal sharing of misery. Hoping to split the difference, Socialism seems to prevent prosperity, while being unable to escape the misery that comes from trying to maintain a perpetual state of equality in an inherently imperfect world.

Equally depressing are Alexander Tyler's observations on the ebb and flow of human forms of government:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.

"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

"From bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance;

From abundance to complacency;

From complacency to apathy;

From apathy to dependence;

From dependence back into bondage."

If I had to place America in the early 21st Century, it would be somewhere in Tyler's Stage 5: Abundance, heading toward Complacency (though an argument could be made that we've shot past Companency and are rushing headlong toward Apathy...possibly due to the proliferation of video games in modern times). From that point, I think Rome took about 400 years to fall; though I'm enough of a hopeless romantic to think we might be the first civilization to escape their fate, I'm not sure we'll last as long.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel Clouds of Darkness, the compelling third volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Another Moment of Truth, or Paying the Piper

2011-07-28T19:22:00.000-04:00

In a democracy, by and large the people tend to get the government they deserve. And throughout history, a democracy's moment of truth comes when its citizens discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. Since that discovery, about 50 years ago, we've tended to vote for whoever promised us the most goodies, and have largely ignored the Cassandras in our midst who were warning that nothing in this world is free, and that a day of reckoning would come one day when we'd have to start paying our bills.

The spectacle we're watching this week in Washington on raising the debt ceiling is our modern heritage, and our penance for wanting everything, and expecting others to pay for it all. Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid the fiscal and financial pain that is in our future; and listening to those who are promising quick or easy fixes --- whether calling for "taxing the rich" to pay for everything, or cutting spending (except for any that happens to benefit us) --- are simply trying to advance their careers at their country's expense.

It's often said that the first step in getting yourself out of a hole is to stop digging; let's just hope we haven't already sold the ladder to the Chinese.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel Clouds of Darkness, the compelling third volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The Better Angels of our Nature

2011-07-28T11:25:00.000-04:00

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War, one of the defining moments in the history of the greatest republic the world has known. So far, it seems to be marked the public largely by apathy and inattention. For nerds like myself, however, with an abiding interest in history and the human condition, it is a time for reflection on any number of things --- from the follies of Mankind to the extraordinary good fortune that has blessed this country from its inception.

My current book is Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Her Pulitzer Prize winning study of the unique and self-made genius of our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, illustrates the subtle and often-happenstance differences that mark the difference between good men and great ones. Lincoln, blessed with a gifted mind but suffering the handicap of little formal education, shared the same drive toward accomplishment that propels many talented people to make something of their lives. But his kindly, gentle disposition --- and the struggles he had to endure to overcome an impoverished upbringing, hardships that would have crippled most lesser men --- gave him advantages that let him transcend much of the petty partisan bickering that afflicted his era, as well as our own.

Often derided as ignorant and unfit for office by those who did not know him, Lincoln emerges as a forceful and visionary leader with an impeccable sense of timing --- or blessed with incredible luck, which may be another way of saying the same thing. Sweet-tempered and considerate to those around him, he nevertheless possessed an iron will and drive to make himself into someone worthy of the esteem of his countrymen. And it was a profound blessing upon his country that he emerged, virtually from nowhere, at precisely the moment his country needed a hero.

His kindness and magnanimity still shines through the ages, and he was loved by all who came to know him well, including those who felt cheated and betrayed by his nomination: his rivals for the Republican nomination in 1860, whom he wisely invited into his Cabinet. Sensing the the country needed the strongest leaders he could find, his matchless ability to juggle conflicting egos, emotions, and ideologies among the various pro-Union factions held the country together, and brought out the very best in those strong personalities whose help he needed to save our still-young Republic.

Lincoln was roundly criticized by virtually everyone during his day, for failing to adhere to their own prescribed agendas for the country. His election resulted in the South's seccession, but at the same time he was viewed as vacillating and soft by the radicals for his cautious approach to the issue that was tearing the country apart: slavery. Those who knew him, though, saw this caution for what it was --- an unwillingness to push a fractured country further than it was ready to go, even as he struggled to keep the Nation together. A lesser man, or one of more ideological rigidity, may well have pushed the country over the cliff by racing to abolish what was recognized as the American Curse. And as he maneuvered to keep Europe --- whose mills needed Southern cotton rendered unavailable by the Northern blockade of Southern ports --- from intervening in the conflict on the side of the Confederacy Yet he always pressed in the direction of freedom and equality for all, and when he sensed that the shift in public sentiment had matured sufficiently to set the Nation on the course of freedom for all its citizens, he was resolute in his actions, and determined to keep the country he loved from sliding back.

With all the Herculean challenges and sorrows Lincoln had to confront, what comes through most clearly is his humanity and elemental goodness. His sense of humor was legendary, and his generosity, sweetness of temper, and kind-heartedness inspired love and devotion in everyone who came to know him well. He was able to be magnanimous in defeat as well as victory, and seemed unable to hold a grudge, even against people who meant him harm --- traits as sorely lacking in the politicians of today as they were in Lincoln’s time. The difference appears to have been the character and temperament of Lincoln himself.

Oddly enough, one of the things that resonates most about Goodwin’s portrait of the Lincoln Administration is how closely the small and petty minds of his day resemble those of our own. Fortunately for the country, an unknown candidate appeared from nowhere just when his country needed him, with the intellectual gifts and sense of vision that proved to be exactly what was needed to rescue American from its own follies. In our own day --- with follies abounding, and narrow-minded pettiness all but a job requirement for political office --- it is hard to see how a modern Lincoln can ever emerge. Yet though perhaps not as daunting as the challenges facing the country as it confronted the American curse of slavery, those we face today threaten our financial and cultural future in ways we are only now beginning to realize. And if we have really sunk to the level of being unable to produce a leader equal to the challenges that confront us, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel Clouds of Darkness, the compelling third volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Bulman Farewell

2011-06-24T10:47:00.002-04:00

Though our time on Earth doesn't always fall into neat categories, our lives do have discernible chapters. Some of them are pleasant; others we'd just as soon forget. But for most of us, the events of our childhood have special significance, since what we learn and live through as kids colors everything that comes afterwards.

I spent seven years at Bulman Elementary School in Redford, Michigan. Looking back, it was the longest chunk of time I spent anywhere, outside of my parents' house, until I began my 30-year career at the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office. Many of those days dragged on interminably --- especially in Sixth Grade, where I confronted Unreasoning Adults for the first time in the person of my sixth grade teacher (who, may she rest in peace, shall remain nameless). But for the most part, my gradeschool days were filled with adventure and fun, of the sort that many kids today miss, owing to the Unreasoning Adults that seem to dominate much of modern-day America.

Learning came between the more important interludes of school: recess, gym, and lunch, where lessons learned on the playgrounds stayed with us for the rest of our lives.

Parents took a healthy interest in what was happening at school --- with the Mothers Club filled with concerned, caring parents who did what they could to supplement our education with events, field trips, and baked goods.

Year by year, our growth and developing sense of self passed unnoticed --- except by the caring grownups around us, who were gently guiding us along life's early pathways, taking pride in every step of progress we made along the way.

Today, much has changed, and many of those changes are not for the better:

Recess, so necessary for young boys to discharge energy otherwise spent fidgiting and making mischief, is often looked at as wasted time that could be better spent sitting still and listening.

I was fortunate enough to be in an "accelerated" program for the smarter kids in our grade school. This gave the teachers more freedom to experiment, and to move through the basics to a more challenging course of study. Today, this kind of "tracking" is often frowned up...and even by the time I left Bulman it had been abandoned, due to the protests of parents whose felt their kids were suffering by not being part of the program.

Dodgeball --- a source of playground fun for countless kids through the years --- seems to be going the way of the dinosaur, as grownups seem intent on eradicating anything with a hint of risk from childhood.

Even the free-range childhood I remember growing up --- leaving the house after breakfast for a day of unstructured play and adventure in the woods and fields near home, free from the over-protective eyes of adults --- is on the verge of extinction, sacrificed to the anxieties of the age. Back in the Middle Ages when I was a kid, free play was how we learned about the world, about friendship, and about how to settle our own problems; today, parents who let their kids walk about unsupervised are often called names and viewed as neglectful parents.

Perhaps some of this is simply a reflection of the times. But I think it mostly reflects our own fears and doubts. In that, we are probably shortchanging the children of today, structuring their lives in ways that prevent them from confronting the small challenges and risks that will help them confront larger ones later in life. Those adult-sized challenges are there, and growing larger by the day; the world they will face will be a daunting one, filled with many problems left them by the grownups of today. And I don't think we help our kids and grandkids prepare for the future by teaching them that there are no losers on the playing field, or that Mommy and Daddy will always take care of everything.

Bulman School will soon be only a memory. But walking the hallways for one last time brought back memories that were lingering there, in the footsteps of countless children who roamed the hallways over the past sixty-five years. We all have small corners of our lives where the man or woman we grew to be first took root; sometimes, it's nice to return there, even if only in our minds, to see ourselves as we once were: filled with promise, and eager to experience the adventure that is life. In this modern world that is changing under our feet and before our eyes, it's often helpful to know where we came from. And if we can, it's nice to pay our past one last visit, before it disappears forever.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel Clouds of Darkness, the compelling third volume in the Guardians of Peace series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Soft Despotism, or How Tyranny Creeps Into a Democracy

2011-04-19T07:39:00.002-04:00

As students of history know, 150 years ago the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville spent a great deal of time traveling our young and vibrant nation. Among the many insights de Tocqueville had into this country was the recognition that, for all its grittiness and promise, America was not immune from the same follies that have plagued nations since the dawn of time. Among the problems he foresaw was the emergence of a form of "soft despotism" in which a paternalistic government would take control of society from an enfeebled people that was sapped of its own vitality and self-confidence. And all that stood between America and the voluntary surrender of liberty to a state eager to enhance power over an increasingly dependent population was the invigorating "habits of the heart" he saw in our 19th Century ancestors.

Unfortunately, our modern educational system doesn't seem to teach history very well. And among the insights most students of today never read is de Tocqueville's warning about what happens to a society in which citizens look to their government, rather than to themselves, to satisfy their needs and wants:

"After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

In Praise of Heroes

2011-04-18T13:48:00.002-04:00

Safe in our modern sophisicated cubicles, we like to think that we are the most enlighted and best educated people in the history of our planet. Attempting to convince ourselves that we of the Modern Age are free from the mythologies of the past, we have deconstructed most of our history and our heritage: not content with acknowledging the flaws of our Founders, many modern scholars parse through the history books looking for icons to shatter, much like the vanguard of the Inquisition sought to destroy all vestiges of the past from the lands of the people they conquered. The loss of the Library of Alexandria, or the Mayan codices, caused incalcuable loss to the history of civilization --- a loss occasioned, in large part, by the belief that the amassed wisdom of an alien population could offer nothing to the modern era...whether that "modern era" was seeking to destroy the lies of the devil, or the culture of a vanquished people.

It is, perhaps, a conceit that seems peculiar to our era that the myths and legends of our own past serve no useful purpose for our Modern Age. But if we look to the past, we see that each thriving culture nurtures and cherishes those myths that bind people together, and that loss of that common heritage --- whether through conquest or self-denegration --- often precedes the unraveling of a civilization.

In this country, it has become fashionable to look upon our American legends as little more than lies told to justify the status quo. But this view of our past overlooks the truth that our own era is less than perfect --- and that if judged by the standards of some future day, by people too small-minded to view us within the context of our own times, it is unlikely that we will measure up nearly as well.

Among our many modern faults is that we often fail to recognize is that each thriving culture needs its heroes, and its legends. Modern-day America is not different in that regard than ancient Rome, or the Native Americans, whose myths and legends we now see as quaint and charming, without understanding that they were the glue that held their culture together. And by casting off those that have sustained us for our first two centuries, we are sailing into dangerous waters...having just tossed our compass overboard.

Today marks the anniversary of the event that sparked one such myth: the "eighteenth of April" was the date of Paul Revere's ride through the countryside to warn the people that British troops were on the march. Longfellow's poem was not exactly a precise historical account: he neglected to mention other riders that night, or the various misadventures that beset them along the way. But it is stirring, and it is patriotic --- and despite the literary license it takes with the facts, it speaks more to what it means to be an American than most of the dreadfully dry and politically correct history books we inflict upon our young.

The poem was once required reading for all schoolchildren; it is a pity that today, so few of us blessed to live in the greatest country Planet Earth has yet produced have ever actually read it.

Paul Revere's Ride
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The Federalist, No 62, by James Madison

2010-10-10T12:58:00.000-04:00

Among the priceless treasures of American history is work collectively known as The Federalist, written while the adoption of our Constitution was still a matter of public controversy. Some, looking to the chaos and confusion stemming from trying to govern thirteen unruly colonies under the weak and ineffective Articles of Confederation, believed that only a united government could keep America strong and free—or, in the words of the Preamble, to “secure the Blessings of Liberty for ourselves and our Posterity.” Others, the Anti-Federalists, feared that a strong, centralized government would be a vehicle for tyrants to impose their will on the population.

In the ensuing public debate, a writer known only as Publius, wrote a series of persuasive essays, pointing out the benefits on the new federal constitution, as well as explaining its provisions to the reading audience. In truth, the essays were written by three giants of American history: James Madison, who would become our fourth president; Alexander Hamilton, who would become our first Secretary of the Treasury; and John Jay, who would become the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

In the sixty-second essay, James Madison explained the purpose and theory behind having a second house in the Legislature, which the proposed Constitution called the Senate. Among its benefits was intended to be to lend a degree of stability to the new government: since its members would serve six-year terms, he argued, they would be more inclined to take a broader view—and would serve as a brake upon the House of Representatives, which—being elected every two years (and expected to have a high turnover, service in the House being perceived as a sacrifice for those elected to serve), would lack the institutional memory needed to keep the young nation on a steady course.

To the modern reader, such concerns may seem prophetic—for Madison wrote of the need of the nation to avoid being “inconstant” or to “carry on...affairs without any plan at all,” to escape becoming “a speedy victimness to...unsteadiness and folly.” A constant parade of ever-changing laws and regulations, he feared, would give the “moneyed few” a distinct and unconscionable advantage over the industrious masses—for money would enable the elites to monitor and manipulate changes in the laws to their own advantage, while leaving the rest of the country in scrounging for a living in the dust and mud. And constantly changing laws would “be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood,” leaving the “prudent merchant” or farmer or manufacturer reluctant to “hazard his fortunes” on any new enterprise, mindful of the fact that the laws were as variable as the wind, and that his fortunes would always be at the mercy of “an inconstant government.”

Like many passages in the Federalist, Number 62 is remarkable for its concise logic, the gracefulness of its expression, and the persuasive quality of the writing. It is also among the most prescient and insightful commentaries on the risks of self-government—and its lessons about incoherent and intrusive laws appear to have been forgotten, when they should be required reading for everyone, most particularly those who aspire to take upon themselves the responsibility to write our laws and set our policies.

From The Federalist, No. 62, by James Madison:

To trace the mischievous effects of a mutable government would fill a volume. I will hint a few only, each of which will be perceived to be a source of innumerable others.

In the first place, it forfeits the respect and confidence of other nations, and all the advantages connected with national character. An individual who is observed to be inconstant to his plans, or perhaps to carry on his affairs without any plan at all, is marked at once, by all prudent people, as a speedy victim to his own unsteadiness and folly. His more friendly neighbors may pity him, but all will decline to connect their fortunes with his; and not a few will seize the opportunity of making their fortunes out of his. One nation is to another what one individual is to another; with this melancholy distinction perhaps, that the former, with fewer of the benevolent emotions than the latter, are under fewer restraints also from taking undue advantage from the indiscretions of each other. Every nation, consequently, whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability, may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of their wiser neighbors. But the best instruction on this subject is unhappily conveyed to America by the example of her own situation. She finds that she is held in no respect by her friends; that she is the derision of her enemies; and that she is a prey to every nation which has an interest in speculating on her fluctuating councils and embarrassed affairs.

The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?

Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few, not for the many.

In another point of view, great injury results from an unstable government. The want of confidence in the public councils damps every useful undertaking, the success and profit of which may depend on a continuance of existing arrangements. What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not but that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed? What farmer or manufacturer will lay himself out for the encouragement given to any particular cultivation or establishment, when he can have no assurance that his preparatory labors and advances will not render him a victim to an inconstant government? In a word, no great improvement or laudable enterprise can go forward which requires the auspices of a steady system of national policy.

But the most deplorable effect of all is that diminution of attachment and reverence which steals into the hearts of the people, towards a political system which betrays so many marks of infirmity, and disappoints so many of their flattering hopes. No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The War on Laughter

2010-09-26T08:49:00.000-04:00

The impulse to control others seems inbred in some of us. I've always suspect that it burns with particular fervor in the hearts of those intent on saving humanity from itself, and willing to force the rest of us to endure hardships fof our own good. In some dark corner among those self-annointed saviors, there are things beyond their comprehension, that they feel the urge to crush in their fellow human beings...laughter and joy foremost among them.

In this country, we can see it in the self-righteous prudishness of true believers of many different stripes, religious as well as secular. Perhaps because of an emptiness in their own souls there is, among some eager to save the world, a bitter undercurrent of resentment that people can smile amid sorrow, or find joy and pleasure in life when misery exists all around them. Among the truly serious-minded, laughter is a frivolity that must never intrude on the task at hand...whatever that task might be. Thus, some religions ban dancing and frown on music; and some secular "true believers" would ban any form of entertainment---from video games to musical genres---that conflict with their vision of what the "correct society" would look like.

Fortunately, Americans traditionally have little patience with busybodies, and usually ignore them.   But that tactic carries its own risks: while most of us are too busy living to worry about what other people are doing for fun, the busybodies are too busy fretting to have much of a life---and, unfortunately, busybodies with nothing to divert their attention can still manage to capture the ears of our politicians, who are too busy running for office to waste time thinking. The growth of the Nanny State is one outcome, one that we are free to ridicule and, if it gets out of hand, to change. The rest of the world isn't always as lucky: totalitarians, it seems, are puritans at heart, and tend to take a dim view of joy and laughter.

In Soviet Russia, the communists reduced art and literature to propaganda arms of the state. Lenin, its founder, dismissed music as tending to make people soft-hearted and tender---hardly the sort to kill each other for the sake of making a revolution. Islamic fundamentalists seem enraged by the tendency of ordinary people to savor the joys of life: Aytollah Khomeini, the founder of the theocracy that currently rules Iran, once remarked that "Allah did not create man so that he could have fun"; rather, the whole point of creation was to put us through "hardship and prayer." While this may explain a lot about the regime's behavior during the past thirty years, it doesn't make them easier to live with. And the Chinese, though discarding Mao's approach to economics, seem to be adopting his approach to dealing with humorous irreverence, silencing one of their people's favorite comics---a gifted comedian named  Guo Degang---for committing the offense of Wit Against the State.

In the end, I suspect that the self-annointed saviors of the world are fighting a losing battle. The human spirit is stronger than any attempt to stamp it out.  Joy is, in the end, a more attractive lure than the promise of endless misery. And ridicule being the best weapon in the battle against pomposity, laughter will always prevail over prudishness.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

A New Addition to the Family

2010-09-25T21:31:00.002-04:00

For good or ill, we're often defined by those we share our lives with. Others may judge us by the company we keep, and those we choose as friends can offer insights into our hearts that a simple conversation can never reveal. And, after all, those who lay down with dogs shouldn't be surprised if they have to live with fleas. Which brings us to today.

Until this past winter, Nonie and I had never been without a dog. Our first dog was Honey --- a pet she inserted into our marriage (against her new husband's wishes), because she couldn't bear the thought of seeing the poor creature put down. She'd had a rough upbringing, wasn't completely housebroken, was afraid of her shadow, and was, in essence, the world's wimpiest dog. She was also one of the canine world's great escape artists, vowing at an early age that no fence could hold her. But, she had a good heart and, though I would have much preferred starting out a new marriage with a new puppy, she managed to infiltrate our house to the extent that evicting her became impossible. Kind of like the stepchildren of a new spouse, stepchildren, except that stepkids usually don't pee all over everything.

Shortly after Honey and I can to a grudging truce, another dog appeared at our house...again, courtesy of my wife, who apparently was unable to resist taking any stray home with her. (I was too kind-hearted to demand that she take the intruder immediately to the pound. It is a persistent shortcoming of mine --- one that I've been working to remedy --- but on this occasion I could only grunt and resign myself to more years of living pergatory). Skipper was peppy, and filled with a zest for life. He was also far more fearless than his small size warranted, showing a willingness to take on (and get tossed about) by dogs twice his size, without the slightest inclination to learn from his experience and adopt a more discreet attitude about defending the world from other dogs. He did like Honey, however, and would growl at salesmen who overstayed their welcome. The two of them formed a real odd couple, and were with us for many years.

When Honey finally died at a ripe old age, the family was finally ready to exist as Nature intended: with one dog. Since this state of affairs proved intolerable to at least one member of our household, however, I soon found a small beagle puppy named Daisy gracing our house. A bout with parvo virus and extensive vet's bills later, she was a fully functioning member of the family...running off following her nose whenever possible. Though not an escape artist, she would usually take off for hours at the Yanik Family Farm...usually just before we wanted to leave. On one of these adventures, she led an aging Skipper on a merry adventure, through fields and forests, and causing a forest-full of worry for Nonie, who does not take kindly to any misadventure visited upon any of her pets.

We found both dogs a bit later...courtesy of neighbors by the farm, who called the number on their dog tags. Daisy, a healthy young dog, was none the worse for the wear; Skipper, the old codger, didn't fare quite as well. He died a few months later --- although not directly from his ordeal: it weakened an already aging dog, and probably shortened his life. But I suspect he found the freedom of wandering about to be quite an adventure.

Back to being a one-dog family, life seemed far less chaotic: there was only one animal to feed and let outside---Daisy. (Well...aside from the cat, but I continue to deny any active involvement in any cat-enabling activities). One animal to play with and shower attention on. One animal to worry about and take for a walk. One animal to crap in the back yard.

Obviously, something had to change...and, true to form, one day Nonie came home with a puppy she'd stumbled across at the soccer field. A cute, rolling ball of fuzz that resembled a small golden retriever. But, apparently a lot more domestically astute than her clueless husband, her approach to smuggling newcomers into the house had become far more sophisticated. This time, she took care to introduce the animal to our two small kids first. And, realizing at once that she'd managed to turn my flank yet again, there was little to do but groan and accept the reality that the little fuzz ball would be around for a while. We named her Callie.

Daisy and Callie were with us together for many years. Daisy seemed to be a magnet for misadventure and played the part of the animal world's Don Knotts. She was also stubborn as a mule, liked to howl, and tended to venture off on any scent trail that crossed her path. Callie, on the other hand, was sociable and loved to play fetch. She also loved camping, and accompanied us on many of our most memorable trips. We lost them over the course of the last two years---Callie two years ago at Christmas; and Daisy earlier this year, as we were getting our new house ready. Both dogs would have loved the new place: plenty of room, and lots of interesting smells. And their shadows will still haunt our memories.

Since we moved, Nonie has been increasingly agitated, insisting that the absence of a canine presence meant that the new place was seriously understaffed. For myself, I appreciated the respite, the lack of drool, and the absence of crap in the yard. Today, though, the Zoo had one of its many pet adoption events...and so we drove to Royal Oak to see if any of the animals struck our fancy.

There were, of course, the beagles: sweet and serene, pleading to be taken home. There were even two adorable beagle puppies---eight weeks old, and cute as the dickens. We do, after all, have 4-1/2 acres for a dog to explore. But with their tendency to roam---and with horses nearby---we weren't quite sure that a beagle would be our best bet.

We saw a number of other nice dogs...of various cross-breeds. In the end, Nonie was drawn to a black lab mix...with a sweet disposition and an eagerness to please. It's also a male...which will be quite a switch, since nearly all the dogs I've had (all but Skipper) have been girls.

The animal shelter named him "Bosley"...a name I like, and would just as soon keep. I think it has just the right mixture of whimsy to suit him.

Alana thinks we should call him "Buster" (possibly after the Mythbusters test dummy...though I'm not sure she had that Buster in mind). I suspect "Buster" will prevail.

So...welcome Bosley. Or Buster. Or Whatever.

And if it's not too much trouble, please try to keep the crap outside.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The Time Portal

2010-09-04T15:48:00.006-04:00

Part of being human is experiencing the constant pull of emotions. As we grow, our experiences blend into the montage that becomes "me". And throughout our lives, we often trigger memories that call to mind earlier days. Some of these memories can be sad or scary; others cause our eyes to mist and our throats to swell, as we recall bygone days that are special.

Much of my childhood was spent playing sports. I passed most of my summers playing baseball, often at the ball diamond adjoining the local elementary school. But come September, a chill would creep into the air, and the wistfulness at the end of summer would make way for a new sport: football.

I played organized football for a few seasons, but soon found it too regimented for my tastes: the coaches were usually drill-sergeant wannabees, and the plays they insisted we run largely reduced us to the status of machines: cogs in their own visions of glory. I was always a good athlete, playing both offense and defense in various positions; and I was the team's punter as well. But I soon found myself bored by the routine and grind of practice. By the time I reached high school, I found that playing with my friends was a lot more fun than being screamed at by adults. And so I came to spend most autumn afternoons after school on the field adjoining that same old elementary school...running and passing and punting until dark.

When I think back on all the memories of my youth, the purest joys I had came from things we kids could do on our own, when we escaped the world of adults and family responsibilities and just played together as friends.

Seasons come and go throughout our lives; and as we grow older our responsibilities grow with us. But for me, the cool crispness of freshly mowed grass on a sunny September afternoon will always call to mind touch football...and a young boy too busy having fun to worry about the burdens of adulthood that were looming in the shadows.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Burning Books Instead of Reading Them

2010-08-23T13:29:00.001-04:00

In one of the low moments of our current interval of xenophobic exhuberance, it seems that a church in Florida is planning to reinstitute a centuries-old tradition of small-minded people throughout the ages: burning books they don't like.

In 1821, the writer Heinrich Heine wrote: "Where they burn books, they will end in burning human beings." We regard the Nazi book-burning rituals with horror: one of my favorite lines from the last Indiana Jones movie has Sean Connery telling one of the evil Nazis that "goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them". And Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 gave us a vision of a futuristic society where the authorities institutionalized the practice of burning books they deemed unfit to read. I find it depressing that in the 21st Century America---the Land of Liberty and home of the First Amendment---we are facing the prospect of another round of book-burning.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Marketing

2010-07-22T10:34:00.002-04:00

Writing is a lot of fun...though it can, at times, be a lonely pursuit.

Unfortunately, marketing sucks---largely because I seem to have no talent for it. In fact, my entire upbringing makes me wince at the thought of blowing my own horn. I suppose it must be nice to have no shame when it comes to self-promoting...but it still makes me feel uncomfortable.

Inspired by my son, Jason --- who is a gifted writer in his own right, and is trying to launch his own career as a game developer --- I've started up a new page on Facebook, hoping to drum up some interest in some of my writing, especially now that I'm about to release a new book. (Clouds of Darkness, for those keeping score at home...due out some time this fall). But I have my doubts about whether anything I do will succeed in attracting readers.

It seems that those who can, do...those who can't teach...and those who are awful at anything, but good at self-promotion, get rich. Doesn't seem fair...but if I can move from being awful to being passably mediocre at it, I suppose everything will turn out well.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Under the Bus

2010-07-22T08:11:00.001-04:00

Though we have all experienced it while growing up, there are few things more cruel than to be punished for something you didn't do. Even worse is to be punished for doing something noble...especially if you show some personal vulnerability while doing it.

With President Obama under fire for any number of reasons, and the NAACP taking heat for casting the Tea Partiers as racists without anything as mundane as proof, it seemed the obviously wise political move to react swiftly and forcefully when a member of the Administration---speaking at an event sponsored by the NAACP---made remarks that could be construed as overtly "racist": talking of her attitudes about helping a white farmer facing the loss of his farm while a lower level employee at the Department of Agriculture, she spoke of viewing it through the prism of race, and "not doing all she could" to help him. So, she was promptly fired from her job with the Obama Administration, and the NAACP issued a statement denouncing her. All without bothering to check with her first...since, after all, there is simply no excuse for racist comments.

The only problem was that the remarks quoted were not racist at all. Rather, speaking of her early days as a USDA employee, she was speaking over her personal struggle to overcome the racial attitudes she grew up with...and the need to overcome prejudice of all kinds in order to work for a better world.

Shirley Sherrod is probably not perfect; I may not like her politics, and it's entirely possible we wouldn't get along if we met at a party. But there's something sad---and curiously ironic---in having our purported guardians of racial attitudes rush to judgment, hurl insults, and threaten the livelihood of someone who's only crime was speaking candidly and openly about her own personal struggle to move past race and toward a place where people view each other simply as people.

Of course, this morality tale probably won't give our modern day race-baiters and civic Morality Patrol cause to pause the next time someone is quoted on a blog saying something that, at first blush, sounds a bit odd. But, at least, it should give the rest of us something to think about.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

A Modest Proposal for Balancing the Federal Budget

2010-07-17T16:30:00.004-04:00

It's no secret that people in this country are furious with our Federal Government for wasting our money.

In any given year, we spend billions on pet projects for various congressmen that do nothing for the country, but which they deem indispensible to their own bids for re-election.

Various proposals have been floated over the years, from a balanced budget amendment, to priority-based budgeting. But the red ink just keeps piling up, and the Government keeps on doling out money like drunken sailors. And in recent years, it doesn't matter much which party is in charge; the only thing that changes is which set of well-connected cronies gets to gorge itself on our hard-earned money ---money which we give up because we can't boycott paying our taxes without going to jail.

I think the better solution is not to keep forking over more money to the government; we'd be better off demanding that they spend no more money than they take in. To that effect, my own modest proposal has been to pay the President and Congress out of any surplus funds---ie, money left over after we paid all our bills. Kind of like what happens to the proprietor of a small business, only with free health care. If we don't have a surplus...or we're bleeding money that year...they don't get paid. I think that probably would do more to balance the Federal budget than any number of laws, amendments, or protests by angry taxpayers.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

An Afternoon of Blood

2010-07-02T09:49:00.004-04:00

One of the pivotal moments in the history of the United States occurred 147 years ago today, on the second day of the battle of Gettysburg.

On July 2, 1863, a professor at a small college in Maine, had ascended to command the 20th Maine. On the second day of the battle, Col. Joshua Chamberlain was ordered to take his regiment to defend the extreme left flank of the Union lines on a hill known as Little Round Top at all costs. Soon after taking their position, they came under a fierce assault by the Confederates, who realized that turning the Union flank at Little Round Top would let the Confederates send the Union forces scattering, and win the battle.

After repelling assault after assault, with his men exhausted and almost out of ammunition, Chamberlain realized that his men could never withstand another assault by the Confederates. Reasoning that the enemy was probably just as exhausted...and perhaps running low on ammunition themselves, Chamberlain concluded that if they could not withstand another attack...and could not retreat from their position guarding the Union flank...his only option was to attack. Ordering his men to fix bayonets, and in the face of another Rebel assault, they charged down the hill....breaking up the Confederate assault, turning the near-disaster into a rout, saving the Union from defeat on the second day of battle, and setting the stage for the fateful third day...when the Union center would face Pickett's Charge.

For his extraordinary bravery in the face of almost certain defeat, Joshua Chamberlain was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Presidential Implosion in the Gulf?

2010-06-18T15:46:00.003-04:00

Unfortunately, Obama's reaction to events in the Gulf are starting to reinforce all the doubts many people had about him during the election campaign. Even his erstwhile supporters are starting to turn against him. And once a liberal loses Jon Stewart, disaster is already nipping at his heels.

I guess we'll see if he can turn it around...but each day the oil keeps gushing, it will only get worse for the president's image.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Brothers in Song

2010-04-11T00:04:00.027-04:00

It's said that music touches something deep in the human heart, summoning emotions that we don't always realize we had. When music has been a large part of someone's life, familiar sounds can also trigger memories that envelope the soul and, if you're lucky, can make the years disappear.

This was the case for me this weekend, when I returned to a glorious weekend of fellowship and musical communion with my college choir, the Michigan Men's Glee Club. It was wonderful seeing familiar faces, including many that I hadn't seen for nearly forty years. They're older now, of course...and one of the things we found we shared was the experience of a naive college kid looking into the mirror at some aging stranger each day. But when we sat down and began to sing, time simply melted away. The music all came back without effort, and raising our voices in songs we'd sung together brought back more than our youth: we found ourselves moving with the same nuances and swells we'd shared in another day, and spent the entire weekend helping each other make the audible magic that human ears recognize as music and our hearts feel as love.

The event itself was a unique confluence of events: it was the Glee Club's 150th anniversary, and the Club and some of the alumni had spent the last five years planning to bring us all together. Some arrived on Thursday, many from far away --- in all 35 states, and a half-dozen or so countries --- and we spent all day Friday, and much of Saturday preparing a concert. We divided into groups by generation, and except for the oldest group (whose director, Philip Duey, passed away years ago) we largely sang with the same directors we sang for in college: my group was the only one with three directors, as we spanned a time of transition for the club, during the 70s and 80s.

Each group sang three numbers, pieces we'd sung together as kids in college, at a time in our lives when the entire world was before us, and life and reality hadn't yet made us come to grips with careers and families, mortgages and responsibilities. Mine sang two spirtuals from the Club's repetoire --- Ain't Got Time to Die, and Soon Ah Will Be Done --- as well as The Last Words of David by Randall Thompson, the piece that clinched our place as the best men's choir in the world back in 1971, and ensured my group's place in Glee Club history. Our rehearsals were like time machines: before long we found ourselves once more moving through time and sound as a single group, focused and intent on making beauty come alive in song.

We also worked up several numbers as a group --- a number of old "Michigan Songs" that the Club always sings, and the Ave Maria by Franz Biebl, a piece some of us had never done before...and which, quite frankly, scared some of us, at least a little: it was a piece that was new to many of us; it involved an antiphonal choir (the current Glee Club, which would be performing from the balcony); and we had only two days to pull it all together!

We had a wonderful banquet on Friday night, and as Saturday's concert approached we all knew we were creating something special. But as much fun as the rehearsals were, they could not approach the magic of the concert itself, which was remarkable: our sound was as incredible and thrilling as ever. Each group had a different sound...the older singers enjoying a rich bass sound that only comes with the years, and the younger singers possessing a lighter, more youthful sound that was just as entrancing.

My wife and son, who came to hear it, said it was amazing and moving. They were awed by our dynamic range, and the breathtaking precision we showed throughout the concert and across all the different groups. And both were entranced by the sound of it all...as we were ourselves, since many of us had forgotten (or, perhaps, never realized) just how good we sounded back when we were kids, or how forgiving Hill Auditorium is to a singer. We sang in voices as low as whispers, and in ringing crescendos that shook the foundations and hung in the rafters. The effect on the audience, as well as the singers, was electric. And in the end, the Ave Maria...the piece I was so worried about...moved my wife to tears.

Blended together by shared memories and traditions, united by a common love of singing, we spent the weekend working once again toward a common goal: sharing the joy we find in singing with anyone who wanted to come and hear us. And for a few hours Hill Auditorium was bathed in sound, as memories washed our souls and made the years melt away like mists on a foggy morning. We were, for a time, home again...young...and timeless.

Of course, as the sun falls and rises, reality always returns. And after the weekend there will still be jobs and families, mortgages and responsbilitites for all of us. But just as hearts are only as old as they feel, I hope I discovered the secret of eternal youth, something I can summon on command for the rest of my life simply by remembering this weekend, or hearing that glorious sound rising once again. There is, I think, a secret corner of the human soul that awakens whenever we come in touch with ourselves, giving us the power to make time vanish by tapping into something that makes us feel fully human, makes us part of something greater than ourselves, and connects us to others around us. I suspect we all have many such corners waiting to be discovered, needing only the barest trace of a memory to blossom into joy and wonder. One magical weekend showed me one such corner in myself: it seems I can make time disappear simply by waiting for a downbeat, opening my heart, and joining my brothers in song.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Passing the Torch

2010-03-02T05:37:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, the US Supreme Court gave me a bit of a going-away present: they granted our petition for review on the last case I argued in front of the Michigan Supreme Court, almost exactly a year ago.

The case is Michigan v Bryant, and it should be argued some time in the Fall. When we filed the petition last summer, I'd already offered to let one of our "new kids" take it over, since I'd already had an argument in Washington, and I was already officially "retired" --- even though it didn't feel like it at the time. It would have been a nice coda to my career...but I thought it was more important to give a boost to one of the younger attorneys in the office, rather than hog the spotlight for one last encore. Ironically, if the County hadn't made such an effort last year to broom out so much of its experienced legal talent, the issue wouldn't even have come up...and I'd be spending most of this year getting ready for my second trip to the mountaintop.

The case itself should be a no-brainer, involving the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment...and the State Supreme Court's curious belief that police confronting a citizen who's been shot, and is bleeding on the pavement, is not confronting an "emergency" situation sufficient to allow them to ask the victim "what happened"? As soon as the decision came out, it had "certiorari" written all over it...and the only real question was whether it was too goofy to interest the USSC.

I'm already planning to attend the argument...and though I am a bit disappointed not to get another chance to argue there, I think I made the right call last summer.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor from Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

A Fork in the Road

2010-02-26T20:29:00.003-05:00

It's hard to leave a job you love...even after thirty years. This is the farewell letter I sent to the attorneys and staff of the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office today. Even though there are many things in life I'm still looking forward to, it can be hard to say goodbye.

To the Attorneys and Staff of the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office:

Patricia Boyle, the greatest state supreme court justice of my lifetime, once remarked that being a prosecutor was the best job the legal profession had to offer. I've often thought the same thing, never more than in recent days. There aren't many jobs an attorney can have where you're charged only with doing justice, and expected to do the right thing even if you could get away with sharp dealing. I was lucky enough to stumble through the doors here in 1980, and immediately felt that I’d found a home. Part of it was the work; the rest was because of the people I’ve worked with, who have truly been among the treasures of my life, and whose friendship I will cherish for the rest of my life.

I've spent much of the last thirty years feeling guilty about my good fortune — though, having been born a Catholic, I suspect it comes naturally. Confucius said: "Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life." That pretty much sums up my whole career. The work here has been fulfilling and challenging, making every day a new adventure. Add the fact that I've had the chance to do things most lawyers just dream about, earn a decent living while doing it, and at the same time have the gift of spending as much time with my family as they could reasonably be expected to tolerate, and it's hard to believe that one man could have so much luck in one lifetime.

I’ve seen many changes in my thirty years as a prosecutor: we no longer have to write everything out in longhand, and now that we’ve entered the 21st Century we do our research online, rather than sifting through stacks of books...though we’re still looking for that case we can’t quite find. On the other hand, we never shut down in the “good old days” because we needed Technical Support to get our pens working again, and things never ground to a halt because the library was off-line. Somehow, County finances seemed just as bleak in the early 1980s as they are today. And we’re still appearing before the same wide range of judges — running the gamut from wise to idiotic — that we’ve always had.

There are, of course, some aspects of the Office that need renewing from time to time. When I started, it seemed I’d joined a large and boisterous family, filled with squabbling siblings, goofy uncles, and batty aunts. But we had a sense of shared adventure, and an instinctive “all-for-one-and-one-for-all” willingness to face any challenge together. We all watched out for each other, and the older attorneys each shared the responsibilities of training the new ones in the traditions of the office — meaning, in their crusty way, knocking our heads as needed to make sure we understood that our mission was Justice, that our presence meant that the judge would have at least one honest lawyer in court that day, and that the “People” we served included the same defendants we were trying to throw in jail, to whom we owed fairness and a measure of respect whether we felt they deserved it or not. Today, with the County’s coffers empty once again, we seem to be stumbling a bit. But our mission is the same as ever; and as I leave the office I’ve had the pleasure of serving for the last thirty years, the people I’ve worked with over the years seem much the same. Only the faces have changed.

A year ago, after I turned in my retirement papers, it felt as if someone I loved had died. Now that it’s finally time to leave, it feels more like sending a kid off to college — starting a new chapter of life, filled with new challenges and adventures. But I'm sentimental enough to have found myself lingering later than usual at the Office these past days, often feeling sad when it was time to go home. I’m looking forward to starting the next chapter...but it’s still hard to say goodbye.

I hope to be back regularly, to visit friends, check on things, and perhaps help out from time to time. The road hasn’t always been an easy one: being a prosecutor isn’t for everybody, and it’s certainly not for the faint of heart. But for those with a sense of fair play, a commitment to justice, and a spark of idealism in their souls, it really is the best job any lawyer could ever have.

The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere, ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
—Robert Frost

It’s been an honor and a privilege to share my career with you.

Best wishes always,
Jeff Caminsky

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a retired public prosecutor living in Michigan, writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Daisy

2010-02-23T17:18:00.009-05:00

In the Spring of 1994, a new arrival joined our family.

Daisy was a small puppy who immediately fell onto hard times. She’d contracted parvo virus, and nearly died before she could take her first run in the field.

Over the years, she seemed to have a knack for mischief. Taken to Wyoming on a camping trip in 1995(despite the misgivings of an unidentified adult male member of the Caminsky Clan, who warned that taking a beagle into the wilderness probably wasn’t a very good idea), she ran off while on a hike. She was on the verge of supplying lunch to the local pack of coyotes, but we managed to lure her back before the entree was served. This was, I think, her one and only major camping trip.

Often wandering off at the Yanik Family Farm, she once went missing for days — most likely leading Skipper, her companion, along for the adventure — finally surfacing well down the road, miles away and completely lost.

Even her own back yard was a constant source of adventure: she spent much of her puppyhood confronting enemy invaders, chasing squirrels and barking angrily at distant, rounded objects...which looked like ordinary balls to us, but must have carried with them some alien life form to warrant such vigilance in the protection of her family. And one fine morning, we looked out to see that she’d impaled herself on a branch that had fallen from our maple tree — prompting a mad rush to the Vet by the human members of the family (one, a grumbling, bathrobe-clad male whom authorities declined to identify, was seen sighing harshly in the parking lot of Morris Veterinary Hospital while others went about their business).

But, through all the goofiness, wanderings, and barking, Daisy was a loyal and loving companion, whose tail always wagged when someone came home, and who loved her walks and her treats...and, most particularly, her meals, inhaling them with a gusto most reserve for Olympic-level competitions. Her face always brightened when she started her walks...even in recent days, when her hindquarters were shriveling from old age, and she’d gone deaf (possibily from a lifetime of listening to ear-splitting barking at close range). Like our other dog --- Callie, whom we lost a year ago just before Christmas --- she gave her love unconditionally, asking nothing in return...except maybe an occasional treat, when she came inside from the backyard.

In recent days her pace had slowed to a crawl and she seemed confused and bewildered, often wandering about aimlessly, as if searching for something that she couldn’t quite remember. But coming in from the back yard still excited her, and she still always expected a treat. Though we kept putting off the inevitable, and cleaning up after her when she couldn’t quite make it outside to conduct her business, we knew that our time together was growing short. And today, after giving her a lunch of chicken, her favorite thing in the whole world, and one final walk around the block she knew so well, we took her for her last ride.

Even though she’ll always be with us in our memories, it’s hard saying a last goodbye to a friend.

But these days I seem to be saying “goodbye” a lot.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Getting Started

2010-02-11T20:25:00.005-05:00

I actually submitted a short piece to one of the local papers the other day.

It was (if I do say so myself) a rather interesting take on the current "panty-bomber" controversy du jour...making the point (largely unmade by others in the legal profession) that there was no earthly reason to Mirandize the panty-bomber and cut off their access to what he knew. Since the only consequence of failing to read a suspect Miranda rights is that the State can't use any ensuing confession, and since the Feds didn't need his confession to make the criminal case against him (give his charred underwear, smoldering body, and 200 witness who can testify that he tried to blow up the plane), they didn't need his confession.

What the Feds did need --- the information he possessed about the higher-ups who sent him --- wasn't relevant to the criminal case either. Just to how to strike back at the bad guys.

But...for one reason or another, this doesn't seem to interest the media...or, at least the big-town papers here in Detroit.

I may still try to peddle the story to a smaller outlet (and try to remember, next time, to reserve the right to make "simultaneous submissions" so I'm not stuck waiting around. Or I may just post it here in a few days.

But...I am getting excited about getting a chance to do a few different things in the coming months.

With any luck, I may even start getting others to publish what I write.

And that, wuuld be a real boost for my self-confidence as a writer. And for my ego. Actually, mostly for my ego...but it is nice to see my name in print, now and then.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Movie Review: Avatar

2010-02-05T22:03:00.004-05:00

Though I hope my semi-retirement changes this for the better, for a variety of reasons I haven't gone to see as many movies as I'd like. The upside of this is that I get to wait for the DVD to come out, and can see the same film for a fraction of the cost. The downside is that I'm often behind the times, when it comes to talking about current movies.

There are, however, several movies I insist on seeing live...in the theater...on a big screen. One of them was Avatar, the newest movie by Titanic director James Cameron. Still, with all the hype and hoopla surrounding the film, my wife and I waited until the crowds had died down a bit, and went to see an early show. The movie was well worth the wait.

To call the visual imagery stunning really doesn't do the film justice. The world created --- a moon orbiting a large, Jupiter-sized planet, and chock-full of a mineral that Earth craves desperately --- was lush and filled with energy. The scenery --- a thick jungle filled with life that glowed in the dark (at least, to the eyes of the natives) --- was a seamless blend of fantasy and reality. The story, told largely from the perspective of the alien natives, drew the viewer into a rich world, filled with a spiritual connection between all living things. The humans (the villains of the piece) were shown divided between the truth-seekers (the band of nerdy scientists running the "Avatar" project) and the militaristic head-bonkers, enlisted in the service of the ruthless corporate pursuit of wealth.

Though notworthy most for the stunning visual effects, the story, though somewhat simplistic, was never a distraction. There were a few holes in the storyline, that an alert viewer could pick apart by thinking too much. And the alien culture created was perhaps a bit too close to the Native Americans for those looking for a non-human look at the Universe around us. But the net effect was to create a world where Nature, trying simply to exist, confronts a soul-less human culture consumed by the pursuit of riches; in the end, Nature proves victorious, though a cynical viewer might wonder how long the victory would last, given the limitless wealth that Nature could provide to those willing to sell their souls to exploit it.

Many of the common criticisms of the movie struck me as rather silly: for example, the movie is in no way the "racist" view of Creation some issue-mongers insist. The method chosen to draw the human audience into the alien world --- the insertion of a crippled human who finds himself made whole by merging himself into the Na'vi world of Nature --- seemed natural, almost organic. Their world of Pandora, in which Nature envelopes those living within it, breathes life into the concept of "The Force" from Star Wars, by showing Nature living in balance, with the Na'vi surrounded by its bounties and beauty. Those denoucing it as a display of pagan pantheism seem to forget that there are different ways of looking at the world than through the eyes of Western Christians. And though its anti-war message is a constant theme throughout the movie, it is hardly the mindless "peacenik-tree hugger" movie that some of its more conservative critics contend. Instead it poses, in starkly beautiful fashion, the dilemma faced by Modern Man: what do we gain by subduing Nature, if we lose its bounty in the process?

Still, being a work of art crafted by human hands, the movie was not without its flaws. Lost in translation was the fact that, in its own way, the Na'vi culture was just as warlike as our own, only more primitive. Though obviously intelligent, they seemed to overlook the obvious superiority of the Earthers' weaponry in their initial response to our attacks, and their strategy and tactics --- flying wildly at the invaders, and hoping for the best --- would have come to disaster if Nature (having been summoned by the hero at a place called the Tree of Souls, where the Na'vi would commune with their deity, Eywa, an apparent blend of Mother Earth and the Yaweh of the Old Testament) hadn't come riding to the rescue in the nick of time.

Still, the flaws all pale in the glow of the spectacle, and the nitpickers really need to look beyond their own noses once in a while. The movie was stunning and often moving, enticing the viewer into a world of beauty and danger and rewarding anyone with a sense of adventure with a captivating tale of love and redemption.

RATING: Five Stars

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Debating Point: Gays in the Military

2010-02-03T17:09:00.005-05:00

I suppose that I may simply be losing touch with what's going on in the world. But I wonder if anyone seriously thinks that the military should switch to having co-ed barracks...other than perhaps as a plot for a comedy. If not, I'm having trouble understanding the difference between forcing a woman to undress, shower, and sleep with men ogling her every move, and forcing a man into same situtation...the only difference being the gender of the recipient of unwanted attention. But the recent obsession with undoing the military's policy of "don't ask-don't tell" strikes me as rather an exercise in looking for problems...perhaps to distract us from the very real financial, economic, and foreign policy problems that are being crowded off the public stage.

I think that the military exists for one purpose, and one purpose only: to neutralize or destroy any threat against the country, and to do it as efficiently as possible. Anything that detracts from that mission --- such as introducing internal sexual tension into a unit that should be concentrating on destroying the enemy --- is a luxury. We can do so if we choose, because at the present time we're far more powerful than any country on the face of the earth. But there is a reason why all military units in history have separated men from women...at least, until the present day: they don't want romantic thoughts and conflicts to intrude on battlefield responsibilities. Introducing the same thing into all-male or all-female barracks isn't something to do lightly, or out of some sense of political correctness.

This does not mean that homosexuals should be hounded out of the service, or beaten within an inch of their lives merely because of their sexual orientation. If push came to shove, I'd be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with those trying to protect our comrade who was being attacked from within. And away from the front lines, there are many jobs in the military for which "sexual tension" in the ranks simply wouldn't matter. But we don't train our military to be enlightened philosophers: we train them to kill enemies on command, and without mercy. And when our surival is on the line, we're better off being defended by a division filled with Conan the Barbarian, rather than one consisting of Mr. Sensitivity.

Unlike most people voicing opinions on the subject, I don't pretend to know the answer. But I do know that we are not asking the right questions. As a result, the current "gays in the military" debate is missing the whole point of having a military in the first place: we should be concentrating on what makes our armed forces stronger, more powerful, and more ruthlessly effective. We should not be using it as a laboratory for conducting experiments in human sociology.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

One Month...and Counting

2010-02-01T11:23:00.002-05:00

One month to go on my consulting contract...and my career as a prosecutor. It will end almost thirty years to the day after I started with the County. Last year at this time, as I put in my retirement papers, it felt as if somebody I loved had just died. Now...it's still sad, but I'm looking forward to having the time to do a lot of things I've been putting off for quite a long time.

These days, it seems like most of my time is taken up getting ready for our big move to White Lake. We're nearly done with our "hired" remodeling (though we still have some new flooring to install), and are mostly painting and decorating. Our geothermal system is up and running...and there's still a lot of paperwork to do --- changing tax records, our drivers licenses, and the like.

But things are starting to move, and the house is starting to take shape. I hope to be completely moved in by the end of the month --- just in time for my retirement --- but I have a feeling that I'm just dreaming.

Of course...I do tend to dream a lot. Sometimes, it gets me into trouble....but mostly, in the end it leaves me with a smile.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

A Lot of Standing Around

2010-01-23T21:42:00.003-05:00

A British soccer coach once complained to me that he found American football very boring, compared to soccer: "Typical American sport," he groused. "Most of the time is spent watching players standing around waiting for something to happen." A recent article in the Wall Street Journal provides the statistics to back him up.

During of the typical 3-hour football broadcast, it seems, about 67 minutes is devoted to players huddling or generally milling about, 60 minutes is spent on commercials, 17 minutes is devoted to replays, 12 minutes or so are devoted to showing referees or head coaches...and just 11 minutes --- or about 1/16 of the total air time devoted to the game --- is actually taken up playing football.

And we wonder why we're losing our edge in the world: even our top athletes spend more time loafing on the job than they do working.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Obama Worship, and the Perils of Political Correctness

2010-01-20T15:09:00.001-05:00

A recent article in the Weekley Standard caught my attention, about the relationship between Obama the Candidate and Obama the President. In this view, much of the recent disappointment in Obama's performance as president is traced to the perception among some of his supporters as the Grand Messiah of the "Religion of Humanity"---a world-view which elevates the god of science to prominence in a modern world often caught between those too primitive to understand it, and those too unenlightened to recognize it. To these adherents, it is proposed, Obama reflects the hope that the world can be saved, if only the "right thinkers" of the politically correct crowd manage to persevere. I thought the article was very interesting, though there is always a danger in pressing interesting thoughts and theories a bit too far.

I've long thought that there was a quasi-religious bent to a quite a lot of the "politically-correct left", both in terms of their fixation on dogma to the exclusion of facts (as with the Global Warming crowd), and their demonization of "non-believers" (as in branding as racists, sexists, or warmongers anyone who disagrees with them). Some organized religions have similar tendencies: though usually the sharper edges are mitigated by a sense of humility, some exhibit the same "holier-than-thou" attitude that seems to be all the range among the "right thinkers" in the PC crowd.

All the same, I think it's a mistake to take this thought too far: I suspect most of what the writer identifies is subliminal, rather than deliberate. In many respects, I think it reflects the longing for an ideal leader or a way toward a less-imperfect world, rather than a conscious effort to establish a specific set of new institutions. But this doesn't really change the possible dangers inherent in our modern version of orthodox "political correctness." It is still as stifling, as destructive of liberty and a free human spirit as if it were deliberate.

Perhaps I'm hopelessly naive, but I think it's more productive to view it as misguided and amenable to reason than the result of a conspiracy of "correct thinkers." I usually follow the advice of Napoleon...who said, more or less, that it's usually a mistake to ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity or incompetence. Besides...at least if I'm any guide...calling someone an idiot for believing what they believe rarely changes any minds; showing them that they're mistaken may. At least, as long as they're not actually idiots...but then, you can't always reason someone out of an idea they never reasoned themselves into in the first place

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Crony Capitalism

2010-01-16T10:33:00.000-05:00

Just in case anyone needs help getting depressed over what's happening these days, we can always learn about how big business makes things worse for us --- and better for themselves --- by making small investments in our elected representatives.

I watched one of John Stossel's shows on the Fox Business Channel last night...and was even more appalled that usual at the spectacle of our government selling itself. At firesale prices, no less!

I think it's obvious that our Federal Government is too big, and careening out of control. Many of the regulations we see --- like the ones on kid's toys, which do nothing to make anything safer, but do one heckuva job at crushing small toymakers, and are putting thrift stores out of the used toy business --- serve no real purpose except to allow big business to avoid the messiness of competition.

I suppose in a democracy, it's always possible for us to take our country back from the special interests. But I suspect there may well be a point of no return for us. And the bigger and more powerful our government becomes, the closer that "point of no return" may come.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Rustbelt Odyssey

2010-01-11T18:54:00.004-05:00

We released Rustbelt Odyssey today, the autobiography of by parents' longtime friend, Norman Krandall.

It was a long time in coming: Norman contacted me nearly two years ago, when I was busy trying to get three books ready to release, and began work in earnest sometime in late 2008.

Aside from my Dad's book --- which was a surprise 85th birthday present --- this is the first book I've edited. (Well...I guess I could include my Shakespeare book, too. But he's been dead for quite a while, and wasn't likely to yell at me if I did something he didn't like. I have heard stories that the cemetary groudskeepers in Stratford-upon-Avon keep hearing the sounds of someone turning over in one of the graves, but I think they're mostly internet rumors). It was fun, but quite a challenge, trying to smooth out the writing without "taking over", and losing the author's own narrative voice.

I hope people like it. I enjoyed working on it...though I'm looking forward to having time to work on my own stuff now. Like the already-completed novel I need to release...and figuring out how to market the damn things!

But for now...it's nice to take a deep breath. And it's nice, helping to bring someone else's dream to print.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Faith, Hope, and Monkeys

2010-01-06T12:15:00.003-05:00

We leave a lot to chance, hoping that things will somehow work out for the best. And, often as not, the things we worry about most do not come to pass --- and we are, instead, laid low by something we never saw coming.

Investors, for instance, saw much of their wealth evaporate in the great Wall Street Meltdown of 2008. In the meantime, casinos and lotteries keep doing a booming business, as some some come to see random chance as a good substitute for courage, foresight, and planning for the future. In this view, bad luck is seen as evidence that self-denial is for suckers, and that the future will somehow take care of itself.

On the other hand, random chance does have its limitations as a philosophy of life, and we see evidence that planning usually helps keep us afloat. After all, the advent of the Internet has disproved the hypothesis that an infinite number of monkeys, typing at random, could reproduce the works of William Shakespeare. So, perhaps applying some foresight and intelligence has a place in the Universe, after all.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Getting a Grip

2010-01-03T08:26:00.004-05:00

"What a piece of work is man," wrote William Shakespeare in Hamlet. "How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties..."

Unfortunately, Shakespeare was exaggerating. Either that, or the human race has gone markedly downhill since Elizabethan days in jolly old England. And as this article by Denis Duton in the New York Times demonstrates, we have a tendency to go off the deep end with alarming regularity. The end of the world, it seems, is always upon us.

Early predictions, based on the estimated size of Noah's ark, had the end of the world coming in 500 AD.

Sometimes, these events were heralded by obvious signs of looming disaster --- like Haley's Comet in 989 or 1910, or the year 1666 (which not only ended in the "Beast's number" of 666, but was also the year that London played host to both the Bubonic Plague and the Great Fire of London...kind of a disaster-scenario equivalent of the same city winning both the Super Bowl and World Series in the same year).

But lest we scoff at these visions of the world ending as superstitious musings by the deluded, we have our own modern versions of doomsday. The western world (except for the Italians, whose view on most issues appears to be que sera sera) was gripped by Y2K frenzy for much of the late 1990s...only to be disappointed when the computers of the many countries (mostly in Asia) who believed the "Y2K deniers" like Bill Gates carried on just as smoothly as those in countries (like Britain, Germany and the US) who had swallowed the disaster scenario hook, line, and sinker. And today, we're confronted with the specter of Climate Change destroying us.

One common thread in all these manias is that we're all doomed...unless we repent our wicked ways and follow the "correct" creed. Another is that time and reality tend to prove them false.

In hindsight, the Y2K panic seems silly and unnecessary.

But in hindsight, most fears seem overblown. And our tendency to overdo things tends to distract us from the things that we really need to fear: Hitler in the 1930s, for instance; or Islamic extremism today.

Shakespeare was right, though: we are "a piece of work." It would be nice if Man really were "noble in reason" and "infinite in faculties." I guess we're simply a work in progress.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Time and Relativity

2009-12-31T12:37:00.002-05:00

Sitting here at my computer, I keep wondering where this year went.

It was a year of major changes in my life: retirement and a new house foremost among them. Not to mention several major cases that seemed to drag on forever. But despite the press of events, the year just seemed to vanish into thin air.

When you're as young as my granddaughter, when a week is a sizable chunk of your own personal universe, time seems to move at the pace of a glacier. But as you get older, and one day blends into the next, the days all rush by in a blur, and the end of each year leaves you wondering...where did it go?

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Barney Fife is Alive and Well, and Working for the TSA

2009-12-29T06:35:00.004-05:00

Perhaps it's just me.

Oddly enough, I'm not not at all surprised that the same Travel Gestapo --- until now primarily known for keeping 3-month old infants off planes because they have the same name as a terrorist, and making everyone take off their shoes when the pass through security --- somehow mananged to let Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab pass onto a plane bound for Detroit...and almost blow it up.

Determined to be politically correct, the TSA won't profile passengers, to pay attention to those who may actually pose a threat. Instead they waste everyone's time, including their own, pretending to make everyone safe, rather than taking the steps necessary to ensure it.

Fortunately, this Mad Bomber Wannabe was too inept to cause the damage he intended. For that we have to thank the passengers and crew of the Flight he was on for rising up and stopping him themselves.

I think we could all do with a deep breath, and a bit more common sense.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Global Warming Activists Battle an Inconvenient Blizzard

2009-12-17T20:20:00.002-05:00

Coming on the heels of Al "I Invented the Internet...and Global Warming, too Come to Think of It" Gore's two surprise announcements in recent days --- first, that it's several million degrees only a few miles under the earth's surface, which shocked geologists everywhere; and second, that a climate expert is predicting... that there will be no more arctic ice in five years, which came as a complete shock to the scientist Gore cited --- there appears to be an inconvenient blizzard blanketing Denmark.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Musical Disappointments

2009-12-08T10:55:00.001-05:00

I missed our first concert over the weekend: my voice was gone, and I seem to have been developing a touch of bronchitis.

I went to the doctor yesterday, and am currently on meds. Already, I feel like I've turned a corner...though I'm not sure it isn't due to the "placebo effect."

Looking back, I think this is only the third or fourth concert I've missed in my entire 50+ years of singing...and only the second missed due to illness. I didn't get a chance to sing my solo...but all in all, I guess I should consider myself lucky to have such a good batting average.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Another Year Older and Deeper in Debt...(with apologies to Tennesee Ernie Ford)

2009-11-23T20:11:00.008-05:00

Well, another birthday is here: that's fifty-eight and counting. (Actually, fifty-nine, if you count from the opening bell, but who am I to buck convention).

The past year has been full of surprises: an unexpected retirement; a new house; no vacation (partly due to the press of time from my consulting contract at the office...and partly because of an aging dog that we couldn't leave with anyone else); a broken hand; two new books to publish---and, on top of everything else, a new house with a new mortgage to replace the already-paid for one, and a whole new and totally unexpected set of adventures.

A lesser man would whine and complain about the upheaval and turmoil...and to be honest, that's probably what I'm going to be doing for the next year or so. But there is also much adventure lurking in the shadows of the future. And so that's what I'm choosing to focus on: writing, reading, thinking, traveling...and doing something completely different from what I've been used to all my life.

If nothing else, it won't be boring. If I'm lucky, it will be a turning point in an already-full life, that will take me beyond the comforts that I've know, and into an enriching and exciting future.

And so...my fifty-seventh year proved eventful in many ways.

May the adventure continue....

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Closings and Openings

2009-11-16T20:24:00.002-05:00

We closed on our new house today.

It's been stressful...but Nonie is quite excited by the notion of moving out into the country---and, to tell the truth, her enthusiasm is infectious. (I, of course, am immune...but as long as the finances stay under control---and we don't let ourselves become slaves to the place---I think it'll be fun, too).

We ended the day by changing the lock on the front door...and coming back to Livonia. We're both sad at the prospect of leaving the house where we raised our children...but excited by the prospect of adventures to come.

Tomorrow's the Day

2009-11-15T20:04:00.004-05:00

We close on our new house tomorrow; Nonie and I are both a bit nervous---she about all the work the place will be; me about all the money we'll be spending (since our current house is all paid for)...as well as all the time it will take away from writing.

At the same time, we're both pretty excited. It promises to be a fun and enjoyable shared adventure.

I'm already doing the legal research to sue someone for breach of promise it if turns into a disaster for us.

Stay tuned to this channel for further details.

Trying to Close

2009-11-13T10:43:00.004-05:00

Under the heading of "Why Plan Anything, Since Things Neverr Go As Planned"...we now have our real estate experience of 2009 to file away as an exhibit.

We'd planned on closing on Monday...and were getting things ready...when a not-entirely-unpredictable paperwork snafu arose: nobody had actually put Nonie's name on the purchase agreement yet, and this has sent the California Bank that actually owns the property into a tizzy.

Things should be straightened out in relatively short order...and it should still happen early next week. But it would be nice if things actually worked out as expected, every once in a while.

Moving on Out

2009-10-26T11:21:00.002-04:00

Another update in the world of real estate: we're sending back the paperwork on our mortgage.

Yet another step toward debt...and the promise of a wonderful house in the country.

The Decline and Fall of Common Sense

2009-10-12T12:15:00.002-04:00

In yet another assault on the out-moded notion of common sense, a school district suspended a student for bringing along a cub scout implement a kid was proud of---and eager to share with his friends.

I shudder to think what this country will be like in another decade or two, unless we find a way to shake off our fear of the world...and embrace life, rather than cowering in some corner, so afraid of each passing shadow that we miss the show.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Last Tango in Frankenmuth

2009-10-07T23:27:00.001-04:00

Today ended what is probably my last Appellate Specialists Conference...up in Frankenmuth, Michigan.

It's been a yearly tradition for as long as I've been a prosecutor: the state's best and brighest appellate lawyers coming together to share ideas and camaradarie.

And...as had been developing as a tradition...the Wayne County Brain Trust---with the addition now of Dave McCreedy and Lori Palmer, two of the bright younger attorneys who'll be taking our places, along with various spouses and other relatives---got together on our last night for a rousing game of some sort. This year, as often in the past, it was "Catch-phrase," played while bemoaning the fate of the Tigers in the post-season baseball playoffs.

I'll miss it...and may try to stop by at future conferences. But...life does move on. And with a new house and new responsibilities...who knows?

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

New Beginnings

2009-10-07T20:31:00.002-04:00

As recently reported a move may be in the works...to White Lake Michigan.

The Bank appears to be eager to move on a glorious piece of property...and accepted our fire-sale price offering.

Now...the "fun" begins: paperwork, mad scrambles to finish projects at our current house...and worry about taking on debt---and a bigger house---just as most sane people would be scaling back.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Transitions

2009-10-01T07:56:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was Olga Agnello's last official day with the Prosector's Office. Unfortunately...due to a broken hand caused by a misadventure on the soccer field...I couldn't be there to see her off.

Olga was a prosecutor for nearly as long as me: she started in the early 1980s, and along with Jan Bartee, Tim Baughman, and myself she quickly established herself as part of the Appellate Brain Trust of the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office.

Over the years her talents, wide-ranging interests, and sense of humor brought a classy touch to the office. And for the last six months, she, Jan, and I have shared an office together...making these last few months together all the more special.

But...life goes on. She'll be travelling and moving on...as will we all, before long. Here's hoping we're able to stay in touch, and keep our friendship alive.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Babysitting in the Nanny State

2009-09-30T19:31:00.003-04:00

Helping out a neighbor has always been a hallmark of American life. From barn-raisings to stump-pullings in the day of the frontier, to keeping an eye on the neighborhood kids, we've always put a premium on being helpful and generous with those living close to us.

At least, until now. Now...it seems that it's against the law. At least in the state of Michigan. It seems that our "Nanny State" doesn't like the competition.

A story making the rounds tells the tale of Lisa Synder, a neighborhood mom in suburban Grand Rapids, who was trying to help her neighbors by watching their kids as they wait for the schoolbus. That way, everybody thought, her neighbors could head off for work on time, and her helpfulness could help make everyone feel better about living in such a nice neighborhood. Unfortunately, the State views this as unlicensed "day care"---and has threatened to throw her in jail if she doesn't cease and desist.

Now that the story has hit the airwaves, the politicians are falling over themselves trying to find a way out from under the ridicule. Michigan's beleagured governor, Jennifer Grandholm, has instructed the head of the state's Department of Human Services --- the same agency that threatened the mom with jail --- to "work with the Legislature" to remedy the situation.

This is, of course, a welcome step --- and, given the state's dismal economic state, anything that helps people get to work on time would be applauded by anone with an ounce of sense. Unfortunately, there appears to be no legislation that can require bureaucrats to use common sense...or prevent people wanting to feel important from misusing laws intended to protect people to oppress them, instead.

But...at least in these days of instant communications, we're able to see the pratfalls of the policitians as they try to scamble out from under their own sense of self-importance.

Too bad we can't pass a law to make people think.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Casa Nueva Caminsky???

2009-09-27T20:32:00.003-04:00

Well...Nonie and I went ahead and put in an offer on the house we've been looking at in White Lake: 4-1/2 acres, rising to the house on the hill, just outside of Milford.

I'm not completely sure that this is such a wise move. OUr current house is paid for...and the new one could prove to be a money pit. Since it's actually a bigger house, the utility bills will probably be higher. There are lots of repairs needed. I really wanted to spend most of my time reading, and writing, and traveling. And the Universe around Livonia seems so well-ordered and predictable.

But life is largely a shared adventure. And the place really is quite lovely. So, if the bank is desperate enough to take what we think we can afford, we may be moving out into the country.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Voices from the Past

2009-09-27T06:39:00.003-04:00

I attended my 40th high school reunion last night...at the lovely Howell spread of Jim Draffen, one of our classmates. His "Rockin D" Ranch was a magnificent venue...and it was one of the nicest reunions we've ever had. It was very touching to see so many faces from the past...see how they've changed, how life has treated them, and how we've all learned so much through the years.

Among the things I leared was that I was one of a handful of kids who actually liked high school. I suspect it may have been because I was so terrified of girls: I had music, and sports, and books, and studies to occupy my mind instead of teenaged angst and the various "coming of age" crises. And, it seems, I was blessed by an unusually gifted set of teachers---experiences which, it seems, not all of my classmates shared.

Too bad we can't all press "reset," take a Mulligan, and have another go. Maybe, just maybe, we'd get it right this time.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The Voice of Forever

2009-09-17T11:00:00.002-04:00

Ernie Harwell returned to the ball park to say his goodbyes last night.

For as long as I can remember, he was the voice of the Detroit Tigers. He had just come to town when I began falling in love with the game. I can remember when he was teamed with the also-new George Kell, sharing radio and TV duties together.

Through the years, he was a constant presence...a constant reminder of when I was a young boy...an older boy...a young man...and now, a middle-aged man, with aging parents, who has noticed Time watching over his shoulder every now and then.

There are landmarks to every life: birthdays, vacations, the first day of school...then, before long, graduations, weddings, and eventually funerals. But through it all, a constant presence has been Ernie Harwell, the voice of the Tigers. Now, with cancer racing through his aging body, his voice will soon leave us.

Thanks, Ernie...as you requested, we'll try not to cry when you're gone. Instead, we'll simply try to remember...as we try to feel as young at heart as you always were.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Jeff in the Legal News

2009-09-15T13:10:00.002-04:00

A very nice article appeared about me in the local Legal News yesterday.

It was written by Jeanine Matlow, a freelance writer I know, who belongs to my writer's group, the Ridgewriters. Apparently, my story interested her editors enough to have Jeanine do a write-up.

I've been getting calls and congratulations all day. It's nice to be noticed; now, all I have to do is start selling a few more of my books.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Attorney General Opens Torture Probe

2009-09-01T11:09:00.003-04:00

n light of Attorney General Holder's decision to align this country with the practice common throughout the world of trying to imprison a new ruler's predecessors, there is no telling where the chips will fall. Onion News Network's panel of experts explores one possible aspect of this new policy.

Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture?

Republican leaders have, so far, declined to comment on developments.

Actually, the Democrats haven't commented either...but that's beside the point.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

New Horizons in Embarrassing Your Kids

2009-09-01T11:04:00.002-04:00

This is the season when a lot of parents are sending their kids off to college. As Onion News shows, this doesn't mean that we can't continue to be a constant source of embarrassment to them. All it takes is Facebook...and a little persistence.

Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids

Stay tuned for further updates....

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Government, Inc?

2009-08-29T17:08:00.003-04:00

In his book Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America, Mark Lloyd, the Obama Administration's Communications Diversity Czar, proposed funding public radio through a tax on commercial radio stations. Invoking the spirit of Saul Alinsky, an icon of the radical left, Lloyd insisted that the history of communications in this country is a history of control by corporate interests. And Lloyd's proposed use of the tax on commercial radio to fund "regional offices" organized to monitor political advertising and commentary, among other things---is sending chills through the conservative blogosphere.

Most people familiar with the internet know that nobody is in control---and frankly, most of us like it that way. The Government is busy enough making a mess of the things it currently has on its hands without looking for new ways to make a hash of things. And given the current angry, skeptical mood of the country these days, it is doubtful that a proposal of this sort could survive the light of day...though, given the current raft of thousand-page bills that nobody in Congress seems to read these days, I suppose that anything is possible.

It is, of course, entirely possible that the entire frenzy is merely a visceral reaction to hyperbole and overstatement by the other side. Now, faced with the responsibility of governing, Mr. Lloyd will find that it was a lot easier to spout off idealistic rhetoric when he didn't have the responsibility of seeing whether his ideas would actually work.

But as I see it, the real concern is whether the Government will be attempting an "end-around" the First Amendment to muzzle voices that it finds objectionable. The means used would be the tax laws wrapped in the language of "diversity"...either of language or skin color, but the objective will be to bring an end to talk radio.

If the Government is merely trying to "expand" access to the means of communication, then the Obama Administration may well propose a modest subsidy to permit new voices to be heard, and give them a chance to win over an audience, but they will do nothing to interfere with the broadcasters,themselves. If they are trying to "muzzle" speech, then their tactic will likely be taxing or otherwise punishing those who are raising dissenting voices: ie, the conservatives, and particularly the conservative radio talk shows.

Part of the problem is that so many people seem to misperceive the role of the Government, though. The Government does not exist to "protect our rights." It exists to protect our society---from crime, from foreign enemies---and to permit people to liberty to set their own destinies. The Founders cautioned that power is always seeking to advance, and that Liberty is usually seeking nothing more than to be left alone.. As a consequence, institutionalized power --- ie, the Government--- needs to be contained, or it will attempt to swallow liberty.

Government itself is neither good nor bad...but is necessary for liberty to thrive. But viewing Government as a "protector of rights" is dangerous: the rights contained in the Bill of Rights were written down to guard against intrustion by the Government. It was felt that only by setting them down clearly on paper---as the fundamental charter of the land---would we be able to keep Power within safe limits. People are fully capable of protecting their own rights...since "rights," if properly understood, impose limits not on private conduct, but on intrusions by the State (aka, "Big Brother," aka "Big Government). This is distinct from a "mandate," by which the Government attempts to control conduct directly through the use of statutes or other forms of regulations. When "mandates" intrude on "rights"---as if, for instance, the Government imposes a "fairness doctrine" to compel people to subsidize what it defines as a fair mix of viewpoints---problems arise. And when the Government tries using its coercive power to restructure society in a way that most people oppose...then we have tea parties, rowdy town hall meetings, and citizen revolts.

Some suggest that the Government's efforts would not be to restrict free speech, but only to "expand the accessibility" to free speech. But if I own a radio station that the Government takes away because it disapproves of the political content of the opinions I'm airing, how is that not "restricting" my First Amendment rights? And how is that different from the "free speech" rights in Venezuala...or Cuba...or the Ayattola's Iran...or even Soviet Russia?

Mark Lloyd is proposing to increase the broadcast subsidies "to levels commensurate with or above" those of commercial broadcasting. If the People of this country are agree, and want to provide subsidies out of their tax dollars (rather than bail out the banks, or the car companies, or fund Heath Care Reform, or do any of a number of things that the Administration is simultaneously insisting are vitally needed), then so be it. But as I understand it, that is not his proposal: he wants to impose a tax equal to 100% of the operating budget of the commercial radio stations, as the means of "leveling the playing field."

It is, of course, possible that his ideas are not actually intended to drive commercial radio out of business, leaving only government-run stations in operation. It is entirely possible that he is so ignorant of the principles of economics that he does not realize the consequences of what, to him, is merely pretty, idealistic rhetoric. But when I see these sorts of ideas emerging from the shadows, at the same time I also see Washington moving to take over the banks, the auto industry, the health care system, and God-knows what else, I think it's time to slow down the politicians before they do some real damage...and to have a real discussion about what we want this country to be: Government of, by, and for the People; or Government, Inc.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Cash for Refridgerators?

2009-08-24T11:36:00.004-04:00

Coming on the heels of the "Cash for Clunkers" program---which saw the Federal Government induce car dealers to give away billions of dollars to induce people to buy this year cars that they were going to buy next year---reports are surfacing that the next installment is already on the drawing boards.

Not content with giving away money to car buyers, Congress appears on the verge of giving away tax dollars to those who may be in the market for new household appliances. And now that the Bailout Bandwagon is fully engaged, there appears to be no end in sight.

Assuming a similar reaction to the "Cash for Refridgerators" program---whereby thousands of consumers rush to take advantage of all this "free money," at least one taxpayer wonders where it will all end. If "Cash for Clunkers" leads inevitably to "Cash for Refridgerators," can "Cash for Trash" be far behind?

Though my wife insists that I'm just looking for an excuse for forgetting to put out the trash cans on Wednesday nights, I'm already starting to stock up. Before long, we should have enough stored up to be able to afford a very nice mansion somewhere on the coast.

The only glitch may be if house prices recover. But from where I'm sitting, the odds of that happening any time soon are pretty remote...and certainly no better than the likelihood that sanity, or fiscal responsibility, will return to Capitol Hill in the near future.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Problems Avoided

2009-08-24T10:31:00.003-04:00

Nonie and I have been thinking of moving. Despite a home that's fully paid-for, the thoughts of relocating after retirement were becoming a greater part of our thoughts and conversations since I retired. Usually, those thoughts involve a bit more usable land, and a house with all the living quarters on the main floor. But we'd stumbled across a piece of property a ways outside of town---which had a much bigger house than we thought we'd be buying...and needed a bit of work...but which struck both of us as a place we could really settle into.

Things often have a way of working out for the best. Today, we'd planned on looking at a house, on 4-1/2 tranquil (and foreclosed) acres near Milford. Just before heading out, the realtor called to tell us not to bother: someone else had just made an offer.

Rather than gnashing our teeth over what might have been, I'd rather think of "problems we avoided": house payments on a money pit...and a house that would be keep us toiling from dawn to dusk, far away from friends and family.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

How to Avoid Getting Bored on a Shopping Trip

2009-08-20T12:56:00.006-04:00

I wish I could take credit for this, but I must confess it came from a friend of mine---one of my soccer buddies, who received it from one of his own friends (who undoubtedly received it from some other source on the Internet). In the interests of journalistic integrity, I feel constrained to protect my source from possible repercussions (mostly from the half of the human race that may not be amused by some of the assumptions underlying the piece...as well from the roving bands of the Politically Correct Thought Patrol that seem to be roaming the country), though if he chooses to reveal himself, he can rightly claim credit (or take the blame) for bringing the matter to my attention.

My contribution, modest as it is, consists merely of editorial revisions, as well as a few words of introduction:

Early in my retirement, it has become readily apparent that there is an aspect of a man's "golden years" that is never mentioned, nor touched upon by any retirement planning seminar that I have ever attended.

I'm talking, of course, about accompanying the wife on a shopping excursion.

Like most men, I find shopping quite boring (aside from the occasional trip to the computer or sporting goods store; trips to the home improvement store are uaually quite tolerable as well, as long as we steer clear of the wallpaper section), and prefer to measure by trips by the minute: quick in, quick out---and if the trip is properly planned, it's usually over in five minutes or less...depending on the line at the check-out.

Unfortunately, my wife, like many women, seems to regard shopping as a recreational event, and prefers to browse endlessly, often with little regard to the time cost of comparing the price at Kroger, for example, with the cost of the same item at WalMart. Saving twenty cents on a can of spaghetti sauce may leave some with a sense of triumph; but factoring in the cost of gas to drive from one place to the other---as well as the man-hours consumed in hunting down both items (quite aside from the driving time from one store to the other...and the mental energy spent in noticing and agonizing over the cost differential)---makes the whole enterprise problemmatic at best. And, considering the opportunity costs (time spent shopping isn't available for other pursuits...such as watching the ball game or napping), the advantages of this form of entertainment seems dubious at best.

Still, there is value in keeping peace in the house. And to this end, there are a number of things we can to to pass the time, and amuse ourselves while the love of our life is busy indulging herself:

How to Avoid Getting Bored on a Shopping Trip:
A Man's Guide to Comparison Shopping
1. Take two dozen boxes of condoms and place them in other people's shopping cars when they aren't looking. (For an added bonus, try to base your selection on either the mischief factor, or the unexpected compliment factor: placing the box in the cart of an 87-year old woman will have a different effect than placing it in the shopping cart of a pompous-looking socialite with a docile husband and moody teenager in tow. The choice between the two will depend on how evil your sense of humor is).

2. Set the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.

3. Leave a trail of tomato juice on the floor, ending at the women's restroom.

4. Go to the service desk and try to put a bag of M&Ms on layaway.

5. Move the "CAUTION---WET FLOOR" sign to a carpeted area.

6. Set up tents in the camping department of a department store. Tell the passing children of various inattentive shoppers that they can use them if they bring in pillows and blankets from the bedding department. (Score one point for each child who obliges).

7. When a clerk askes if she can help, begin crying and scream: "Why can't you people just leave me alone?" before running off to another part of the store.

8. Go to the hunting department and start looking at various kinds of ammunition. When the clerk offers to help you find something, ask where the antidepressants are.

9. Dart around the store while loudly humming the theme from "Mission Impossible."

10. Hide in a clothing rack; whenever another shopper begins to browse, holler, in a high-pitched voice: "Pick me!! Pick me!!"

11. When an announcement comes over the loudspeaker, assume the fetal position while screaming: "Oh no! The voices! It's those voice again!!!"

12. Go into the fitting room. After three minutes, begin to holler: "Hey! There's no toilet paper in here!"

CAUTION: Listing implies no recommendation or endorsement of any activity listed. Activies listed can pose significant dangers to one's heath, happiness, marital status, continued employment, or criminal record. Participant assumes all risks, dangers, and liabilities from engaging in any activity. Not all options are available in all locations.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Gitmo North

2009-08-13T20:27:00.002-04:00

I went on the "Ebling and You" radio show again, to discuss the visit of Federal officials to Michigan's Standish Prison, north of Bay City.

It's always nice to get on the air; I even got to plug my upcoming book, Clouds of Darkness...though I'll be grateful when the book is actually out in print.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, writes on a wide range of topics. His books are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Seeing a Story in Print

2009-08-11T17:38:00.003-04:00

This month, the Michigan Bar journal published my short story, "Crucible of Justice." It was one of the winners in their 2009 Biennenial Short Story Contest. (Another one of my stories, "Crapshoot," was a winner in their first competition, back in 2007).

It's sometimes hard to describe the feeling you get when you see your work in print. Part pride, part astonishment...a writer is often so busy thinking and polishing and agonizing over minute details that it's sometimes hard simply to sit back and wonder about the human mind, and its capacity to create beauty out of nothing.

Of course, we can also create a lot of ugliness...and a lot of writing is pretty damn ugly.

Just the same, it's nice to get a pat on the back, now and then. And the warm blow inside from seeing one of your "babies" doing well is one of life's pleasures.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Congressional Clunkers

2009-07-31T15:44:00.003-04:00

It was supposed to help jump-start the auto industry, as well as help the environment.

The big-budget Car Allowance Rebate System—“CARS” in governmental acronymic; “cash for clunkers” in the vernacular—was a billion-dollar system intended to last through October. Low-mileage but otherwise perfectly operable cars were to be cashiered—literally crushed out of existence—in exchange for a $4,500 rebate. This rebate would be redeemed at car dealerships, and used to encourage customers to buy new cars from an auto industry in such serious trouble that much of it is owned by the Goverment.

It started last week, on July 24th.

Of course, destroying all those perfectly usable cars means that the price for a used car is likely to skyrocket—meaning that people needing to buy a cheap car (such as college kids, or the poor), may well be priced out of the market.

It also means that a lot of cheap used parts that used to be available to fix cars in need of repair won’t be available—driving up the cost of maintenance.

And as far as I know, nobody has studied whether destroying a quarter-million cars and replacing them with brand new ones, built in pollution-emitting factories, results in a net benefit to the environment.

Now, a week later, the program is out of money—possibly leaving dealerships holding the bag for all those now-destroyed cars. That probably won’t be much of a help for any of them. Or, for that matter, for the auto industry...unless all those customers who were rushing for all that free cash actually were new customers who materialized out of thin air, rather than people who just moved their purchase ahead by a few months to try to pick up some of the "free money" that the Government was tossing around.

Maybe it’s just me. But it seems funny that the geniuses in Washington couldn’t anticipate that giving away "free money" wouldn’t result in people making a mad rush to claim it. (Of course, I keep thinking that the money isn't really free: it comes from taxpayers---many of whom would probably rather just keep it in their own pockets. Of course, I'm not looking at it from the lofty perspective of Congress).

And...I guess maybe it is just me. But the fact that a program designed to last four months ran out of money in less than a week doesn’t exactly make me anxious to see just how accurate the cost projections for health care reform turn out to be.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Self-Interest and the Public Good

2009-07-28T13:13:00.004-04:00

There is always much talk about the "public good." Unfortunately, those doing the talking are often talking in code...and somehow the code usually involves spending lots of money.

The "public" doesn't just include the poor. It includes all of us...including Wall Street, agri-businesses, tobacco farmers, and everyone else with their hand out, or looking to accept the pork barrel spending of Congress, and willing to "ante up" for the privilege. But while everyone was quick to point to the abuses and failures in the welfare system, few people noticed that exactly the same effect was being produced further up the ladder. It's just a lot more expensive---and, until now, it was largely hidden from view.

If we're dealing with a small group---a family, a tribe, a town---we don't have the same problems. When everyone knows everyone else, there are fewer opportunities to shaft your neighbor, since there is a human face to the person you're cheating, and it's impossible to avoid detection, anyway. Once we move to larger communities, or big countries like the modern United States, then "taking" from someone else becomes an anonymous act. And if you can structure the law in such a way as to make theft of other people's money completely legal, it can become all too tempting to rationalize away any moral dilemmas about doing so. When legalized theft becomes the norm---and, I think, much of what we've seen on Wall Street and Capitol Hill qualifies---then the country is in big trouble. It leads to a sense of entitlement to the fruits of other people's labors, and crossing that threshold is a dangerous step for any country...especially a democracy.

There is nothing wrong with helping the poor, or trying to structure the government in such a way as to assist those in need. But when the system needs saints to work properly---presuming that no one would ever try to claim by right what they haven't really earned, and everyone is honest and honorable in their dealings with others---then it can't work on a large scale. That's why primitive communism can work in a family setting---or perhaps in a religious setting, where people are bound collectively together by a common faith---but it can never work as a basis for a complex society.

Any civilized nation needs to strike a balance between collective action and personal liberty. But there has always been a cycle to the lifespan of any democratic society in the past. And I'm afraid that without some far-sighted and resolute action, of a kind we haven't seen since our Founding and which I don't see on the horizon today, we may be nearing a major turning point...away from liberty, and toward dependence on a beneficent and all-knowing government. Sixty years ago, we called it "Big Brother," and it seemed a chilling portrait of a way of life that could never be; today, I'm not so sure.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The Curse of Interesting Times

2009-07-27T12:00:00.004-04:00

America is facing turbulent times and major challenges these days. Facing hostile enemies abroad, and economic and social challenges at home, we are faced---as in the ancient Chinese curse---with the prospect of living in "interesting times."

To be honest...and I hate to say this...but many of our current problems just reflect the reality that our country---or, at the least, the "elites" that define our country for us---has become. When Society started deeming it more important to protect "self-esteem" than to be concerned about accomplishments, I think we entered a very dangerous stretch of history.

Among the critical moments in a democracy is when the public realizes that it can vote itself money from the public treasury. For us, that moment came during the Great Depression, when we first turned to the Government to rescue us from an internal crisis. Over the last 75 years, we've seen the role of government gradually expanding, at the same time that cultural influences were undercutting our traditional notions of personal responsibility. Now, I think we're facing yet another critical moment...and it's not looking pretty.

At heart, I remain a hopeless romantic, and so I'm still not convinced that things will end in disaster. I hope, instead, that the public will recoil from the spectacles we see in Washington and Wall Street...cashier the lot of them...and start anew, having been chastened about being too trusting when it comes to spending public money. But I've also read about the various stages of development in a democracy---from Despotism to Liberty and back again---and we do seem to be a bit more than half-way through the cycle. And just as Rome collapsed as a result of its own excesses (and was promptly overrun by barbarians), I don't think America is immunve from the same fate, if we let ourselves be guided by our greed and passions, rather than our ideals and principles.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Symptoms of the Times

2009-07-21T20:57:00.003-04:00

As the American republic was taking shape, the Founders conceived of the primary purpose of Government to be the protection of Liberty. This is why they placed strict limits on the central government, and were highly suspicions of centralized power. They wanted power close to the people, figuring that it would be easier to keep the government within its proper constraints. They also deemed "power" to be the enemy of liberty, and warned that people had to be constantly vigilant to ensure that "tyranny" never took root on American soil. For this reason, the federal government was consigned to duties that were "national" in scope---mostly defense and interstate commerce. Most important issues of public concern---including questions of public safety, welfare, and morality---were deemed the province of state or local government. And it was assumed that the fruits of one's labor belonged to the one who earned it.

Today, many of us seem to view the primary purpose of Government to be providing services to its citizens. The centralized Federal Government has largely taken over most issues of public importance, with the non-elected judiciary assuming an ever-greater voice in settling questions of public policy. And we are standing on the verge of a massive expansion of the Federal Government: having now largely taken over the auto and financial services industries, it is asserting a claim to take over and centralize the health care industry as well. Rather than looking to themselves to solve their problems, raise their families, and set their destiny, more and more people are looking to the Government to provide answers and solutions to whatever seems to be going wrong in society.

This trajectory of events bodes ill for the entire country. It tends to foster ever-greater dependence on the Government. And once the majority comes to view the power to tax as the power and means to redistribute wealth, it's a small step to Big Brother...where the Government controls every aspect of our lives.

Today, the current Health Care proposals seem to be shaping up as critical indicators: if our reforms move us more toward reestablishing the connection between the consumer (ie, the patient) and the provider (ie, the doctor)—moving to restore some semblance of a market, where decisions are made based on individual need and professional judgment—then we may be able to stave off disaster for another few generations...and let them carry the ball when they come of age. If, on the other hand, we move in the direction of centralized control, bureaucratic decision-making, and bean-counters in charge of medical decisions, then we may be seeing the beginning of the end for the American experiment in democracy.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Exceptionalism and American Politics

2009-07-21T11:00:00.001-04:00

There is much talk these days about American "exceptionalism"---the notion that America has been, throughout her history, different than other countries. While it's possible to overstate the differences, for more than two centuries this has been true...though, sadly, the differences are becoming harder to see.

The notion of "American exceptionalism" doesn't imply that the Founders were perfect. It merely recognizes that there was something unique about America---or the American experience---that made it different from Europe. It may have been the fact that people had to pull together to survive on the frontier; or the unique blend of Enlightenment thinking, frontier life, traditions of English liberty (such as they were circa 1700), and the chance for a fresh start an ocean away from the problems of the Old World. It's why America offered hope for the rest of the world...and why we often tend to look at things differently than most other countries.

Today, though, it often seems that we're becoming what we rebelled against: power is concentrating, abetted by corporate interests, who have their own reason for wanting a strong central government(it's easier to deal with than strong, innovative, and rising competitors), our politicians are becoming corrupted by it (a notion well known to the Founders...and one of the things that drove them crazy about being governed by England), and in some ways we're starting to become "just another country," rather than remaining true to our core principles, and the things that made us so different.

Of course, principles are often in the eye of the beholder. At the time of the Founding, English law drew distinctions between natural rights (eg, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), civil rights (eg, owning property, being able to contract), and political rights (eg, the right to vote, or sit on a jury), and a citizen's standing in the community determined how many of these rights he enjoyed. The Bill of Rights was intended to protect us from encroachments by the Federal Government, by imposing strict limits on Federal power, and up until the Supreme Court effectively rewrote the constitution in the 1960s, we made similar distinctions: while the "natural rights" were deemed part of every American's political heritage, the rest were deemed to be matters under state control. Unfortunately, the same problems that led to the Civil War also led to problems there: the South refused to grant full citizenship to blacks, which caused problems two hundred years ago, and vestiges of those problems remain today. In addition, the modern world presents its own challenges, the leaders we elect aren't always the wisest among us, and the world keeps pushing us along the path of least resistance---ie, the tendency to put problems off until later, and to elect politicians who make the biggest promises. As a result, things are a bit muddled today, as we sort through the proper relationships between state and federal power...and this has presented fertile grounds for mischief for the ambitious.

There are, however, dangers arising from trusting to a strong central government to protect us from strong, centralized corporate power. In the end, their common interest in controlling their environment is likely to make them allies, rather than antagonists...viewing the people more as pesky whiners rather than the people the Government is supposed to serve. And with the corruption rampant in Washington, I don't think we can really trust Congress to look out for our interests: regardless of party, they're mostly out for themselves...and even with the best of intentions, the concentration of power there is too seductive for most of them to resist.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

And That's the Way It Was

2009-07-18T17:25:00.003-04:00

There are many things we take for granted in this world. And many things that, when they are no longer, makes us feel old, or dated.

Walter Cronkite died yesterday.

He was the voice of the news for most of my earlier years---from when I was a kid, through law school, and on into my early days with the Prosecutor's Office in the 1980s.

He was honest, objective, dripping with integrity...all things that we're sorely lacking in our news media these days. But beyond this, he was a link to our past---to the days of radio and World War II, the Space Program and Edward R. Murrow, to a time when everything seemed possible, and America's greatest days seemed still to come.

We'll miss you, Walter.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Used Car Salesman in Chief

2009-07-17T18:25:00.003-04:00

Perhaps it's just me, but I'm getting sick and tired of being pushed into hasty decisions.

Over the past several months it seems that there has been a race to pass legislation through Congress without much thought. Last year, the TARP bailout was raced through in weeks---ostensibly because waiting to give us a chance to think about what we were doing would mean than any action in ridding the country of the "toxic assets" that the TARP funds were to buy up would come too late to stave off the disasters that were looming in the shadows.

Of course, once the bill passed, the Bush Administration got a few better ideas...and we still haven't spent all the money appropriated. Well...not to buy any toxic assets, at least. We still haven't gotten around to that...though that $700 billion dollars sure came in handy for Congress and the new Obama Administration, since they now had a ready source of funds to hand out as they saw fit.

As the new adminstration was about to take office, there was another push---this time for another $787 billion or so---which was passed less than a month after President Obama took office, before anyone in Congress had the chance to read it. Recently, the "Cap and Trade" bill passed the House---with 350 pages or so of amendments added in the wee hours of the morning after Michael Jackson died. That, too, had to pass immediately, before anyone could read it---this time, one presumes, so that the members of the House could attend to more important matters. Like watching the wall-to-wall, 24/7 coverage of the death of Michael Jackson.

Now, amid talk of a few more trillion dollars or so in various bailouts---to prepare the way for the Health Care Reform package that the President insists is needed to save us from imminent bankruptcy---there is a push by Congressional leaders and the Administration to enact the plan...NOW, before it's too late. Today, in the wake of a Congressional Budget Office report confirming what most people instinctively thought---that current health care proposals will cost an awful lot of money---there seems to be a renewed push to get this done in a hurry. The President insists that waiting will result in a catastrophe for this country and future generations...and only quick, bold action can save us.

It strikes me that we've been down this path before. Quite a few times in recent months.

And it's starting to sound more and more like the typical pitch from the local used car salesman---that we need to decide now, because if we stop to think about what we're doing, we'll miss this golden, once-in-a-lifetime chance, and spend the rest of our lives regretting it.

Again...perhaps it's just me. But despite the glowing rhetoric, and the loft notions advanced by the current crop of politicians, it's starting to sound more and more like the high-pressure tactics of the used car lot.

These tactics didn't save the auto industry from disaster.

I doubt that they'll lead the rest of the country to anything but grief, either.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Retirement?

2009-06-23T08:57:00.003-04:00

Nominally, I've been retired from my career at the Prosecutor's Office since March 1st.

As a practical matter...I've never had so much work-related stress in my life!

While retirement incentives are all well and good, from the perspective of the employer, there is one major downside: the more successful it is, the better the odds of brooming out everyone who knows what he's doing. In many respects, this is exactly what Wayne County has done: their executive retirement package was so successful it netted them the entire management of our appellate department---which meant that if we all left, there would be nobody to run the department. As a result, we're all back as "consultants"---effectively half-time employees, for the next year or so.

Unfortunately, my assignments haven't kept pace with the times: instead of working to help bring the "next generation" up to speed, I'm engaged in business as usual. And---what is particularly frustrating for me---I can't do the work I'm getting without coming in full time! Rather than backstopping the rest of the department, and working on things that can be accomplished in the two-to-three days per week I should be working, my assignments are long and complex, giving me the option of working half-time and accomplishing nothing, or devoting the time I need to the tasks I have, and blowing through my time in nothing flat.

The department head---Tim Baughman, who's also a personal friend---wants us to stick around until after the first of the year. But I'm already way ahead on the amount of time I've put in...and if the assignments don't change, I'm likely to be done by Thanksgiving.

All in all...it seems that retirement has increased my work-related stress.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Rule of Law at Risk in Chrysler Bailout

2009-06-09T13:49:00.002-04:00

It's easy to lose our heads in these perilous economic times. This is especially true since the car companies occupy such a large place in local affairs. Chrysler's bankruptcy is looming large in the public's eye, and here "money interests" are being pounded relentlessly for their supposed greed and intransigence. The Obama Adminstration is pushing a plan that would turn over a large chunk of the Company to the UAW, largely at the expense of secured creditors---including pension plans---who loaned Chrysler money. In the event of a bankruptcy, the Law says that they should be repaid first---with others standing in line, to see if there is anything left over. Lost amid all the clamor surrounding the auto companies and their woes, is the fact that there is a more honorable alternative to stiffing secured creditors in favor of political cronies.

The constitution requires payment of just compensation whenever private property is taken for a public purpose. If the Obama Administration is pushing secured creditors (such as the pension plan bond holders) aside for unsecured stakeholders (like the UAW), the alternative to setting aside the rule of law seems clear: use public money to pay off the secured debt (or, at least as much of the secured debt as they'd get if the Company were liquidated). This would have the effect of actually following the law, while at the same time making clear that it is the Government---and not the private parties involved---who is calling the shots.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Supreme Difficulties: The Appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court

2009-05-27T16:41:00.005-04:00

The big story in the legal profession this week is President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

Throughout the blogosphere, this is now a ranging controversy over her pending confirmation---which, given the current composition of the U.S. Senate, is assured...assuming that there are no hidden skeletons in her professional closet. Most of these discussions, though, appear to miss the real point. There is, to my mind, a big difference between whether someone "should NOT be confirmed" and whether they "SHOULD be appointed" in the first place: since Obama won the election, his choice should be honored in the absence of a clear reason not to confirm; but whether Sotomayor was the best nominee for the job is an entirely different question.

There's a lot about judges and the judiciary that it will be hard for non-lawyers to understand. To my mind her biggest test to date was Ricci v DeStefano (the New Haven firefighters case), which is, in many ways, a lesson in what is wrong with the American judicial system today.

In a nutshell...she was on a panel that gave very short shrift to the argument of the plaintiff that he was the victim of racial discrimination when the City tossed out the results of a civil service test---which had been designed to be racially neutral---because none of the top-scoring applicants were black. The lower court decision had ruled in favor of the defendants on a motion for "summary judgment"---which means, in layman's terms, that their claim was so lacking in merit that it didn't even warrant a trial (meaning that the judges had to accept all the facts alleged as true). A colleague of hers on the Second Circuit---a liberal judge appointed by Clinton, named Jose Cabreras---was outraged that the court didn't address the issues at the heart of the case, and it was only because HE wrote a dissent to the court's denial of rehearing en banc (before the entire circuit, rather than the three-judge panel assigned to the case) that the case got much press; otherwise, it may well have been buried in the thousands of other summary dismissals that come out of the courts, another unpublished summary dismissal at the trial court level followed by a routine summary affirmance.

To my mind, this suggests one of the following: (1) she is a partisan whose rulings will come from the "empathy" she feels with one side or the other (a possibilty also suggested by her YouTube comments at a seminar a few years ago...talking about federal appeals judges "making policy"); (2) she is intellectually dishonest, and was trying to bury the case by using language usually reserved for dealing with frivolous lawsuits (I've been the beneficiary of that myself often enough to recognize it...though the Michigan Court of Appeals has been better about trying to hide "tough" cases in superficial opinions in the last fifteen years or so); or (3) she can't recognize a "big issue" when it hits her in the head. Any of these would have meant that I wouldn't have appointed her, if I were the president. But none of them is a disqualification from office---nor, sadly enough, uncommon among judges in this day and age.

Having said that...I haven't studied the body of her work well enough to know whether the Ricci case is an aberration, or her usual way of doing business. What I've read suggests that she is usually yeomanlike in her work, and reasonably competent in her legal scholarship. I've also read pieces suggesting that her reasoning and writing isn't very "tight" (ie, well thought out and precisely written), and that her judicial temperament leaves a lot to be desired (ie, she has a reputation for being dismissive and abusive from the bench). I suspect that much of what will be written about her in the coming days will be written with a partisan pen...and I plan to double-check any facts I read, and ignore most of the conclusions (which I usually prefer to draw for myself).

None of what is said below speaks to anything I'd regard as important in a judge: I would expect most judges to rule on both sides of First Amendment, Civil Rights, and other issues...depending on the particular facts and law governing each particular case. And, with due respect for Obama, I don't regard "empathy" as a judicial qualification: if anything, it suggests bias, unless the judge feels "empathy" toward BOTH sides...meaning that he (or she) takes the time to understand the human dimension to the legal controversy, as well as the legal issues (something the Second Circuit didn't seem to show in the Ricci case). For me, assuming a bright mind capable of honest legal scholarship, the key qualifications are judicial temperament (ie, fair-mindedness and respect toward everyone who comes to court...and a recognition that being a judge is a privilege and a public trust, not a means to dole out rulings out of a subjective preference for one side or the other), and humility.

While I have a lot of reservations, I think it's too soon to judge her...and, as I said, the President is the one who gets to make the appointment, and I don't think "perfection" should be the standard.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The 2009 Caminsky Open

2009-05-25T14:36:00.003-04:00

I have seen a lot of changes this year: retirement that came from nowhere; a plummeting economy; new books that need marketing---leading to a host of new adventures.

Some things, though, never change: I still can't golf very well; but it's still nice to get together with my dad and brother to try.

We started the 2009 version of the "Caminsky Open" today, with my dad and brother Chris dragging me out at the crack of dawn on a holiday, to play our first round of the season at Livonia's Fox Creek Golf Course. I also got to break in my new set of clubs---a nice set of last-year's clubs that I got at a season-opening discount at one of the local golf stores.

Chris says that the clubs are "can't miss" and "highly forgiving"...though I certainly missed my share today. But I really can't complain: between the "forgiving" clubs, and our generous Caminsky Open Rules---unlimited Mulligans, discretionary adjustments on the lie (eg: if God had really wanted me to hit from there, He wouldn't have put a tree in the way), and penalty strokes optional---I managed an opening round 48 (for nine holes; actually, all three of us shot 48s. We think; Chris forgot to record several of the holes, so we recreated the scores for those holes from memory...which, being imperfect, had a margin of error of a couple strokes per hole).

And thus begins this year's Caminsky open....

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The Fannish Frontier

2009-05-24T23:02:00.001-04:00

I did a book appearance this weekend. Actually, it was a "book and notecards...well, and posters, too" appearance, at the MediaWest*Con convention in Lansing.

The event highlighted "fandom" from various formats---television, movies, books, and the like---and in various forms. I was the only author set up in the "dealer's room," and felt mildly out of place amid the "fan-zines" and some of the other Fandom Parephernalia, but the group was a friendly one, and I managed to sell quite a lot of stuff---including a half-dozen or so posters, several dozen notecards, and twenty of my books.

The experience was actually rather encouraging. I suspect my books and artwork might do better in a slightly different format---perhaps one more dedicated to space and science (though the floral and landscape cards sold well, and might do quite well at a local art fair). But the results were enough to make me look forward to the next outing, which will probably be at the Farmington Founder's Fair, or some other local arts and crafts show.

The only disappointment was that a friend who'd agreed to help man the table flaked out on me; but that was more than made up for by my wife's pitching in to help for part of the weekend---and my own discovery that I really didn't need the help in the first place.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Sci-Fi Show a Go-Go

2009-05-21T23:23:00.002-04:00

Well...we'll see how this science fictioneering goes: I suspect I'm forgetting half of what I should be doing---but at any rate, it should be fun and interesting. I just hope I don't spend the next three days getting a sore fanny, and longing for human company.

Watch this channel for updates.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

A Lack of Musical Taste

2009-05-21T20:18:00.004-04:00

Let me set the record straight:

I love classical music and enjoy good jazz. I like some Oldies...but my friends have always considered me something of a fuddy-duddy when it comes to music. And, until this season, I rarely watched "American Idol"...figuring that it was (a) a bit hokey, and (b) featured talent that wasn't really worth all the hoopla.

This season, was different.

This season, the show featured a number of very talented unknowns---who were also, it seemed, highly likable.

And this season, the show had a major star in the making, in the person of a well-mannered kid who is a natural performer---and whose performances were, in the main, bold, fresh, and electrifying.

This season belonged to Adam Lambert...at least, until the final vote---when the country gave the "title" to a very nice young man, who was also very talented. But, like the rest of the group, he didn't really belong on the same stage as the runner-up. (And, in what I regard as a telling comment---both on Adam's level of talent, and on the kind of human being that the "winner" is---even Kris Allen, in the aftermath of winning, was (a) shocked, and (b) falling over himself to say that the title really belonged to Adam.

This was a nice group...a very talented group...and an entertaining season.

It's too bad that the Final had to demonstrate a truth that we often forget: the Public, as a whole, suffers from a lack of musical taste.

Other than prejudice (it's reported that Adam was photographed kissing another guy...and his eyeliner suggests an "other-than-mainstream" orientation), it's the only reasonable explanation for choosing the star over the nice guy.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Sci-Fi Convention: MediaWest*Con

2009-05-20T08:45:00.004-04:00

Getting ready for the MediaWest*Con sci-fi convention later this week has led me to a couple of conclusions.

First---I'm really terrible at marketing. While writing is fun---and composing posters and note cards from photos and pictures is quite engaging---trying to find "clever" ways to market myself is for the birds. I hate puffing myself up---and it's frightening to face the prospect that, in the end, nobody will care. And that's really all marketing is.

On the other hand, the sci-fi show could be a lot of fun. I've never been to one before---much less participated with a booth---and I think we have a lot of fun and interesting stuff to offer. Besides my books, we have some rather stunning posters of the heavens, and notecards and posters from outer space as well as Planet Earth.

In the end, I'm kind of looking forward to it...though I really wish there were another way.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Bach's B-Minor Mass

2009-04-26T23:46:00.005-04:00

The world of music has many classic works, ranging from Beethoven and Brahms to the Beach Boys and the Beatles. A few musical works that stand as monuments to western culture: one of them is the B-Minor mass by Johann Sebastian Bach. It is perhaps the most difficult piece I've ever performed; it is also one of the most stunning.

The Madonna Chorale performed the B-Minor mass today, along with singers from the Archdiosis of Detroit, and younger singers from a local academy. We sang with a small orchestra at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, just north of Downtown Detroit---a church visited by John Paul II on his trip to Detroit, whos chair is on display in a corner of the church.

The performance went well...with a few exceptions: one of the tenors entered early in an exposed section during the last movement---a spot that had caused problems (including problems with this singer) in rehearsals---and owning to the increased sound, and the overlay of the orchestra, I wasn't able to pull us back together, as I often could in rehearsals. But, from what I could tell it wasn't terribly noticable to the audience---and we were able to get more or less back on track by the end of the piece.

One of our singers died last week, just after our first rehearsal at the Cathedral. He was a bass, named Patrick Wright, and he collapsed and died of a heart attack after returning from our first trip to the Cathedral. We dedicated the last song---a version of Dona Nobis Pacem, to his memory.

All in all, quite an exhausting season.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Good bye, Jeanie-O

2009-04-22T19:43:00.003-04:00

Today was the funeral luncheon for Jean Harriman, an old family friend.

Jean and her husband, Myles, owned the house next door to my grandparents' cottage on Potter's Lake, near Lapeer, Michigan. Their family, the Phelps family, and ours spent many pleasant summer days there, and over the years the Phelps, Harrimans, and Caminsky families were linked by bonds of friendship, and memories of carefree days when we were all very much younger.

Jean died last week, after a long illness. I drove with my parents to Merrill, Michigan for the luncheon---and was able to see Pam, the Harrimans' daughter, and Libby, their son, along with many of their friends are relatives.

It's sad when old friends pass, especially when the years have flown by and you've all but lost touch.

It's sadder to think that none of us is getting younger, and that our own days will come to an end.

Perhaps saddest of all is realizing that all too often, we get together with old friends only at funerals.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Judging Books by the Cover

2009-04-16T15:20:00.008-04:00

Last Saturday, a new singing sensation appeared on the world scene: she's a 47-year old, plain-looking British lady named Susan Boyle, a cheeky spinster who lives alone with her cat.

She appeared on "Britain's Got Talent," the UK's equivalent of American Idol. And she was being laughed at and dismissed by the audience, and the judges...until she opened her voice and began to sing "I Dreamed a Dream," from Les Miserables.

It's not often that a truly magical moment is captured on tape. Most modern television is overly commercial and overblown. But watching the reactions of the crowd and the judges---as their derision turned to cheers---is both touching and inspiring.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Goodbye, Bird

2009-04-14T08:21:00.002-04:00

It's yet another sign that Time waits for no one.

Mark "The Bird" Fidrych died yesterday, at his farm in Massachusetts. He died in an accident, while working on his truck.

In 1976, when I was still in law school, The Bird was a sensation in Detroit. In a year when the country was still reeling in the aftermath of Watergate, and an oil crisis and mideast tensions were sending shock waves through the American economy, Fidrych made us feel young and carefree and happy. His mannerisms on the mound belied a gifted athlete---who, however goofy he might be, was deadly serious when it came to pitching.

He was 19-9 that year, and the American League rookie of the year. Two years later, he was washed up---the victim of an injury, and a team hungry for talent that rushed him back into action before he had healed.

Today, the mideast is still a bubbling cauldron; oil is still casting shock waves through the ecomony---and the country is in economic and political turnmoil.

But now, we're no longer young. And The Bird is now gone...another sign that time is relentless. And, sooner or later, it catches up to all of us.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Book Review: Betrayal by Jaimey Grant

2009-04-12T13:44:00.004-04:00

Though I’m not a big fan of romance novels in general, I must confess that I have enjoyed the novels of Jane Austen. (In the interests of full disclosure, all my testosterone tests have come back normal, though the doctors did insist on double-checking the results). Even through the mists of a different era, Austen’s timeless insights into the dynamics of human relationships always struck me as intriguing. And as a history buff, her view of life in early 19th Century England and witty, biting sense of the contradictions in the society around her, always appealed to my more cerebral side, letting me rationalize my fondness for her writing. As a result, I approached modern novelist Jaimey Grant’s Betrayal with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism—curiosity about whether a modern writer could evoke a similar feel for relationships, and a mild skepticism about whether she could pull it off. What I found, to my surprise, was the delightful discovery of a modern author with both a deft feel for the period and an Austenesque depth of characters that was at once surprising and refreshing.

Betrayal tells the story of Lady Brianna Derring, a headstrong heiress, and the equally headstrong Adam Prestwick, whose attraction to her is unsettling to both of them. Trapped by the constraints of social convention, as well as Brianna’s conniving family, both are left to grapple with their conflicting and often frustrating emotions until a series of crises brings their feelings into the open. From there, human nature and convention are at war, as the two struggle to sort through the emotional swamps and social pitfalls that so often conspire to keep people apart—in our own day, as well as in Regency England.

Tightly paced and well-written, Betrayal offers an intriguing glimpse of life in the England of two centuries ago. The book is the first in the author’s series of Regency romances, and demonstrates both a sophisticated sense of plot and a graceful style of writing. And in the end, Betrayal leaves the reader anxious to see more of her work.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

An Echo from the Past: Beverly Park

2009-03-30T23:03:00.002-04:00

There is a movement afoot in the City administration to tear down the play structure at Beverly Park.

Fifteen years ago, I was on the Board of the group that built it. It cost more than $250,000 in donated money and services, and got the entire community together to build. And it was a magnificent structure---a dream playground built to tease the imagination, and to give kids the chance to run and play with no rules and few restraints. Over the years, the city failed to maintain it, and let it fall into disrepair---failing to provide even the minimal maintenance that would have kept it the crown jewel of the City's parks. Now, while the structure itself is still as solid as ever, it's in bad need of repair---and rather than fixing it, the geniuses that let it decay want to tear it down and replace it with a plastic playscape that looks cheap, and that few kids really enjoy.

At a meeting of the Livonia City Council, today, we had to start trying to convince a group of politicians that it makes more sense to spend a LESSER amount of money to fix it than to spend more money to tear it down and replace it with something inferior. I was the opening speaker, and our consultant followed with an outline of what the structure could be with some repairs. We made the City's plan look foolish and short-sighted...but there are no signs that the foolish, short-sighted people of the world are anywhere in retreat.

We'll see how this turns out; for now, it was enough that we did well...and by the turnout at the first of many meetings, we may have the Forces of Foolishness running scared.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The Current Forecast: Cold and Gray

2009-03-28T09:06:00.006-04:00

The Government, it seems, is up to its old tricks, ignoring pressing problems while solving problems that largely aren't there. This time, though, we may be stuck with an even bigger-than-usual bill for the mess.

Geithner's current plan contains a number of flaws, many of them flowing from the notion that our current problems are "fixable" through governmental action. From this neck of the woods, it seems that our problems---self-inflicted though they may be---are simply not amenable to quick fixes. Sadly, this means that we may be in for a long downturn, one that will not end until the excesses of the past---the overspending and speculation that came along with the wild rush after riches of the past fifteen years---have been paid for.

The Economist carries a piece on Obama's domestic shortcomings to date...which are beginning to become apparent. Unfortunately, though, there are no easy answers: if there were, we'd have done them already. And though it's depressing to think about it for too long, no "plan" we adopt will be perfect. And figuring out what we should do, and where we should go from here, will simply be the harsh and unavoidable ordeal of picking the least terrible from among a host of awful options.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

A Bully with a Badge

2009-03-27T17:53:00.005-04:00

Life in the Big City can be rough, and those of us in law enforcement often see humanity at its worst. Unfortunately, sometimes this brings out the worst in those charged to "Serve and Protect" the community. And it looks like this was the case in Dallas, Texas recently...where a police officer stopped grieving family members racing against death from seeing a dying relative for one last time.

We expect many things from our police officer: common sense is near the top of the list.

The Dallas police chief has apologized for the actions of the Dallas Police Officer, Robert Powell. Unfortunately, the family will never get back those precious minutes when life was slipping away.

Abraham Lincoln once observed that most people can stand up to adversity, but if you really want to test a man's character, give him power.

Unfortunately, not everybody passes the test.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Thinking Outside the Box

2009-03-25T21:12:00.005-04:00

As we face our current economic crisis, there is one obvious solution to all of our problems that appears to have escaped everyone's attention. It is far simpler than the ones presently being debated in Washington these days, but poses much less of a risk to our future well-being. And, from the looks of things, it stands just as good a chance of making things better, without carrying the added risk of sacrificing our principles for the sake of expediency.

If we simply sacrificed a virgin instead, we'd be doing no real harm to the economy. In fact, by diverting attention away from some of the counterproductive measures currently under consideration, we might actually help things along. And this could easily be turned into a "two-fer" kind of solution, since it would be just as effective at combatting Climate Change (nee Global Warming) as anything the High Priests are currently trumpeting, and far less costly.

And just thinking ahead, hoping to avoid any obvious pitfalls in the plan...in the event that we have problems locating a virgin, we could probably substitute a goat. Or, if we were really serious, a sheep. If I understand the protocol, goats and sheep don't have to be virgins. Historically, the fact that they had to spend so much time hobnobbing with Greek herders in the Good Old Days meant that the requirement simply never occurred to anybody). That's why they're the customary substitute in cultures where virgins are largely unavailable.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Goodbye to an Old Friend

2009-03-23T22:46:00.002-04:00

We buried Callie today.

She died last December, a week before Christmas. Seeing that she was starting to suffer as a result of a lengthy illness, Nonie and I took her for a last walk...and a last drive to the doctor, where she fell asleep in our arms.

Because of the business and bustle of the holidays, and the press of winter, we decided to postpone laying her to rest until the weather changed. Today, in the first days of a new spring, we took her to one of her favorite places on Earth---the Yanik Family Farm, just outside of Jackson. And there, on a hillside beneath some trees, we put her in the ground.

Jason was there too, needing the chance to say a last goodbye. And we all helped dig her grave, and lay her in her final bed.

I was all right until we took her out of the plastic bag the Vet had stored her in. But seeing her again brought back all the old memories---the playful puppy, the loving companion, the pure joy she showed whenever anyone returned...or showed her the slightest love or attention.

Partings are always sad; and losing someone you love, no matter what species she may be, is always painful.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Signposts on the Road to Disaster

2009-03-22T12:18:00.003-04:00

This past week wasn't a good one for those who still hold hope for America---or for the world.

We've seen the rampant greed demonstrated by the various bonus-laden Wall Street executives who led our economy into the sewer. Right beside them were a host of preening, self-important politicians, who gladly accepted whatever perks their fat-cat buddies were willing to slip them in order to look the other way. Between them, we have the American public---being led down the road to disaster by people we trusted to know what they were doing---and by the very people we elected to tend to the public welfare.

I really hate to say this, but I think that in many respects our current problems just reflect the reality that our country---or, at the least, the "elites" that define our country for us---has become. When it became more important to protect "self-esteem" than to be concerned about accomplishments, I think we entered a dangerous stretch of history for ourselves.

Among the critical moments in a democracy is when the public realizes that it can vote itself money from the public treasury. For us, that moment came during the Great Depression, when we first turned to the Government to rescue us from a crisis. Over the last 75 years, we've seen the role of government gradually expanding, at the same time that cultural influences were undercutting our traditional notions of personal responsibility. Now, I think we're facing yet another critical moment...and it's not looking pretty.

At heart, I remain a hopeless romantic, and so I'm still not convinced that things will end in disaster. I hope, instead, that the public will recoil from the spectacles we see in Washington and Wall Street...cashier the lot of them...and start anew, having been chastened about being too trusting when it comes to spending public money. But I've also read about the various stages of development in a democracy...from Despotism to Liberty and back again...and we do seem to be a bit more than half-way through the cycle. And just as Rome collapsed as a result of its own excesses (and was promptly overrun by barbarians), I don't think America is immune from the same fate, if we allow ourselves to be guided by our greed and passions, rather than our ideals and principles.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

A Modest Amendment

2009-03-19T20:51:00.003-04:00

Looking out over the morass that is currently the US economy, it is clear that changes are needed. Everywhere we look, greed and stupidity seem to reign supreme, and from the sounds of the squawks coming down from Capitol Hill, nothing seems likely to change. Blithely ignoring its own complicity in creating the mess, Congress is preening like an oversized, waddling turkey, with every member rushing to denounce the outrage du jour arising as a result of their various hastily-conceived, hastily-crafted, and never-quite-read-or-even-looked-at-too-closely bailout packages.

If produced and choreographed professionally, the result would be a hilarious, if wildly improbable farce, filled with pratfalls by the pompous and well-earned comeuppances abounding. Unfortunately, the price tag for this production is proving well beyond the means of its target audience. While it might be amusing at matinee prices, having the country pay the $1 trillion price of admission has removed most of the show’s humor, and left the troupe’s backers—the increasingly angry taxpayers of this country—up in arms.

The play’s traditional next act—sharpened pitchforks, hot tar, and plenty of feathers—strikes at least one observer as entirely too predictable. While venting outrage on the chorus line of fools and incompetents who led us into this mess may satisfy us for the moment, there is no guarantee that a new cast of characters would do any better. Replacing our current set of fools with another would, it is true, carry the advantage of sending the whole sorry lot packing. But just replacing them with an entirely new set of fools will hardly solve our problems. It might provide a few more sordid plot lines to the melodrama that American Politics seems to be trending toward, but it will do little to fix our present train wreck of an economy—or keep us safe in a world filled with people who hate us.

On the other hand, the simplest solutions often work best, merely because there is so little that can go wrong with them. So perhaps it’s time we tried applying to Congress a lesson in reality familiar to every small business owner or working parent. In short, giving to Congress a slice of life from the “little people” who appear to factor into none of their equations.

Congress and the President often pay lip service to the role of small business in this country. But they do not understand what real responsibility is like at the level where people work and earn a living. Unlike the Federal government, the millions of Mom & Pop operations in this country can’t live on non-existent earnings, year after year. They have to make their payroll. And pay their bills. And pay their taxes. And if there’s nothing left over for them to take home after all their expenses are met, they can’t simply print money to pay themselves.

Our elected leaders, on the other hand, have billions of dollars in other people’s money to play with. And can always get more—either by raising taxes, or by printing it. Predictably, this has led them to be a mite careless in their stewardship.

The solution, it seems to at least one petulant observer, would be to give them an “ownership stake” in the bottom line: simply put—they should be paid out of the money left over after paying all the bills. If there’s none left—if, for example, the country is running a deficit—then they’ll get an IOU for their salary. Just like all the naive taxpayers in California, who thought a tax refund entitled them to actual money. Or, better yet, in addition to the country’s thanks for doing such a wonderful job, they’ll just get a dollar. After all, if it’s good enough for the CEOs of the various and sundry failed companies we’re bailing out by the billions of dollars, it should be good enough for Congress—whose spending habits We The People have been bailing out for years. In fact, we could probably even raise their official salary: by the looks of things, it wouldn’t cost us anything. And who knows—we might even attract a few people to public office who knew what they were doing. Or some naive souls who still think of public service as a sacrifice made for the Public Good, rather than a means of helping friends and colleagues help themselves to other people’s money.

Of course, there may be a few bugs to work out. We wouldn’t, after all, want to let Congress guarantee their salary simply by jacking up tax rates too high. (That risk would be nearly as obvious as the risk of giving billions of our dollars without strings to people whose chief claim on the money is their ability to squander billions of their own dollars). So we might want to add a provision to restrict the Government’s share of our money to a reasonable amount—enough to do everything it needs to do, but not enough to get into too much trouble. Twenty percent of our Gross Domestic Product should do it (though the amount isn’t cast in stone; the modesty of this proposal does not, after all, include an immodest claim of infallibility). After all, that’s twice the amount they’d get if everyone simply “tithed” their income. And we could always include a provision letting Congress go above their new constitutional “Cap” by declaring a state of National Emergency—during which, of course, all elected Federal officials would gladly defer all but a nominal dollar of their salary until the crisis they led us into is passed.

Assuming that most state legislators would be more willing to impose some sort of control on Congress than they would be to face the pitchforks of their disgruntled constituents, getting three-quarters of the states to approve the amendment should pose few problems. This means that all we’d really need would be a two-thirds vote of each House—which, given their adamance that those in charge of failed companies should be willing to serve for a dollar a year, would only be a problem if hypocrisy dared to show itself publicly in the halls of Congress.

Proposed Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

(1) The salaries of the President, Vice-President, and all members of Congress shall be payable on the first day of January of each year, for the ensuing year. Such officers may elect to defer their salaries over the course of the ensuing year; the salary of newly elected officers will become payable upon taking office.

(2) Except for any officer mentioned in Section (1) who was newly elected to a first term of office during the preceding year, and notwithstanding any other provision of law establishing their salaries or other remunerations, neither the President, Vice-President, nor any member of Congress shall be entitled to draw more than one dollar ($1) in salary, in any year in which the budget of the United States runs, or is projected to run, a deficit. For purposes of this Section, all federal expenses, including trust funds and any and all special appropriations, shall be included in the calculation of a deficit. The refund of any salary paid to an affected officer during a year in which the budget is in deficit shall be payable by the officer to the Treasury of the United States on April 15th of the following year. Failure to make a timely payment of excess salary shall be grounds for removal from office.

(3) Except during times declared by Congress to be a National Emergency, the tax revenues of the United States shall be limited to twenty percent (20%) of the Gross Domestic Product, as calculated by the Department of the Treasury. Excess taxes collected shall be proportionately refunded by April 15th of the following year, unless Congress has established a proportional system of tax credits to accomplish the same purpose.

(4) During a time of National Emergency declared by Congress, the President, Vice-President, and all Members of Congress shall draw a salary of one dollar ($1) per year, until such time as Congress declares that the emergency is over.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

No Shortage of Blame for the Bail-Out Mess

2009-03-19T11:44:00.006-04:00

With fingers pointing in all directions, the nation's press and politicians are scrambling to assess blame for the lastest in an unending chain of blunders relating to the country's financial mess. Typical is a recent article in the Washington Post, in which the White House is determined to throw Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner under the bus.

This action comes as the Obama Administration seeks to avoid taking the blame for the failure of Congress to anticipate the level of irresponsibility that bailed-out financial giants like AIG would show, by using bailout funds to provide performance and retention bonuses to the executives and other geniuses who caused the mess in the first place.

In point of fact, it appears that the bonuses were specifically exempted from Federal limitations through an amendment crafted and sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut...who was among the vocal critics of the practice until he was reminded that it was the "Dodd Amendment" which allowed the bonuses. And, of course, the amount of money spent---roughly $150 million...or about 0.1% of the amount Congress approved for the hastily-crafted, unread, and essentially undebated bailout package---was too small for them to bother with. Chump change...or so it seemed to them at the time.

Of course, that was before everything hit the fan. Now, our elected leaders are trying to outdo each other in their expressions of outraged incredulity. Simply put, now that they are feeling the heat of an outraged country, Congress is pretending to be shocked---shocked!!---that companies would actually do what Congress permitted them to do. And to prove their outrage, there is talk afoot to impose a confiscatory tax to recoup any bonuses that the executives---some of whom no longer work for the firm that was giving them a "retention" bonus, and many of whom, being foreign nationals, are beyond the range of Congressional sputtering---are too unpatriotic to return.

Of course, changing the law after the fact is unconstitutional: the "Ex Post Facto" clause prohibits Congress from taking action to punish people after the fact. And the "Bill of Attainder" Clause forbids them from passing laws directed against specific people who have roused their ire.

Not that such legal limits will constrain anyone---the Constitution seems to be resemble a giant imaginary sieve these days, and is hardly a thing that politicians bother with when their own self-interest is on the line. But unless people wake up, all the fuss and feathers may very well succeed in distracting enough people to serve politicians' main aim: to divert attention away from themselves---all of whom share a significant share of the blame for our current troubles---and onto the shoulders of a convenient scapegoat du jour.

Of course, some of us keep hoping that the country will wake up and start paying attention to the fools and scoundrels we have in charge of things these days. But then again, some of us are just hopeless idealists...still struggling to hold on to a dream of what this country could be if its people were only wise enough to choose their leaders with the same care they use to pick their breakfast cereal.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Bipartisan Lunacy

2009-03-11T20:13:00.004-04:00

Though I still consider myself an idealist, and somethinng of a hopeless romantic, these days I never cease to be amazed by the lunatics of both political parties. From my chair, it looks like the Democrats are doing everything they can to make the Republicans look good; in fact, anyone with a short-enough memory might forget that the Republicans spent much of the last ten years destroying the myth that they were the party of "fiscal responsibility." I think they may well be messing up a once-in-a-generational chance to effect a tidal shift in US politics: figuring that power is of no use if they can't abuse it, they seem intent on shutting out the GOP from any real involvement in trying to figure a way through our current economic troubles, and are insisting on doing things their own way. If I'm right about the likely course of the economy for the next fiver or ten years---and what we're facing is more like 1932 than 1982---then they're likely to own the economic mess that's coming, whether or not they had the power to prevent it. And just like most people have forgotten (or never actually knew) about the Dems' complicity in the meltdown, if things keep getting worse they're likely to forget about the role the GOP played in letting everything spiral out of control. After all, the Republicans' sins of the recent past merely involved bungling a war and squandering hundreds of billions of dollars. The new Democratic Adminstration started out by moving a deciminal point out an additional level on the deficit, and they seem intent on making blunders of their own throughout the rest of the world.

All in all, I 'm starting to wonder if we'd be better off selecting our "elected leaders" by lottery, rather than electing them. We certainly don't seem to be doing such a bang-up job of picking them out by ourselves. Despite my high hopes from Obama, he now seems bent on consorting with the lunatics of his own party. And I'm starting to wonder whether random chance might not at least give us a chance of putting someone in charge with a grown-up's sense of responsibility.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

A New Chapter Begins

2009-03-01T21:00:00.004-05:00

Today marks the official start of my retirement from the Prosecutor's Office.

I had to get up early, to go to Ann Arbor for a class on repairing books.

Tomorrow I get up early, to go back to work at the Prosecutor's Office...preparing for my next big case.

And then Tuesday, I get up early again to go to Lansing, to argue a case in the Michigan Supreme Court.

From at least one retiree's perspective, this new chapter reads a lot like the old ones.

Endings and New Beginnings....

2009-02-27T16:41:00.003-05:00

Today was my last day as a full-time employee at the Prosecutor's Office.

Most people nearing retirement have the luxury of slowly winding down their careers, anticipating their future life with a combination of wistfulness and excitement. For me, though, the last few weeks passed by in a blur. I had two major cases to prepare---an evidentiary hearing on a big murder case today, and a state Supreme Court argument next week---and had to confront and overcome a paperwork snafu at the retirement office. Taken together, everything kept me hopping---and the last few weeks have raced by.

This morning, I had to get to work early for my evidentiary hearing: the judge wanted to begin promptly at 8:30. I'd prepared carefully for the hearing---it involves some rather questionable psychiatric testimony by a doctor renowned for questionable and highly convenient opinions---and came to court armed and ready. Then, the judge did something unexpected, unwarranted, and highly illegal: he closed the hearing to the public---and even ejected the victim's family, who had a state constitutional right to be there, from this courtroom. I slogged my way through much of the hearing on the doctor's "home turf"---mostly scientific background testimony, laying the basis for challenging the admissibility and relevance of his testimony---and was just starting to zero in on my own turf: the facts of the case, and the factual weaknesses in the doctor's testimony---when the judge announced that he had to leave. The case is scheduled to reconvene on April 24th---and the press and legal communities are buzzing with the judge's actions. It should be interesting...but will give us some additional time to plan our attack. And, in addition, it will give some sense of continuity.

Decompressing after the hearing, Bob Agacinski took me to lunch at the Old Shillaleh, to celebrate my impending retirement.

Ironically...I also got to attend a wedding! Eric Doeh, a bright young prosecutor who's moved on to better things with the US Attorney's Office, was getting married in the courtroom of his old Judge---Tim Kenny, who was another colleague at the Office in days past. It added a touch of poetry to the day...bringing a new beginning, as well as a close to a chapter of my life that I'll always treasure. But it also showed how life is more a series of circles than a line...and that it's constantly changing, supplanting the old with birth and renewal.

Late in the day, after everyone had left, I took a final walk around the place...and then a trip to a local bar, where there was a gathering planned as a celebration for the new retirees. I joined them for a time, before heading home...and beginning the next chapter of my life.

How things will go remains a mystery, locked away in the misty future, to be revealed in due course. But though wistfulness tugs at my heart, in the end I find myself at peace...and excited by the chance to begin this new chapter while I'm still young enough to look to the future with anticipation.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Book Review: How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer

2009-02-21T12:14:00.001-05:00

Among the enigmas of human existence, the brain is singular in its importance. It not only defines us as a species, but is also the seat of our consciousness, allowing us, among other things, to wonder about ourselves, our world, and our own mortality.

But the brain is also a mystery in its own right. Since the days of the ancient Greeks, men have argued about its role in setting us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. And the split between our rationality and our passion—our capacity for thought as well as feeling—has been food for philosophers since the beginning of civilization. Plato argued that it was rationality that set us apart from animals and made us human; Aristotle, his pupil, believed that the brain’s role was to manage our emotions and apply them intelligently to the world around us.

In How We Decide, author Jonah Lehrer explores our current state of knowledge about our defining organ, the human brain. In an intelligent and engaging way, he shows how evolution has developed the two sides of our mind—our rational left hemisphere, and our emotional, intuitive right hemisphere—to give us a flexible and adaptable thinking tool that lets us apply quite varied modes of reasoning to the problems that we confront.

Lehrer shows how learning to trust our instincts and feelings can help us solve problems quickly and intuitively, when there is no time to reason out a problem. Yet we must also be cautious about relying too heavily upon our gut feelings and emotions, for they are easily fooled if we are facing a situation that is unfamiliar. Mastering the interplay between the two—and, most importantly, learning which to trust in what circumstances—is the mark of someone who makes consistently good decisions. There are, after all, some situations where thinking too much is counterproductive, and where lab rats do better than graduate students, simply because they lack the capacity to overthink. In humans, the ability to sense when to shift to a different mode of thinking is often what separates the wise from the foolish among us. And more often than not, a willingness to examine and learn from our own mistakes is what teaches us when, and how, to make the switch.

Using examples that range from professional football players to airline pilots, from casinos to modern politics, the author shows how our minds can solve problems seamlessly, or be tripped up by bells and whistles designed to soothe our senses and make us feel good. In our turbulent times, the ability to use our heads to recognize and sift through the perils and pitfalls we face is a daunting task, often made even harder by the confusing array of information that greets us every day. Tightly written and entertaining, How We Decide gives us reason to hope, and some useful perspective on our ability to make sense of our rapidly changing world.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The Only Thing We Have to Fear...

2009-02-19T04:43:00.002-05:00

I'm afraid that in many respects we're starting to make a tradition out of avoiding many of the safeguards we've put in to guard us against disaster:

After the financial meltdown in the 1930s, we set up regulations and guidelines to prevent safeguard our financial markes, and prevent speculators from collapsing our financial system. This lasted for about sixty years...just long enough for us to forget how the Great Depression started, and for the go-go financeers and their enablers in Congress (of both parties) to "tweak" the regulations enough to remove the impediments to their ability to make money...which were the very protections erected to prevent a collapse. We're living through the results today...and ithe next few years are unlikely to be pleasant.

Our Founders designed our institutions of government to provide a brake on popular passion and emotion, and to slow things down enough for us to catch our collective breaths, and make informed, deliberate decisions on things that were of vital importance. Six years ago, Congress was stampeded into approving a war resolution amid drumbeats insisting that there we were running out of time, and they had to act NOW. Six months ago, Congress was stampeded into approving a $700 billion bailout, amid dire warnings of impending disaster if we didn't act immediately to enable the Government to buy up all manner of toxic assests which threatened to wreck our economy...only to learn that the Treasury Department promptly changed its mind and wasn't using the money as advertised, and that the "emergency" funds were used to fund bank takeovers, and executive bonuses.

Now, we're facing a similar stampede---for an even larger sum of money. With the same drumbeat of crisis. And with the same screeching demands that we MUST ACT NOW!

I've always believed that people in a democracy usually get the government and leaders that they deserve. I think it's time we started acting like grown-ups---someone has to, since our governmental leaders certainly aren't---and demand some answers before we throw any more money down some other sink hole. There's enough divergence of economic opinion on the effectiveness of simply tossing money at the problem in the first place to justify having us all take a while to calm down and look at the problem carefully. In the end, we'd do better to remember the advice of Franklin Roosevelt: our biggest danger isn't time, it's our own fear. And if we act out of panic, we're far likelier to make things worse than we are to solve any of our problems.

It's usually better by far to get something done right than to get it done quickly. And our experiences over the past few years should have taught us that our leaders are quite capable of making mistakes under the best of circumstances; if we're being rushed and pressured into making a quick decision, it's usually because the salesman is afraid that rational thought isn't his ally...and if we have time to consider what we're doing, we'll never approve what he wants us to do.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

A New Game Coming to Town?

2009-02-17T12:39:00.005-05:00

Thanks to a friend, today I stumbled across this fascinating chart and accompanying analysis. It outlines the changes in income growth over the past forty years---broken down by income percentile, to show the effects of different presidencies on different classes of people. Among the things it shows it that income growth is rarely even; and it suggests that some of the wild rhetoric about recent tax cuts benefitting only the already-wealthy may not be too far from the truth. And given the recent economic dislocations, it looks like restoration of some level orderly regulation is in the offing---hopefully done intelligently enough to help, rather than hinder, any economic recovery.

I think the point about intelligent regulations benefiting everyone---including those being regulated---is one that's been lost over the recent past. It strikes me that it's rather like a sporting event: you need very few rules and even less enforcement at the sandlot level...where everyone knows one another, it's largely played for fun, and cheaters are easily dealt with. But the higher the stakes, the more formal structure you need.

The trick at the major league level is making sure that the referees don't take the game away from the players. In the sport I referee (soccer), the skill of the officials makes a critical difference in how good a game it is: the better referees leave everyone alone as long as things are running smoothly, stepping in only when needed---on occasion, forcefully, to prevent trouble from escalating into something ugly. The poor officials try to dictate how the game is played...and the really bad ones either interfere so much that everyone---both teams, as well as all their rioting fans---wants to strangle them...or they don't do anything, which usually leads to the same result.

The American sports model, on the other hand, often has a different mindset: the Referee as mindless bureaucrat. This is why the last thirty seconds of a close basketball game can take twenty minutes: the referee is expected to blow the whistle for every single foul...thereby converting a foul into a tactic. (In soccer, the referee would simply let the foul go...since the team with the lead would benefit more from a running clock and the ball than it would from taking a free throw and giving the ball to the other team).

I think many of the political disagreements we have in this country tend to come about because we're approaching things from different philosophical perspectives...and can't always agree on whether rules exist as a guideline, or simply to be enforced regardless of their effect. Part of the problem comes from the fact that so many "referees" tend to be idiots...but that crafting rules to make them idiot-proof means that they're so hopelessly detailed and complex that they often get in the way of the actual "game" they're trying to govern. This leads to periodic disputes over whether we should have more rules or fewer rules...with each side pointing to the disasters caused by following the other side of the argument. Lost in the equation is any thought about having "intelligent" rules.

In economics, we seem to have devolved into a system where too many of us have adopted an "I want mine" (or worse, an "I want yours") philosophy, rather than viewing things as a non-zero sum game, where intelligence and foresight can lead to a system where everyone benefits. I'm not sure where this leaves us...other than I don't think it will help get us out of the mess we're in, and we may have no choice but to change our ways of thinking.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Countdown

2009-02-06T05:51:00.004-05:00

Three weeks to go....

After what seems like a lifetime of work, and thought, and a career of serving the People of the State of Michigan, it boils down to three more weeks. Then, I'm officially retired. While I'll be around for another year after that, on part-time contract to help the Office transition into the future, it won't feel the same. Or be the same.

Already, I can feel the Office changing around me. People are congratulating me (and the others, who also took the County's retirement proposal) and wishing us well. But the place is already starting to change out from under us. And soon, we'll be little more than a memory, fading into Office lore.

Three weeks...and as much as I'm looking forward to having the time to do things I've dreamed about doing, I'll be savoring every last moment.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Metamorphisis

2009-01-28T13:08:00.003-05:00

Change, however unsettling, is often inevitable.

In 1980, I started working for the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office. Bill Cahalan was the prosecutor at the time, and I started to work there just after the County lifted a hiring freeze. Within a month or so, several other bright young prosecutors were hired---including a gal named Jan Joyce (later Bartee), whose career would track mine almost step-by-step.

Though I never anticipated being a prosecutor---either as a kid, or later in law school---I knew at once I'd found my professional home. The work was fascinating and personally rewarding; I got to write to my heart's content; and the Office was filled with a sense of honor, and of mission. We were trained that our job was seeking Justice---and that when a prosecutor announced that he was representing "The People," that meant all of the people...including the defendant.

Jan and I rose through the ranks together...getting promoted early and quickly, and establishing ourselves as two of the brightest young prosecutors in the office. Ahead of us in the office was Tim Baughman---who'd already established himself as an appellate whiz and something of a legend around the state, and who soon came to head the appellate department. Within a year or two several other promising attorneys joined the staff, including a lady named Olga Agnello, who'd gone to law school in Utah of all places, while her then-husband was pursuing an advanced degree of his own.

By the end of the 1980s, the four of us had not only become friends, but we had formed the nucleus of an appellate staff second to none. Were were all accomplished legal writers and thinkers, and were busy putting our creative minds to the task of reformulating Michigan's criminal law, reforming some of the ill-considered changes brought about in the 1970s, and helping to shape Michigan law for the decades to come. Three of us---Jan, Tim, and myself---went to argue cases before the United States Supreme Court in Washington. And by the end of the 1990s, our legal arguments had helped rewrite state law areas ranging from sentencing to evidence to double jeopardy, and beyond. We were widely thought to be a state resource, writing about and pioneering work in every area of criminal law that exists.

Two weeks ago, the County made a retirement offer to all its executives, an offer too good to resist. It boosted our pensions well beyond anything we ever expected...though the message was hardly a boost to our egos: "You cost too much money," they said, in effect. "We'll even bribe you to leave...as long as you go."

After nearly thirty years in the office, we were given two weeks to make up our minds. But the three of us didn't get where we were by being fools; and much as we might feel outraged as taxpayers by our good fortune, we could recognize opportunity when it knocked.

Olga put in her retirement papers last week.

I filed mine today.

Tim and Jan file theirs tomorrow.

It will mark the end of an era. Not the end of the world...or of friendships, or memories, or good wishes.

But even if will usher in a host of new beginnigns, it will be the end of something quite special.

On January 28, 1895, my grandfather Walter Luniewski was born on a farm in what is now eastern Poland. One-hundred and fourteen years later, his first grandson filed to retire from the job he loved...and hoping to find happiness in pursuing other dreams and adventures.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Reaching Across the Divide

2009-01-27T21:46:00.005-05:00

A new administration carries with it promises, and the hopes of the people of this country. Unfortunately, in the recent past, partisan bickering has left the public disillusioned with their leaders, and all-too-willing to throw up their hands in disgust, as the politicians preen and posture.

Today the country faces a wide range of problems, abroad as well as here at home. Much of it seems dwarfed by our collapsing economy---for which there are any number of villains, and lots of blame to go around. But today, President Obama headed up to Capitol Hill for a meeting with the opposition leaders and Republicans on the Hill---a Republicans-only meeting with the Democratic president, a gesture of reconciliation that could be a harbinger of a new era of bipartisan cooperation, or a well-intentioned but naive way station on the return trip to business as usual.

Obama seems to be entering office with more good will and high hopes than any president I can remember. Even Reagan---who also entered office facing both economic and foreign policy challenges, and also succeeded a predecessor widely considered a complete and utter failure---confronted a larger group of skeptics, and more cynical media scrutiny. Like Reagan, the country wants---and, frankly, needs---Obama to be a great success, so he has a lot of political capital, and the public will be willing to cut him a great deal of slack in dealing with our problems.

But just as Reagan succeeded in appealing to moderate Democrats to win approval for what he wanted to do, Obama must peel off moderate Republicans from the Troglodyte Right if he wants to build a real governing coalition that will last past the next mid-term election. Today, the public is so fed up with the partisan bickering of both parties that the next major realignment will come about when one party finally stands up to its own lunatic fringe and reaches out to claim the large majority of more-or-less sensible people in the middle---those who are looking for solutions rather than ideological purity. There are a lot of people like that throughout the country...sick and tired of being ignored by the ideologues.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

President Obama

2009-01-20T17:45:00.009-05:00

America made history today---as it always does, every time we elevate one of our citizens to lead us.

But today was different, almost magical. And the magic had surprisingly little to do with the fact that our new president is the first one we've elected whose ancestors came from Africa. Today, we proved to the world that however muddled we may get from time to time, and however much we stumble along the way, the dream that is America still shines a hopeful beacon to the rest of the world.

Intelligent and tough, the challenges he faces as president are daunting. But he speaks to our hopes rather than our fears, and the poetry of his words calls forth what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. He takes office with a wave of good will---here and abroad---and sets an elevated and optimistic tone that, for all our troubles, is uplifting and inspiring. He has gone out of his way to reach out to those who disagree with him, and his practical mind seems intent on being president of all the people of this country---not a tool of ideologues.

He is the third president I've seen who is able to use words to summon his countrymen to unite to meet the daunting challenges of troubled times. The other two were Kennedy and Reagan---who, like Obama, had an ear for rhetoric and a wit and sparkle about them.

His inauguration was poetic and uplifiting; the last week was spent building toward a unity of purpose to help him move into an uncertain future. But the challenges ahead may well make him wonder about the wisdom of seeking the presidency in such uncertain times. While he brings intelligence and good intentions to the office, our own past history suggests that these traits provide no certain path to a better future; sometimes, it simply lets us get ourselves into more trouble.

And the stock market plummeted today. Obviously, poetry may move men's souls, but not their pocketbooks.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The Middle East Erupts Anew

2009-01-15T20:21:00.001-05:00

Conflict is as old as human history, and the conflict in the Middle East is as bitter as any we’ve know. Few nations have ever been willing to give humanitarian aid to an adversary bent on their destruction, and history gives us few examples of real enemies actually settling their disputes peacefully. It is distressing, but not surprising, to see a renewal of violence in the Middle East. As usual, the Israelis find themselves confronted with attacks on its citizens from neighbors bent on their destruction. As usual, their reaction has been to respond in kind. Yet this response has not brought peace in the past, and is just as unlikely to do so now.

Sherman’s march through Georgia provides one conventionally accepted solution: crush your enemy without mercy, and then try to make something bloom from the ashes. Rome did that as well, and was able to govern more or less successfully for hundreds of years. But this kind of attitude rarely produces the generosity of spirit needed to heal wounds and let everyone simply move on. After Lincoln’s assassination, Sherman’s swath of destruction through the south was followed by a punitive reconstruction— and over the next thirty years the scorched-earth tactic was adopted to crush the native Indian tribes into submission. In both instances, the brutality of war was followed by an almost-equally brutal peace. In one way or another, we’re still living with the aftermath.

On the other hand, to find an example of enlightened self-interest in the aftermath of a crushing military victory, we need only look to our own recent history, and what the America did after crushing Germany and Japan in World War II. Both defeated enemies had brutal regimes that had inflicted atrocities on countless innocents...and yet—having learned the lessons of Versailles after World War I—rather than leaving them defeated, impoverished, and bitter, we helped them rebuild. W e even offered to do the same to an adversary that really WAS bent on our destruction—the Soviet Union, a country unfortunately led by a ruler more interested in preserving his own power than helping his people. And so our offer was spurned, setting the stage for a forty-year long Cold War—a war between two bitter enemies that somehow managed to avoid triggering World War III.

Actually, the notion of pushing an enemy into “unconditional surrender,” history suggest that this may be a fairly recent fad. Laying aside the wars of conquest or plunder, or wars of extermination intended to wipe an enemy out of existence, many past wars ended by truce or a negotiated surrender. Our revolution ended with a negotiated peace, and so did the First World War. In fact, the only reason we insisted on pushing the Nazis and Imperial Japan to total defeat was (a) they were evil and needed to be expirpated from the world, and (b) Hitler came to power partly by insisting that the German victory was betrayed by the diplomats in Versailles...and we didn’t want to leave a future Hitler with any such illusions. And our own victory in the Cold War was achieved without firing a shot. Though we fought skirmishes against Soviet surrogates in Korea and Vietnam, in the end our people defeated their people peacefully, through the economic might of a superior economic system. Wisely, we refrained from gloating and imposed no further humiliation, and while our future is uncertain—as the future is wont to be—we managed to avoid a final military conflict between the two superpowers that would have destroyed everything both countries hoped for their people.

The Israeli-Palestinian situation is infinitely complex, but like the Cold War the solution will never come by viewing it entirely in military terms. In some ways, it’s akin to the South in the hey-day of the Klan: decent people in the South were often individually on decent terms with blacks they knew, but the hate-mongers were sufficiently outspoken and violent to keep the decent people in check—and the result was years of oppression and violence that didn’t end until (a) the rest of the country became willing to intervene, and did so in such a way that (b) the decent people in the South were unafraid to help put their own house in order. If the Federal Government had imposed the same kind of brutal sanctions that came in the wake of the Civil War, the result may well have been the same: instead of separating out the hate-mongers from the decent folk, such actions would have driven them together for their own self-preservation. The result would not have been not in the strides we’ve made in the area of civil rights since then, but a perpetuation of the racial hatred and violence.

The problems in the Middle East won’t be solved overnight—but then, we still have a long way to go in this country toward healing the wounds caused by slavery. For Israel, the solution won’t come by lumping the Palestinians together in an effort to crush them once and for all. Unless it ends in a Palestinian extermination, doing so would only perpetuate the cycle of hate. The better course would be a clear attempt to separate the decent people there from the hate-mongers and murderers...and a clear signal to them that they are not the targets. This signal won’t be received by a child whose loving mother is killed by a rocket, or a father whose son is blown apart in an explosion—no matter which side the bombs or rockets come from. And this is the source of Israel’s existential dilemma.

Acting with wisdom and restraint is very hard to do when an enemy is hiding among the civilians and attacking those you love. The instinct to lash out against an attacker is only natural, and a very human thing to do. But there are other ways to eliminate an enemy besides killing him. Lincoln once asked, “Am I not destroying my enemies by making friends of them?” But Israel can’t do that if their attacks drive potential friends into the arms of their enemies.

It’s obvious that nobody knows the answer. If anybody did, we wouldn’t have the problems we have today. But Israel’s insoluble problem is that they really are fighting against extreme and hateful elements that exist among the people living next to them. As the enemy is the hate that in the hearts of some of their neighbors, they can’t really win their battle militarily, in any conventional sense. Instead, they must either exterminate their enemies, or make friends with them. And they’re far too civilized to kill everyone who stands in their way.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Book Review: The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria

2009-01-15T20:17:00.005-05:00

Reviewed by Jeffrey Caminsky

In our turbulent world, it is tempting to view America as surrounded by enemies intent on our destruction. Everywhere we look, we can see signs of American influence waning. Often—and especially in a time of economic turmoil—our mounting troubles can seem insurmountable. But sometimes merely looking at the world through a different lens can help us gain some perspective. And if that lens is held by one of today’s most perceptive observers of the world scene, it might even help us all take a deep breath and relax.

In The Post-American World, best-selling author Fareed Zakaria takes a look at America’s place in the world and explains why we have reason to be optimistic. Zakaria, who was born in India, came to this country as an awkward and naive eighteen-year old in the depths of the recession of the early 1980s. What he found then—and what he still sees all around us today—is a vibrant and expansive country, open to fresh ideas and eager to show the world what it has to offer. What has changed in today’s world, he explains, in not America: rather, it is the merely rest of the world, racing to catch up with us. And while this new era—where American ideas and aspirations have inspired the world to follow us into the future—may pose unique challenges, they need not be as frightening as the pessimists and nay-sayers make them out to be. In his view, the key to understanding our changing world is to realize that America is not really lagging behind; rather, it is the rest of the world that is rising. And if we are tempted to respond by retreating—withdrawing into Fortress America, secure in our belief in our own superiority—then we are playing a game that has failed other civilizations in the past, and would likely surrender our leadership for the future.

Among the cautionary tales the author cites from history is the example of China, another proud country that once stood at the pinnacle of greatness. Nearly a century before Columbus, in the early 1400s, a series of expeditions set forth from China, with several hundred vessels, each larger than a Spanish galleon, carrying thousands of men. They sailed eastern shores, down coast of Southeast Asia and into the Indian Ocean, impressing they met with majesty and might of Chinese civilization, and returning with treasures including precious stones, exotic plants and animals. Yet by the middle of the century, all this stopped: a new emperor had come to power—one who viewed these excursions as needless and expensive extravagances of little use to China. Before the end of the next century, building similar ships was forbidden on pain of death, and vast tracts of forests were burned to make similar ventures impossible in the future. And so China, convinced of its own superiority, turned firmly away from outside contact to withdraw within itself...and before long, the rest of the world had passed the stagnating Chinese culture in all manner of accomplishments. It has taken them six centuries of struggling to approach the pinnacle again; and now, having learned the lesson of history, they seem determined not to repeat the mistake.

Today, though we are beset by dangers on many sides, Zakaria reminds us that we often fail to appreciate just how lucky we are to live in an age of plenty and an era of discovery and adventure. Now that America has led the way, the rest of the world is racing to catch up to us. But, he cautions, we should not treat their efforts with suspicion or disdain, but we should embrace the future envisioned by our own ideals—for it is those very ideals that have long inspired the world.

Foremost among our many resources are the American culture and people. Both are filled with resilience and optimism. The American spirit of innovation derives from the openness of our culture, and our embrace of the off-beat and heretical—as well as the welcome we have shown to the best and the brightest from around the world. And despite the imperfections of our much-derided educational system, the author demonstrates that most of our problems stem from disparities within our own country: there is, the author notes, a greater disparity between students from our typical, middle-class schools and those from poverty-stricken, inner-city schools than there is between our best, and the best from the rest of the world. And while we bemoan our own lagging test scores, others are actually coming to the US to learn our techniques. And what impresses them most are the things we take for granted: the willingness of our students to challenge teachers; their courage to speak out in class; and their ability to be creative in applying what’s taught to their everyday lives. While the rest of the world may beat us at teaching their students to take standardized tests, our system seems to excel at producing people who can be innovative, willing to challenge convention. Our culture seems drawn to the heretical and oddball; and since our schools don’t quite squash this out of our students as well as some countries do, these same oddballs help keep our culture fresh.

Comparing us to the British Empire in its heyday, Zakaria notes that Britain, though blessed with gifted statesmen, was saddled with a dysfunctional economic and cultural system that stifled creative impulses of British society. In many ways America’s challenge is just the reverse: we have a vibrant, dynamic culture that remains the envy of the world—but one that is saddled with a political system that often seems more intent on gaining temporary partisan advantage than moving the country forward. And where our culture benefits from the influx of immigrants—bringing energy, ambition, and new ideas along with them—we often mistake the challenges they bring as well for danger, rather than viewing them for what they are and have always been: a priceless source of renewal.

Insightful and well-written, filled with a global perspective often lacking in today’s commentators, The Post-American World offers hope as well as perspective. It is written not in the lofty tones of academics, but with a precision born of thought and deep understanding. Those interested in understanding America’s place in the world—past, present, and future—would do well to read it carefully. The world, after all, needs an America—embodying the free spirit and sense of adventure we have always taken for granted. That is, the author concludes, this country’s real role in the world—and the reason that most people across the Earth still look to the United States with good will. It would be a pity if, through misguided attempts to hold back the future, we squandered the America we have...and forced the world to go looking for a new one.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.