The Corrupt Judge

This is the most selfish story I've heard in a long time.

A judge in Washington, D.C. has filed suit against his Korean dry-cleaners for $65 million for a lost pair of pants - a pair of pants that was found and returned a week late.

Judge Roy Pearson is on all kinds of civic groups - a regular good citizen and neighbor, right? Here's where he has been a volunteer:

• Columbia Heights Youth Club, the nation's first racially integrated youth club.


• Fort Lincoln Civic Association, Inc. Fort Lincoln is a leafy enclave in Washington DC - a community planned as racially integrated in the 1960s.


• Black Seeds, Inc -- a nonprofit that has sponsored the "African Heritage Family Festival".


• the DC chapter of the National Council of Black Lawyers. This is an outfit whose mission is

"to serve as the legal arm of the movement for Black Liberation, to protect human rights, to achieve self-determination of Africa and African Communities in the Diaspora and to work in coalition to assist in ending oppression of all peoples."

See a pattern here? Judge Pearson is a man of great power (as a judge). He is also a community leader for civil rights, racial justice, and ending oppression.

But compassion for the people who wash his dirty clothes? Out of the question. I really don't want to make this a racial thing, because the power dynamic seems to be the main issue here, but I have to wonder if the corrupt judge would be suing if the cleaners were, say, black.

Mr. Pierce's Veggies

It's time for the South Side farmers market again!

While I can't stand Madison's downtown market, which combines a uniquely Madison admixture of hippies and yuppies, both of whom are quite elitist in their own ways, the South Side market consists mostly of farmer Robert Pierce and a revolving cast of others.

I love it, and Mr. Pierce's veggies are the best anywhere.

Army retreats from Indian Territory

A mothballed army ammunition plant near Madison is getting returned to the land's original owners, the Ho-Chunk Indians. The deal marks a beginning of a lengthy restoration process, as the rich prairie along the Wisconsin river is currently mostly dead.

Before the buffalo can roam once again (the tribe's long-term goal), the soil will have to get restored. And that is slow work: it might not be finished for another century or so.

Waving the French flag is unbefitting a Frenchman.

Great to be at the World Cup!
Originally uploaded by WorldCupBlog.org.

The French presidential elections are upon us, and in a tight three-way race, things are beginning to get caustic.

So we have two contrasting appeals to national identity—a fascinating quarrel. Ségolène Royal, a Socialist from a military family, who has made a career advocating for the environment and small-scale local farmers, suggested the French people fly the French flag.

Not a particularly risky thing to say, even among elites who consider themselves above flag-waving. Still, she elicited a stinging rebuke from the third of the three main candidates.

François Bayrou, a practicing Catholic of the more socially conservative UDF party, who’s got the most to lose at this stage in the election, saw low-hanging fruit in Royal’s banal appeal.

“I love France, and I am well at home in my country, but this obsession [with flags]—and a president who makes declarations of good and evil—such things don’t belong in my country. Such things are American.” (rough translation and emphasis mine.)[1]

In other words, waving the French flag is unbefitting a Frenchman.

For what it’s worth, Bayrou's campaign website features video from Youtube, which belongs to that national enemy of France, Google.

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[1] "J'aime beaucoup la France, je suis bien dans mon pays, mais cette obsession qui fait qu'il va falloir avoir des drapeaux et les mettre à la fenêtre tel jour, et que la présidente de la République va vous dire ce qui est bien et ce qui est mal, ça ne ressemble pas à mon pays, a déclaré devant la presse le candidat UDF à la présidentielle. Tout ça, c'est la société américaine."