I'm Still Out on Sunset in a Taxicab

2007: A Look Back at a Year in the Life of Running Down a Dream

January

• 1: I went to sleep before the end of the Fiesta Bowl. You can always see the winning running-back propose to his girlfriend, but after a Statue of Liberty play? That's too much.
• 16: My 23rd birthday. I commiserate with Blink 182 and Coolio.
• 20: The first 2008 Presidential Roll Call. Tom Tancredo, we hardly knew ye.

February:

• 6: I announce my devotion to Liverpool F.C., chaos ensues.
• 14: Valentine's Day and a few lessons learned.
• 26: Martin Scorcese's eyebrows are the stuff nightmares are made of.

March:

• 3: I begin screaming at computer screens at 7:30 in the morning over football matches being played in England. This might be a problem.
• 5: Pound the Rock.
• 16: I develop the paranoia of a crackhead after keeping a perfect bracket for the first two days of the NCAA tournament.
• 29: I plead with the Rangers to become relevant once again. Sadly, they do not comply.

April:

• 8: A snowstorm of biblical proportions descends on the Tyler metropolitan area. No one besides the newscasters is remotely fazed.
• 11: Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Dead Poets Society.
• 16: Rolling Stone's Top 10 Songs of All-Time along with Joey Halbert's dissent.
• 23: The death of a true legend in his own time.
• 25: The legendary Chelsea-Liverpool running diary.

May:

• 3: "I'm a lion among men" and other quotable quotes from Tyler area defendants.
• 12: Small town election conspiracy theories in Whitehouse.
• 16: Still one of the best YouTube videos I've ever seen.
• 30: My parents purchase furniture from Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

June:

• 10: My return from the Agan-Freede wedding and the inevitable repudiation of Lou Gehrig.
• 13: Houston v. Dallas: The Great Debate.
• 20: Andrew Tuegel and I discuss the extension of Jon Daniels's contract as Rangers GM.
• 27: Lance and Kayla Agan, Cody Girod, Bethany Freede, Austin Brennen, Alex LaBounty and yours truly enter the Shakey-Face Pantheon.

Check back tomorrow for the July-December recap.

I Got to Stop Wishin', I Got to Go Fishin'

Congratulations to Mr. Dan Carlson for correctly naming "Wagon Wheel" by The Old Crow Medicine Show as the Sunday Song of the Day. Dan, you should note that I'm still allowing you to receive the immense praise and adulation that comes from being a Song of the Day winner despite your blasphemous remarks against the beautiful game in your comment. I am a benevolent blog operator, but my grace is not without its limits.


I'm sure that all of you know by now that U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales officially resigned earlier this morning after communicating his desire to step down to President Bush this past Friday. I was actually caught off-guard by the resignation and thought that if Gonzales was going to resign, he would have done so at an earlier date. It seemed that as the coverage of the Department of Justice's handling of the firing of the 8 U.S. Attorneys began to subside, Gonzales had somehow decided to stick around until the end of President Bush's second term.


Now, the Gonzales resignation falls very closely to that of another key figure in the Bush administration apparatus, Karl Rove, and will probably cause many to wonder what exactly is ahead in the final year of George W. Bush's presidency. Whether you agree or disagree with the Attorney General's record on wiretaps, the aforementioned firing of 8 U.S. Attorneys, or the formulation of the Bush Administration's position on interrogation of enemy combatants, it seemed that public opinion had reached a critical mass that would not allow Gonzales to retain the top position in the D.O.J. without waging a significant public relations campaign to restore his standing as a leader with broad-based support.


As Gonzales steps down, the inquiry now becomes who will replace him as the chief law enforcement officer in the United States. Current Solicitor General Paul Clement will take over as the Temporary Attorney General until the President selects someone to serve in the remaining 17 months of the Bush presidency.










Clement's name has been floated in the permanent successor talks as well as that of Michael Chertoff, the current Secretary of Homeland Security and the former head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division.

I'm not sure if the President is going to pick Chertoff, Clement, or someone else that I have not mentioned, but I do know this: Whomever steps into the role of Attorney General has a tremendous opportunity to make large-scale policy decisions that will affect the long term future of the United States. It may be easy to dismiss the actions of one person in a behemoth of an organization like the United States Department of Justice, but the person who sits in the chair as the Attorney General has more power than almost anyone else in the federal government. (I know that the economics wonks who read this blog will immediately go into a long-winded explanation of the power that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, such as Ben Bernanke or Alan Greenspan, wields but I'm sticking to my proverbial guns).

Being a former D.O.J. employee, perhaps I'm a bit biased on this point, but you would probably be shocked at how many ways that the Department of Justice affects your life as an American citizen on a daily basis. Because of that, take a vested interest in the person that President Bush selects to serve as the next Attorney General.

"Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government."--Thomas Jefferson

I Lay in the Long Grass, So Many People, So Many People Pass

Congratulations to Mr. Joey Halbert for correctly naming "Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel as the Tuesday Song of the Day.

"Standing with your hands in your pockets is another way of saying, 'I'm scared to death.'"

At least that's what I was told yesterday by a Smith County Deputy Sheriff during my visit to the Smith County Jail. The officer should probably understand that in the great majority of social situations I choose to put my hands in my pockets rather than the other alternatives which could include shadow puppets, pugilism, or obscene gestures.


I'm pretty sure the statement was just the product of a Sheriff's Deputy who wanted to show me that I was in a place much like Kurt Vonnegut described in Welcome to the Monkey House (his words) and he could sense my "fear". Nonetheless, I did appreciate that a Smith County Sheriff's Deputy made a Vonnegut reference in the midst of my visit to his wonderful place of business.

I still remember the trips that we took to the County Jail in 3rd and 8th grades. I guess it was designed to "scare kids straight", but I can vouch for the fact that some of my classmates were still not deterred in their journey towards the Texas Penal system. Perhaps they were enthralled with the scene in Finding Forrester* where the prestigious Manhattan prep school "Mailor-Callow" holds basketball practice in a rooftop cage and wanted to replicate that bit of cinematic brilliance wearing an orange jumpsuit in downtown Tyler.

"You're the man now dog!!!"

*It should be noted that this statement is obviously anachronistic because Finding Forrester premiered in the early 21st century when I was in high school but go with it anyway.

Formal Flashing of Digital Cameras from Tourists in Trafalgar Square

In the midst of attending the sentencing hearing that I mentioned in yesterday's post I somehow forgot to include the most interesting. After the first defendant, the ringleader, was sentenced he decided to issue a "message" to the U.S. Attorney who prosecuted his case. As he was being escorted out the courtroom by the U.S. Marshal, the defendant uttered the following phrase:

"It don't (expletive) matter. I'm a lion among men. I'll see you."

Well then. I'm pretty sure that William Manchester described Winston Churchill as The Last Lion, but I've never heard anyone state they were a "lion among men" much less someone who was just sentenced to 152 years in federal prison. Perhaps people cope with disappointment in different ways.

I'm currently watching the first half of the Mavs-Warriors game in Oakland, and I have to say: I'm glad I'm not planning to watch the entire game because I'm pretty sure that my retinas would be burned out by staring all game at the crowd wearing uniform yellow shirts that were issued to them before the game. It probably reminds Stephen Jackson of what his future stay in the Marion County (Indiana) jail is going to look like.

I know that was a low blow, but it needed to be said.

I Heard You on My Wireless Back in '52

Well, since I have my inaugural brief due in less than a week, I thought it would be a good idea to add something to my research pile. Seems wise doesn't it?


I may have told some of you this already, but pending a Justice Department background check, I will be interning for two months this summer at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Texas-Tyler Division. Ever since I contemplated the possibility of interning at the U.S. Attorney's office, I have been doing some research on what the various U.S. Attorneys are involved in across our country. My perusal of various websites and magazines has led me to this story.


For those of you who are not lovers of the law, U.S. Attorneys are appointed by the President in the same fashion as Federal judges. (This applies to the U.S. Attorney for the various Federal Districts across the U.S. and not necessarily to the Assistant U.S. Attorneys who work in each office). The article that I linked to above details the fact that 8 U.S. Attorneys across the country have recently been dismissed from their posts.


There are some who believe that the dismissals are related to the prosecutors' decisions to not pursue cases that are very politically sensitive, but members of the Justice Department have stated that the dismissals were related to a mutual disagreement over the direction that should be pursued at the various offices. A large part of the speculation that the dismissals were politically motivated centers on the fact that a majority of the dismissed prosecutors had received recent positive evaluations regarding their workplace performance.


Maybe some of the readers of this blog may not be excited about my decision to pursue this story, but my education has continued to show me that many executive branch departments have the tension-laden task of balancing between the political aims of the President and the need to be a neutral, faithful enforcer of the laws of our nation. We can learn a great deal about our national values when we examine the intersection between politics and law enforcement.

I had to stop myself before almost using the "Irresistible force/Immovable object" analogy. I'm pretty sure that Prof. CrimPro would not have been able to contain his glee if that had come to pass. Sorry, Professor. I just could not bring myself to do it. Maybe next time.