Bagging Rights

NOTE: I know many of you are eagerly awaiting my review of Sarah Palin's book, but, to be quite frank, it is taking forever. In the meanwhile, enjoy this little anecdotal eco-nugget...

Kermit the Frog really doesn't get enough credit for his genius. Put aside, for the moment, his lack of muscle tone or his weak will in allowing Ms. Piggy to romantically run rough-shod all over him. The man (er...frog) is an exceptional artiste, and he presciently hit on the zeitgeist of our generation:

It's not easy being green.

My recent experience at Rodman's provides a suitable object lesson for this problem. Rodman's is the aristocratic convenience/liquor store on Wisconsin, situated around the corner from my lavish sunlight-starved bungalow on Harrison. Consider it a rich man's Rite Aid. I regularly replenish their coffers with small purchases of various sundries: hummus, Grape-Nuts, Uniball pens, antacid, etc. Only a few things at a time. Poverty precludes large shopping sprees.

The all-East African staff are ordinarily very polite and charming, a breath of fresh air compared to the anti-joy bureaucrats at CVS. They actually smile at you, which is a bonus in D.C., where getting a service worker to acknowledge your existence is a victory itself. They ring you up, then wistfully bag your purchase and wish you a pleasant evening.

Or at least they used to.

"Would you like a bag, sir?" The female cashier tapped on the register, awaiting my response.

I glanced up from fiddling with my iPod Touch, puzzlement creeping across my face. I bought a few more items than usual, so the question sounded ill-placed and the answer obvious.

"Uh, of course, yeah, sure." I returned my attention to my New York Times app.

"It's five cents, sir."

My head snapped back up, mouth open in a gnat-swallowing position. The cashier pointed at a sticker on the countertop. Happy New Year. As of January 1, 2010, the District of Columbia now exacts a flat five-cent tax on all disposable bags at stores and restaurants. Of course, the sticker was written by Alexis de Tocqueville, and "asked" all D.C. residents to "help" the environment, echoing the spirit of enlightened self-interest. What an exciting opportunity in the spirit of civic volunteerism!

Eager to do my part, I enthusiastically grunted and shrugged. The cashier typed into the register, and $16.10 magically became $16.15. I swiped my debit card, grabbed my bag, and hustled out into the Arctic freeze. On the walk home, I quietly cursed the D.C. City Council.

I'm certainly no granola, but I think I have a pretty good ecological track record. I did spearhead the creation of the Green Campus, Clean Campus campaign in law school. I've always cut up those anachronistic plastic soda rings to prevent canardicide, and I drive a Ford Focus. The first two required some effort, while the third has come at a considerable sacrifice to my sex life. The plastic bag cost me a nickel. And, boy, did that piss me off.

It's really absurd that I feel this way. Perhaps the bag tax did nothing more than rouse my Inner Libertarian. I already have a serious beef with the meter maids who impose arbitrary tickets on innocent cars. It's not the five cents, I argued to myself. It's the principle! How much more can they take from me! My inner dialogue actually scared me as it progressively moved from pity party to Tea Party. A mild financial annoyance devolved into an expository lesson in personal liberty. Mankind is by nature free, I mused as I fumed at the plastic bag that held my soy milk hostage, but everywhere he is in chains. Somewhere, Rousseau spun in his grave as I trivialized the hell out of social contract theory.

After my rage subsided and reason re-surfaced, I came to three conclusions. The first was that I really needed to start working again. My private seminar on The Economic Philosophy of Plastic Bags was a serious waste of credit hours. Second, I realized that I had fallen prey to the Progressive's Dilemma. I am more than willing to skewer the leisure class for their objections to "paying their fair share" in income taxes to provide for the general welfare; yet, I remain hesitant to match a nickel to their thousands. Leaving marginal utility alone for the moment, this effectively renders me a hypocrite. If I am bound by the underlying American social contract to support the common good, then I must accept the burdens (a nickel or no bag) with the benefits (increased tax revenue and a marginally cleaner D.C.).

Finally, the stupid plastic bag tax has reminded me, yet again, that we, as a species, suck. Man may be by nature free, but he is also a selfish asshole. A quest may be noble in the abstract, but Prince Charming won't brave the fire-breathing dragon to save the Princess unless she shows a little leg. An oil baron won't shut down his refinery unless he sees profit in natural gas. An idealistic public interest lawyer won't give up his plastic bags unless he can save a nickel or two along the way.

So it falls to the carrot and the stick to save the Earth. I'd like to think of myself as an altruist, but who am I kidding? That's just human nature.

Palintology Part I: Curiosity Kills My Better Judgment

Installment 1 of a 3-part saga...

I am doing this so you won't have to.

This is the moral justification I arm myself with in anticipation of those moments when Sense and Reason demand to know why I am reading Going Rogue: An American Life, Sarah Palin's ghost-written attempt to forge a conservative reply to Obama's The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. Neuroscientists posit that watching too much television renders our synapses inert, transforming tender brains from complex decision engines into passive receptacles for anti-cerebral garbage. Before I considered launching into this inarguably stupid project, I figured that Palin's five-chapter quasi-memoir-of-sorts would have the same stunting impact on its readers. Its mind-altering effects could prove doubly damaging to an ex-Republican like myself, much like a single shot of whiskey would send a reformed alcoholic tumbling off the right side of the wagon.

Yet something latent in my soul demands that I determine what, exactly, makes this woman tick. After three years at a liberal law school, I grow tired of choir-preaching. I have read and heard plenty to reinforce my own "worldview", to borrow from the ex-Governor's evangelical parlance. I have purposefully avoided gazing through the looking glass at what remains of the Western conservative realm from whence I came. It is stunting my growth. It is time that I make an effort to try and comprehend the teabaggers and insurrectionists who constantly insist upon being physically present in our fair city whenever Michelle Bachmann calls upon them. Consider this an exercise in socio-political exposure therapy. I want to re-discover what, exactly, makes the 2008 Republican nominee for Vice President tick, and, more to the point, what about her drove so many Americans who otherwise appear to be stable and balanced so bat-guano crazy. This is a journey into the whimsical world of Dittoheads and Beckophiles, of Birchers and birthers alike.

So, on behalf of my progressive readers, I embark on a missionary voyage into a savage heart of darkness that would have even given Marlow pause. And on behalf of my conservative readers, all of whom probably live nestled at the foot of the Sierra Nevada (and stopped reading two paragraphs ago), I lend you a moment of my consideration.

With some caveats.

First, I have not purchased (and will not purchase) this book. In fact, I haven't even flipped open a page or even perused the flyleaf yet. I won't buy it for two reasons. Reason Number One - I do not wish to contribute to what amounts to the Palin 2012 political action committee. Ms. Palin has deceived herself into believing that she is presidential material, and I firmly believe that any penny spent on this book could potentially be spent on a campaign ad demanding Obama's birth certificate. Reason Number Two - I do not wish to be subject to a Northwest D.C. "eye-shaming" by bookstore patrons who are decidedly to my left would rather buy ethanol directly from Hugo Chavez than be caught dead with Palin's book. Upon conducting a keyword search at a monitor somewhere near the Self-Help section at Borders, the computer cheerfully announced that it was likely in the store, but that I would have to "see an associate for assistance". A-ha. A witness protection program for conservatives. They are a persecuted minority in this neighborhood. I don't know how George Will survives here. Turns out, they took down the display and relegated the book to a small segment of the best-seller shelf.

Second, I am a bit weary that by reading Going Rogue, I am effectively legitimizing the growing apparatchik that follows in Ms. Palin's wake. Liberal readers, you may think that Sarah Palin is already among the large swath of those who are famous for no reason, and you would be partially right. This book review will only provide another (albeit small) platform for the woman who is credited for single-handedly defining democracy downward. Why more attention? I can also hear my conservative readers (Dad and maybe one or two others) scoffing at yet another attempt to persecute this poor woman.

I aim to do neither. The review will serve as neither a grandstand or a guillotine. I can't imagine making much of a dent in Palin's popularity one way or another, and, in either event, I will treat her fairly. In the spirit of full disclosure, I deeply dislike her. I think she is vapid, dense, and bad for America. She is also a human being, and while I giddily malign her inability to name a major newspaper, her faux populism, and her bridge to nowhere, I won't engage in the same personal potshots about her family life deployed by crass cultural snobs. I think it is disgusting, and a profound strategic mistake, to delight in Levi Johnston's accusations that Palin called her Down's Syndrome child a "retard". It is not necessary that we enlist his "help."

And now, I turn to acknowledge the Elephant in the room. I just can't ignore it anymore. Especially when it's wearing lipstick...

1-0

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The following entry in The D.C. Diaries concerns real legal events. Although attorney-client privilege does not prohibit the revelation of public details concerning a client's case, I have opted to give my client a pseudonym and re-invent certain details about her life in order to protect her personal privacy.

My heart pounded in my chest as I scrolled down the page. Curse the Board of Law Examiners, I muttered internally. Why is this page so long? I imagined that the caffeine-addled patrons of Borders could hear both my internal dialogue and the rhythmic thumping that accompanied it. They paid no heed. I courageously pressed forward to find my seat number, among the last of 1,583. Finally, with a stutter-step of my breath, there it was. Bold and cold, set amongst dozens of others in a table invariably copied-and-pasted from a Word document:

"1433 - Pass"

No exhilaration. No celebration or triumph. Just a wave of calm relief. Oh, thank God, I whispered as I exhaled. I wrestled with the Maryland Bar Examination, and I prevailed. It was 4:32 in the afternoon on a Friday, and I promptly dialed ten digits on my cell phone.

"Hello?" my father replied on the end.

"I'm a lawyer."

I suppose now that I am. But believe it or not, passing the bar exam was not really a cause for celebration for me. More than anything, I'm just glad that I don't have to fight with that beast again. No, passing the bar is a means to an end. In a sense, it was a formalization of an end that was reached eight days earlier. "1433 - Pass" was nice to read, but the following words were even nicer to hear:

"...the respondent has met her burden of proof..."

My co-counsel Priscilla and I sat numbly in a small courtroom on the 13th floor of a mid-rise office building in the Ballston neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia. The Immigration Judge reclined attentively as the attorney for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) read aloud a prepared statement. Behind us sat Adaline, a short 30-year-old African woman. As the DHS attorney moved through the elements of the case, Elizabeth, our supervising attorney, gently took Adaline by the hand and began interpreting in clean, unbroken French. I was too exhausted to feel anything, and I had actually braced myself for defeat. I turned to Priscilla and whispered what I never expected to say that afternoon:

"I think we just won."

Priscilla didn't respond. Instead, she stared through her glasses, likely in shock. It took her some time after that to form a complete sentence.

The DHS counsel continued: "Your Honor, upon seeing and hearing the respondent's testimony today, in light of the evidence on the record, including expert medical and psychiatric evaluations and the corroborating testimony of three sworn and notarized affidavits, the government concludes that the respondent has met her burden of proof that she has a well-founded fear of persecution upon return to Burundi, on account of her dissident political opinion, such that she is unable to return and avail herself of the protection of its laws."

The Judge turned and sternly looked at Priscilla and I, a wry smile creeping up the side of one lip.

"Mr. Daniel, do you object to the government's finding?"

I'm normally fairly quick on my feet when speaking publicly. It took several guffaws before I was finally able to blurt out, "Sure, Your Honor." Nice.

The Judge chuckled. " 'Sure', it is. Then I'll adopt the government's position as dispositive in this case. Asylum is granted."

I heard Adaline begin to weep deeply. I had seen and heard her cry before, mostly out of unfathomable sorrow as she recalled trauma from the darkest recesses of her memory. This cry was of a different genus and species. From a different place in her heart. I quickly scribbled on a note in French, tore it from my legal pad and passed it behind her.

"Bienvenue aux Etats-Unis," it read. "Welcome to the United States."

Adaline, a French-speaking native of Burundi and a victim of severe political persecution in the form of a machete, was my first client as a student attorney with the International Human Rights Law Clinic during my third year of law school at American University. Before Adaline arrived in the United States four years ago, she had endured beatings, imprisonment, and death threats in her native country simply for her dissent against government policy. Her original application for asylum was denied on "credibility" grounds by a faceless bureaucrat. She was placed in immigration removal proceedings. The stakes were nothing less than her right to live. Win, and she can stay in the United States indefinitely, apply for her green card, and perhaps, down the road, citizenship. Lose, and she is as Daniel cast back into the lion's den from whence she escaped.

We were originally slated to argue her asylum claim in October 2008. A procedural snafu resulted in the continuation of the case until October 2009, well after Priscilla and I were scheduled to graduate. We opted to continue with the case on a pro bono basis, as the Immigration Court does not require bar passage, only a J.D., to practice. Otherwise, Adaline would have a third set of brand-new student attorneys working her case in the span of little more than a year.

And now Adaline is free to live, work, and play for the rest of her life in the United States. Her children will soon be granted legal status in the U.S. under a grant of derivative asylum. That still hasn't set in yet. We saved her life. There is no rhetorical eloquence or poetic oration that can possibly describe what our victory means.

And so, in a little over two weeks, I will be sworn into the Maryland Bar at a ceremony of pomp and circumstance at the Court of Appeals in Annapolis. Soon after, I'll begin my practice, winning and losing cases of varying degrees of magnitude. But I'm sure that nothing in my career will equal our victory for Adaline last month.

So, as far as I'm concerned, I am now and will forever be 1-0.

Smartness, and Other Trivial Pursuits

Being unemployed clearly comes with a list of downsides.  Hovering at or near the top of that list is what materialists might call a lack of "cash flow".  I actually disagree with that.  There is plenty of money flowing through my life.  It is flowing in a unilateral direction away from my checking account.

But, hell, I'm an unbridled optimist.  I like to believe that all things happen for a reason, and that the closure of one door portends the opening of another.  So I've decided to brave my perfect storm of joblessness and impossible debt by utilizing my time in the wisest possible manner, to navigate the rudder of my ship of life in a new direction.  I have decided to renew a lifelong quest that long ago fell dormant under a pile of casebooks.

I will accumulate more useless knowledge than any other person on the planet.

This expedition was inspired by a book I picked up earlier this week at Borders, which sits amidst the six-figure retail icons mentioned in my last entry.  It's called The Know-it-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World.  The author, A.J. Jacobs, is a writer for Esquire magazine and later went on to publish the best-selling The Year of Living Biblically, in which he spends an entire year attempting to follow the Bible as literally as possible.  I'll read that volume later, as it is essential to my own quest.  In The Know-It-All, Jacobs sets out to accomplish the nerd's equivalent of scaling Mount Everest a hammer, nail, and dental floss: he intends to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica from cover-to-cover.  Every word of every entry on every page of every gold-embossed leather volume, from a-ak to Zywiec.  It is the sort of epic adventure that can transform your everyday polite house nerd into a remarkably maladjusted pile of Social Anxiety Disorder.  And I'm jealous.

I'm jealous because I once believed, as did Jacobs, that I was the smartest human being alive.  I had proof, too.  Count the trophies.  Third-place in the Washoe County Spelling Bee in sixth-grade, runner-up in the Sierra Pacific MathCounts competition in eighth.  Never mind the fact both of these trophies indicated that there were at least three people in my age group in Northern Nevada who apparently knew more than I did.  Narcissus never saw anyone else hogging his reflection, and neither did I.

Like an academic Linus, I clung to my intellectual superiority as a security blanket.  It was my perverse and ill-advised way of clawing my way up the public school pecking order.  I didn't have much else.  Sure, there was my stint as the class clown in fifth-grade (Ms. Davis, for the fortieth time, I am sooooo sorry for running around the classroom with scissors).  Other than that, I was a slightly above-average athlete with below-average social skills.  Knowing shit was my investment in a brighter future, one in which I would arrive at my high school reunion in 2010 driving a BMW with a supermodel wife.  I am clearly behind schedule on this plan.

Admittedly, the whole "I know a whole lot of useless crap" motif didn't work well for me socially in Reno.  I don't think I scored any points with the Bully's waitress after a softball game in which I, under the moderate influence of Killian's, recited who won and lost every World Series from 1903 to the present.  But in D.C., this sort of aversion to social connection paradoxically works.  Washington is easily the most educated city in the United States; some might say that it is over-educated.  It is not difficult for me to imagine a scene at Sidwell Friends High School where the chess champion shoves the quarterback into a locker.  And in this up-is-down, black-is-white, right-is-left, nerds-are-in and jocks-are-out town, it's time for me to utilize my strengths to climb the antisocial ladder, a ladder climbed only through the accumulation of useless trivia (see any Irish pub in D.C. on a Wednesday or Thursday night).

It irks me to no end that this pyramid of geek-hood is dominated by those, like A.J. Jacobs, with an "Ivy League education."  Oh yeah?  Well watch out.  Because I have a degree from the Western Athletic Conference.

Unemployed in Greenland

For those of you who are somehow impressed by my life's accomplishments, I would like to invite you into my world at the moment.  As I write this sentence, it is 5:46 p.m. on a Tuesday in October.  Three years ago, I would have told you that, at this very moment, I would be wearing a well-tailored suit, ironed shirt and tie, and a newly polished pair of dress shoes, perhaps hunched over the latest issue of The Washington Post Express as I ride along the Metro on my way home after a hard day of work.

Close.  Very close.  I am planted firmly on my ass in the middle of a mattress mounted on a cheap IKEA bedframe, wearing a white tank top and a pair of blue pajama pants hunched over my Macbook while episodes of Lost: Season 1 play on a loop in the background.  Sexy, I know.  But sexy is a luxury I can't afford right now.

Which is ironic, considering where I live.  About a month ago, I moved into a new apartment in the swanky, upscale Friendship Heights neighborhood of Upper Northwest D.C.  For the uninitiated, Friendship Heights sports a Saks Fifth Avenue, a Williams-Sonoma, and a Neiman-Marcus.  Say no more.  I may be in Friendship Heights, but I am definitely not of it.  My humble abode sits atop a row of brick townhouses.  It's nice and quaint, but it doesn't have the turbo-charged luxuries of some of the other places around here.  For example: there is no natural sunlight in the living room.  Well, there is a skylight that illuminates about a third of the room, giving it the ambience of a solitary confinement cell in a 19th-century French penitentiary. 

This is not to say that I don't like the apartment.  I actually love it.  But it also highlights the fundamental problem with my life right now.  You see, a few days ago, I lost my job.  Which is actually impressive, because it implies that I had a job.  It was a temporary job with a residential real estate company involved in long and protracted litigation.  I signed on, ostensibly through January, as an independent contract attorney.  Sounds glamorous, I know.  Over the course of three weeks, I was sent thrice to Atlanta, Georgia and environs to review files.  Mountains and mountains of files.  The job specifically required a J.D., but I am inclined to believe that the necessary skill level was that of a lobotomized orangutang.  But I got to wore that suit I talked about, walk briskly through the airport glancing at my watch to convey busyness, stand in light at rental car counters, and basically feel more important.  Plus, I got paid.  Not much, but enough.  And that's all a guy can ask for right now.

Until it isn't.  I got laid off on Saturday, hours before a 25th birthday party.  Celebrate good times.  Turns out that my job isn't necessary anymore, so I got the proverbial pink slip.  So now, instead of playing moderately affluent adult with a shirt-and-tie, I am back to Square One, playing the moonlighting blogger with a degree, debt, and a dearth of time on my hands.  That is why I am at home on a Tuesday wearing a tank-top and PJ's while a block away The Real Housewives of Montgomery County spend their husbands' green at Bloomingdale's.

Such is life.  Unemployed in Greenland.

A person of a darker disposition might be deterred or daunted, or delve into the depths of deriving depressing drivel from D words like it were D-Day.  Dude.  I won't make you read a sentence like that ever again.  But I digress (*grimace*).  Things aren't so bad.  I don't have to deal with the exhausting burdens of business travel every week, and maybe I can spend a little more time on things I find enjoyable but haven't had the time to.

Like reading books.

Or watching Lost for the billionth time.

Or looking for another job (eh).

Or blogging.

Unemployed in Greenland.  Thumbs-a-twiddle.