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Non-duality revisited.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:10:00 -0500

During my decades of obsession over civil liberties and human rights, I have staked too much of my feelings of well-being or ill-being on things happening outside myself, when instead it is critical simultaneously to fight for social justice while also reaching and maintaining internal well-being, balance and harmony. I have seen the glass as half empty or less when a Supreme Court majority has damaged the Constitution, without taking enough time to be thankful for those in the dissent, and to even not be attached to upset when all nine justices appear to rule in such a way. I approached temporary hours-long depression in 1984 over the movie audience's cheering when a character in Scarface got his live skull chainsawed in half, with the blood spurting everywhere. I have obsessed over bigotry, too often reacting with verbal brute force rather than with persuasive responses.

T'ai chi, Taoism , and nonduality teach me to look inside myself for balance and a sense of well being. To do otherwise will make my sense of well-being dependent on too many external factors beyond my control and take me away from the now.

I have written before on non-duality/non attachment in terms of being a more effective lawyer and person here, here, and here. Here are some more ideas on the topic:

- A life of simplicity and frugality might work fine for a person in good health with no financial obligations to others. However, what if the person gets cancer, loses a leg to gangrene, or develops severe asthma? Will it be fun any longer to live as a hermit in the mountains, in a cave with bats, or as a wandering mendicant? I suppose the answer here is to prepare reasonably for the future without obsessing over the future, and to live simply so that others may simply live, without needing to go to the extremes of living in a hut or as a hermit.

- Nonduality underlines the artificial boundary between life and death. If there is an afterlife of complete awareness without a body, what will one in the afterlife do to avoid utter boredom, assuming that in any afterlife one is unable to pick up and turn the pages of a book, to travel, or to enjoy athletics? I suppose those who believe in hell – which I do not – will say that an eternity of boredom is better than an eternity in hell, and that one must obsess today over right actions in order to avoid going to hell. I suppose that if I asked Thich Nhat Hanh about how to avert boredom in any afterlife, he would likely counsel not to become attached to such a possibility that may never arise.

- Nonduality can help prisoners transcend their physical confinement, whether the prisoners be confined to government-run jails or prisons, or imprisoned in their own personal lives.

- If Ram Dass took so long to overcome substantial depression and upset over his very serious stroke, after decades of knowing how to transcend that, how much harder would it be for other people to transcend such difficulties as quickly and effectively as did Ram Dass? Perhaps part of the answer lies in reading Ram Dass’s Still Here, in which he talks about how he transcended his stroke by finally bridging the gap between what he already knew about not becoming attached to bodily ailments and how to transcend such ailments.

- Why fear death? To fear death attaches us to our bodies and to this world. To fear death forgets that millenia passed before we even were conceived. Rather than being fearful of our ultimate passing from the earth, we can be grateful for finally having become human beings after the passage of so many millenia.

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a great book on releasing fear of death: No Death, No Fear.

Further inspiration for fearlessness of death on the non-dualistic path is this passage from Zen in Martial Arts: The Present Moment: "A Japanese warrior was captured by his enemies and thrown into prison. That night he was unable to sleep because he feared that the next day he would be interrogated, tortured, and executed. Then the words of his Zen master came to him, 'Tomorrow is not real. It is an illusion. The only reality is now.' Heeding these words, the warrior became peaceful and fell asleep."

Similarly, Zoketsu Norman Fischer said: "In Buddhist funeral services we always say, in true reality there is no coming no going no increase no decrease no birth and no death. This is a deep expression of our gratitude for existence as it is, our knowing that life in order to be life is always full of death, and death, in order to be death, is always full of life."

In that regard, t'ai chi master extraordinaire Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo once said: "N ormally, we think if [our opponent] has 100 pounds of force or power, I better have 150. But then if I get 150 pounds of force, he may have accumulated more himself. Or there’ll be somebody else with more. So next time it will be my 150 against his 200. Then I’ll need to go to 250… and still, there’s always going to be somebody with more than me. So I need to reverse my approach. I need to take my own power down to 0. Then there’s no chasing or spiraling. Nothing can change. If he has 100, I have 0. If he has 150, I have 0. If he has 200, I still have 0, on and on, whatever he has, I’m always beneath it, it doesn’t change or affect me. I’m not chasing his attributes, or competing, or catching up, or exceeding him. That’s Taijuquan.”

By divine coincidence last October during Master Lo's annual teaching visit to the Washington, D.C., area, a seat remained at Master Lo's table for lunch at a local Chinese restaurant, even though I was one of the last to arrive. There, I asked Master Lo whether he saw a connection between non-duality in Buddhism and non-chasing in t'ai chi. He did, but that is about as far as I got with him on that topic as he was engaged in talk with those sitting closer to him.

Concerning the concept of no coming and no going, Tibetan studies professor Ringu Tulku writes that the concept "that all phenomena are devoid of coming and going ... means that an enlightened bodhisattva sees the truth, the way things are. This is seeing directly without adding any concept or philosophy. Within this clear vision there is not the slightest doubt about anything, so there is no need for clinging or running away. A realized bodhisattva has no dualistic view. Within this sheer and naked seeing, spontaneous compassion arises. Once we no longer feel compelled to cling to ourselves and fixate on our own problems all the time, we can look around and see everything clearly. We can perceive others' lives and understand how and why they experience their problems. Although we see that others are suffering greatly, we know that their suffering is almost needless. They are not doomed to be in pain, because their suffering just comes from a wrong way of seeing and reacting. If they could see how things truly are, they would not suffer anymore. This is the understanding of an enlightened being." Ringu Tulku, Daring Steps Toward Fearlessness: The Three Vehicles of Buddhism at 58 (Snow Lion Publications, 2005). Jon Katz

Fox News apparently did not edit out Tiger Woods's references to Buddhism.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:10:00 -0500

The Chinese script for the character "mu," which means nothing. Why are so many intricate brush strokes needed to convey nothing? (The copyright was relinquished by this animated symbol's creator. The symbol also is available here.)

NOTE: Please see my February 22, 2010, addendum at the end of this article. I am seriously questioning whether the video segment highlighted in Elephant Journal's below-discussed blogpost was doctored or otherwise edited by someone outside of Fox News.

Someone recently asked me what I think about Tiger Woods’s marital scandal. I responded that the story does not interest me. It is a private matter involving a major celebrity who apparently tried to lead a very private life before this scandal.

To better update my answer, I was certainly intrigued that in his public statement two days ago, Mr. Woods mentioned his Buddhist upbringing: “Part of following this path for me is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age. People probably don't realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years. Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously I lost track of what I was taught.”

The Chinese Mu symbol, and link thereto, at the bottom right of my blog, underlines the profound overlapping benefits I have derived from t’ai chi and Buddhism . I add the overlapping benefits of Taoism to the mix, as well.

UPDATE: See ADDENDUM I below. It seems Elephant Journal was barking up the wrong tree. @elephantjournal is very prolific on Twitter, and has several times on Twitter accused Fox News of censoring Mr. Woods’s Buddhist references from his public statement from this past Friday, and has blogposted in greater detail on this matter. Not one to accept such accusations blindly, I did find the following part of Mr. Woods’s statement omitted from the Fox News Alert YouTube page's purportedly complete video of Mr. Woods's statement. The excised portion goes beyond Buddhist references, so perhaps the Fox News folks did the edit only to reach an eleven-minute video (but should have made that clear, if that was the case). I have not figured out whether the FoxNewsAlert page is run by FoxNews, or by someone else who possible edited out this text with the intention of having FoxNews accused of the editing. Here is the text that is omitted from the video on the FoxNewsAlert YouTube page:

“Part of following this path for me is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age. People probably don't realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years. Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously I lost track of what I was taught.

“As I move forward, I will continue to receive help because I've learned that's how people really do change. Starting tomorrow, I will leave for more treatment and more therapy. I would like to thank my friends at Accenture and the players in the field this week for understanding why I'm making these remarks today.

“In therapy I've learned the importance of looking at my spiritual life and keeping in balance with my professional life.”

I have looked on Google for any possible response from Fox on Elephant Journal’s accusation, but have found none thus far. UPDATE: See ADDENDUM I below.

ADDENDUM I: February 22, 2010. For the following reasons, I am seriously questioning whether the video segment highlighted in Elephant Journal's above-discussed blogpost was doctored by someone outside of Fox News, unless the Fox website was updated as a result of Elephant Journal's above-discussed accusations:

- The video about which Elephant Journal complains was uploaded by a YouTube subscriber named FoxNewsAlert. FoxNewsAlert is likely not run by Fox, in part when considering how infrequently FoxNewsAlert uploads videos (sometimes weeks apart) versus the FoxNewsChannel YouTube page, which uploads videos at least one video daily.

- The FoxNewsAlert Tiger Woods video blatantly shows a visual time-counter skip from 11:11 a.m. to 11:13 a.m. ET, which gap contains the omission of Mr. Woods's Buddhism reference.

- Fox News's website carries an Associated Press article covering the Dalai Lama's response to a journalist's questions about Mr. Woods's reference to his Buddhist upbringing.

- Fox News's website carries the full text of Mr. Woods's apology.

- Purportedly uploaded February 19, 2010, is the Fox News website's complete video of Mr. Woods's apology.

- As an example of the need to remain on guard on the reliability of all media, including the so-called mainstream media, a USA Today blog reported on the Elephant Journal's foregoing blog entry apparently without doing any independent fact checking.

Consequently, Fox appraently did not try to hide or delete any of Mr. Woods's statement.

Howard Zinn/Ralph Nader events this week in Washington, D.C.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:10:00 -0500

For those interested, here are some local D.C.-area events I recently learned about; thanks to the listserv member who circulated this information. The common thread with all is that Ralph Nader will be speaking. I will try to go to tonight's Howard Zinn tribute, in case you will be there. I have not read much of Zinn's writings, but Amy Goodman has always been particularly interesting every time I have seen her in person, and she has the makings of an effective trial lawyer.

Monday, February 15

6:00 pm - Ralph Nader, Amy Goodman, Bernice Johnson Reagon, David Zirin, Rich Rubenstein, to speak at the Howard Zinn Tribute

Busboys and Poets Restaurant, 2021 14th St NW Washington DC 20009, (202) 387-7638

Tuesday, February 16

11am - Ralph Nader on "Peace and Justice Strategies: Can Some Super-Rich Save Us?"

Montgomery College, Rockville Campus Performing Arts Center, Rockville, MD

Wednesday, February 175:30pm - Ralph Nader and Bruce Fein on "The Decline and Fall of the Rule of Law: Corporate Control and the American Empire."

Gaston Hall, Georgetown University Main Campus, Washington, DC

Friday, February 196pm - Ralph Nader and Kike Arnal

Discussion and signing of In the Shadow of Power. http://www.artbook.com/9788881587605.html

Busboys and Poets Restaurant, 2021 14th St NW Washington DC 20009, (202) 387-7638

Our office is open today.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

To those calling my office today:

Our office is open today on Presidents Day, but without my staff, who have a day off on this federal holiday.

I have meeting times available this afternoon and most other later afternoons the rest of the week around my court schedule.

The best place to reach me today is my main phone number at 301-495-7755, extension 224. Messages to my voicebox go straight to my pager, and emails to jon[at]katzjustice[dot]com go to my Blackberry. I look forward to assisting you.

Super Bowl: $$ meet Exxon meets drug testing meets gender segregation meets metal detectors meet excellence in athletics.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:10:00 -0500

Another Super Bowl comes today that I will not watch. I think I last watched around 1992. Of course, by my not watching, I miss television's efforts to avoid a repeat of nipple-gate and to be more lenient in running controversial commercials; and miss any further explanation of the roots of "Who Dat", including whether the phrase is or is not racially demeaning.

The problem about Soviet Olympic sports was that the Soviet government apparently poured so much money into its athletes as to make them hardly resemble amateurs any longer. A big problem about professional football, baseball and basketball in the United States is that it is overly commercialized to make watching on television a substantial irritant.

I still enjoy watching sports, particularly a good lacrosse game and some of the televised daring non-ball sports, including wild obstacle courses. I still appreciate the awesome athletic abilities of many athletes. As my nearly four-year-old boy gets older, I likely will be watching more live and televised games, if he wishes. My wife is not big on sports, so we have enjoyed this break from sports together.

Watching sports was more fun for me before I got bothered by my college years that professional football, baseball, basketball, and more are segregated based on gender; before I realized how rampant is drug testing throughout professional and amateur sports, which was not nearly as rampant in my younger days, it seems; and before people had to pass through metal detectors to get into a stadium. I have great memories seeing the Yankees, Knicks, Lakers, and Bruins in their home stadiums. Later, the Yankees put doo-doo on their games by prohibiting people from leaving their seats during the national anthem, or maybe that was the case even when I attended in the late 1970's, without my knowing it.

A few years ago, the local National Lawyers Guild chapter arranged for an outing at Camden Yards. When I stated my concerns about gender segregation and drug testing to a particularly excited member -- who is an avowed communist, to boot -- he focused me on the fun of the Orioles game. Sure, I had fun when I went to a game at Camden Yards. That was not enough to overcome my concerns about returning, and I did not.

Because I may be watching more professional sports in the future, this blog entry is not an effort to convince others not to watch the Super Bowl. I do, however, wish to know your views on the concerns I have stated here.

Meeting macaca-gate's central anti-Allen catalyst.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

S.R. Sidarth and Jon Katz (Copyright Jon Katz.)

I kept my composure when encountering such excellent and accomplished people as Lou Jacobi (through a storefront window), Geoffrey Holder (on a SoHo street), and Madeline Kahn (in the audience of Aunt Dan and Lemon).

A rare group of people leave me awestruck. Tears welled in my eyes when I met McCoy Tyner, who made musical and cultural history with John Coltrane. When with Jun Yasuda, I try my best to restrain myself from doing a full questionography of her life. When Pramoedya Ananta Toer strolled into Olson’s Books, I pinched myself.

Shekar Ramanuja Sidarth has joined that group that leaves me awestruck. He is an accidental mini-celebrity who contributed to George Allen’s downfall by merely being present to lead Allen to blunder into Macaca-gate.

I met Sidarth, as he calls himself, for the first time, today, as he was filing something for the law firm he works at, as he continues his second year of George Washington Law School. The descriptions of him as a low-key man who apparently does not seek the limelight seem accurate.

At first, Sidarth seemed so low-key that I wasn’t sure how he would respond to a request for a photo together. But then I remarked how he was accustomed to training the camera on Allen during his failed re-election campaign, and he seemed happy to accept my request for a photo, which turned out to be rather fuzzy in the courthouse’s dark café area, with my cellphone.

As Time said a few weeks after Allen’s defeat:

“It was definitely not Sidarth's idea to put the clip [of Allen’s macacagate] on YouTube. ‘Getting drawn out into the limelight was really surprising," he says, and he means it. He's an intensely private person, and he declined to answer quite a few of the questions put to him by TIME. He's focused on keeping his head down and getting into law school. ‘Ultimately I'd hope people wouldn't pay as much attention to things like this, instead caring more about who can serve the country or the state better,’ he says. ‘Of course,’ he adds, ‘character plays into that. And this event reflected on Allen's character.’”

Where Sidarth was an accidental catalyst to Allen’s downfall, Mike Stark sought to get Allen’s goat during the campaign, got tackled by some goons who were either present to support Allen or possibly were asked by his campaign to provide security or order, and helped further the unravelling of Allen’s reelection bid. Sidarth told me he knows Stark.

On Jeopardy two months ago, Sidarth told Alex Trebeck about going on a religious pilgrimage with his mother to Tibet.

Although I am not crazy either way about Jim Webb, who defeated Allen, I think an Allen reelection would have been much worse. Sidarth wrote a great piece a few days after Allen’s defeat, turning an ugly situation into an inspiring look forward.

Jack Litman leaves his body. Kindness, brilliance and passion personified.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Over the weekend on a lawyers' listserv came news that Jack Litman left his body yesterday. Because death seems to be an artificial boundary, other than to describe the shutdown of one's organs and body, I prefer not to say that he died, including when considering how many lives Jack continues to positively touch, which became all the clearer from the numerous listserv comments I have read from those close to him.

When I joined the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers 1991, I believe Jack was already a member of its board. I was floored when I first heard him give a presentation a few years later about dealing with forensics evidence in defending a murder case. He seemed to be a man as comfortable, passionate, and persuasive in handling street crime defense as suite crime defense.

Somehow I never bumped into Jack face-to-face until around 2000, after he spoke on a panel at the Libel Defense Resource Center in Manhattan. Jack was very approachable and kind, and shared with me that his law practice included libel defense, as does mine.

I was taken by Jack's kindness and about his apparent ability to talk as respectfully to all as does the Dalai Lama, without having his apparently brilliant intellect get in the way of truly connecting with people.

Others have highlighted Jack’s kindness, as well. Ellen Podgor writes on White Collar Crime Prof: “He was one of the nicest most caring individuals one could come across in life.” Ellen quotes Barry Scheck as saying of Jack: “But perhaps most impressive of all, sometimes with gestures of kindness and loyalty unknown to many, he delivered when it counted for his friends, his clients, and the cause of liberty.”

Jack’s passing was from lymphoma, and his obituary shows that he was already battling lymphoma when I met him around 2000.

Thanks, Jack, for you. I send you and your family all good karma.

Most Virginia courts were closed last Friday, too.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:10:00 -0500

Most Virginia state courts -- and state agencies, I presume -- are closed both on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day and the Friday before, which is [Robert E.] Lee-[Stonewall] Jackson Day.

Consequently, instead of the four-day weekend being a means of paying penance for Virginia's shameful centuries-long role with slavery and segregation right into the second half of the 1960's, here is the real story:

Until 2000, Virginia set the same date for celebrating Lee-Jackson day and Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, until legislation passed to separate the two holidays with Lee-Jackson Day falling on the Friday before Martin Luther King Day. The Roanoke, Virginia, Times quotes a regional Virginia NAACP leader as follows on this peculiar holiday juxtaposition:

"The Rev. Glenn Orr, president of the Montgomery County-Radford City-Floyd County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said it's not a matter that members dwell on. 'We're really focused on honoring Dr. King rather than trying to tell somebody they can't honor Lee, Jackson,' Orr said. 'We just celebrate our opportunity to remember Dr. King and the values that he helped us to develop.'"

Having visited the Washington, D.C./Virginia area three times before starting law school here in 1986, I knew full well that I was going to the South, at least when crossing the border into Virginia. As with probably many others, I was drawn to Washington, D.C., with the possibility of getting involved in what was going on in the nation's capital. Ultimately, my resulting law practice is only relevant to the federal government for a small part of my law practice. The Confederacy's history permeates Virginia, starting with the first memorial I witnessed to that history when driving on Lee Highway/Route 29, which runs well over one hundred miles, and terminates just about two hundred yards from Washington, D.C.

Teaching police mindfulness.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Claude AnShin Thomas became a mendicant Buddhist monk years after killing hundreds of people in Vietnam. I met Mr. Thomas in 2005 during his speaking tour, and was taken by his dual approach of not denying or suppressing the anger that he still lives with -- which for quite some time led him to soak himself in drugs, alcohol, and sex -- but also doing his best to dissipate and reduce the pain and anger. When he is about to get angry, he accepts the feeling, but tries to dissipate it by focusing on his breath and on the sound of a bell, which I suppose helps get him back to concentrating on his breath and calm rather than on anger.

Brother Thomas was heavily influenced by Thich Nhat Hanh in his healing process. He was long out of the military at the time, which was sixteen years after the United States military finally pulled out of Vietnam in 1975.

Curiously, Cheri Maples remained a gun-toting police officer and police trainer during and after her first meeting with Thich Nhat Hanh. She found a way to inject the Buddhist approach of mindfulness into her training of police officers, including encouraging them to talk directly to other police personnel with whom they had beefs, rather than to let it boil into gossip and worse.

Ms. Maples ended up attending law school while working at night as a police officer, and eventually becoming an attorney with the Wisconsin Department of Justice. She also previously headed the Wisconsin probation and parole system.

Ms. Maples is currently involved in running the Center for Mindfulness and Justice, which includes incorporating her mindfulness training when she provides presentations to police, prosecutors, criminal defense lawyers and judges.

I just learned about Ms. Maples this weekend, through a Tricycle magazine article about her, which confirms that Thich Nhat Hanh was supportive of having a gun-toting police officer who understood mindfulness, than to have no such gun-toting police officer. See her speaking here.

In 2003, the Associate Press reported that Cheri Maples "said she struggles with ways to help officers handle the stress of police work. Instinct and training teaches them to take charge — which is good for police work but can be hard on relationships, she said. 'What police officers deal with over and over and over again is misplaced anger,' Maples said. “And then our families deal with our misplaced anger and frustration.'"

I was blown away that such transformations are happening among some police at the systemic level this many decades after the Sixties. I wish to know how widespread are the efforts to bring such teachings to police.

Recommending Baba Shambhala for employment.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

A local kindred spirit seeks employment. Baba Shambhala is multitalented -- as his resume shows -- and has an infectuously optimistic approach to life.

Only a small number of people get their resumes posted to my blog, and it is my honor to do so with Baba Shambhala, who is at:

Baba Shambhala

28 Bryant Street N.E.

Washington, DC 20002

kundi54@gmail.com

(202) 518-4042.

His resume is at http://www.katzjustice.com/BabaResume.pdf . Feel free to contact me if you seek further information about Baba Shambhala.

''N-----, what are you doing out of your neighborhood?,'' the cop taunted.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Today, too many people still echo the quote listed in the title to this blog entry at least in their minds. Longer ago, many more people -- police included -- would openly verbalize such thoughts.

Born in 1920 to a former slave, at the age of thirteen Percy Sutton was handing out NAACP leaflets in an all-white neighborhood, apparently in his home state of Texas. The cop taunted Mr. Sutton: ''N-----, what are you doing out of your neighborhood?'' The cop then beat him up.

Flash forward to 1977 -- when I was close to the age that Mr. Sutton had reached when he was beaten by the cop -- during the heated New York Democratic primary race for mayor, when I was in the New York television viewing area, and when I had not yet gotten as cynical about politicians as I am today, having viewed Nixon more as an aberration than as the possibly logical conclusion about much of what goes wrong with politics and politicians. During that mayoral race, I heard the mellifluous tones (see and hear his tones) of Percy Sutton, one of the contenders for that race that was ultimately won by Ed Koch.

Sutton's was a voice to enthrall and captivate jurors. I did not pay much more mind to Mr. Sutton -- other than recalling his interesting-sounding name and captivating voice from time to time -- until I learned this past weekend that he had passed away. I still do not know much more about him, except for the contents of his obituaries, including:

- Mr. Sutton had already been a lawyer for a long time when I heard him on television in 1977. His clients included Malcolm X and other members of his family.

- His father, an educator, was a strong influence on his civil rights path.

- After his military service during World War II, he attended Columbia law school, but switched to and graduated from Brooklyn law school to work around his two jobs "at a post office from 4 p.m. until midnight, then as a subway conductor until 8:30 in the morning."

- He re-enlisted in the military after mistakenly thinking he had failed the bar exam, and served in the Korean War.

- As the New York Times reports, he was "arrested as a Freedom Rider in Mississippi and Alabama in the 1960s, yet once described himself as 'an evolutionist rather than a revolutionist' in matters of race. 'You ought always to keep the lines of communication open with those with whom you disagree,' he said."

- Mr. Sutton's law firm represented 200 civil rights marchers arrested in the South in 1963-64.

- Around 1965, he was elected to New York's state legislature. In 1966, he filled the interim vacancy of Manhattan borough president.

- He supported Charles Rangel to beat incumbent Adam Clayton Powell for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1970.

- During the 1977 Democratic mayoral primary, he stood strongly against crime. I wish to know more about those stands and the extent to which I agree or disagree with them.

- The New York Times reports that "Mr. Sutton blamed the news media as much as his opponents for his [1977 mayoral] defeat. 'It’s racism pure and simple,' he declared."

- He served as president of the New York NAACP.

- He purchased historic Apollo theater when it was threatened with oblivion.

- Mr. Sutton located in and devoted himself to the advancement of the Harlem section of Manhattan. My last visit to Harlem a few years ago, particularly around the 125th Street area, revealed an economically vibrant place that has kept some of its defining hallmarks -- including the Apollo Theater -- along with the many chainstores.

- He branched lucratively into broadcasting.

- Mr. Sutton's father told him: “Suffer the hurts, but don’t show the anger, because if you do, it will block you from being able to effectively do anything to remove the hurts.”

I wish I had met Mr. Sutton face-to-face. I send him good karma and pray Na-Mu-Myo-Ho-Ren-Ge-Kyo.

Is Ronald Machen the best available candidate to be the U.S. Attorney in D.C.?

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:20:00 -0500

Photo from website of U.S. District Court (W.D. Mi.).

A United States Attorney is the chief lawyer overseeing virtually all criminal and civil trial litigation in a federal trial court district in which the federal government is a party, as well as subsequent appeals. That is a tremendously powerful position. A United States Attorney's power carries a vast potential to cause much harm, and at least some possibility to do some good along the way.

The United States Attorney for the District of Columbia wields particularly immense power when considering that a vast number of national security and government agency cases are handled in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, including the secret FISA court. The United States Attorney's Office in the District of Columbia also handles the vast majority of prosecutions in the District of Columbia Superior Court -- except for the drunk driving prosecutions and various low-level misdemeanor prosecutions handled by the D.C. Attorney General's Office -- with the District of Columbia still being treated heavily as a colony that does not choose its own trial and appellate judges, prosecutes only a very small list of criminal case types that get filed in Superior Court, cannot get its laws passed without the United States Congress first deciding whether to bar putting such laws into effect, and has no Congressional representation other than a non-voting representative in the House of Representatives who gets some voting authority only by the grace of the House members and not from the Constitution.

With the foregoing backdrop, today President Obama nominated the District of Columbia's new United States Attorney, as well as U.S. Attorneys to six other districts in various parts of the nation. President Obama's nominee for the District of Columbia's U.S. Attorney is Ronald C. Machen. On paper, Mr. Machen seems to have similar credentials to many a U.S. Attorney over the years. He graduated from some of most difficult schools to get admitted to: Stanford University undergraduate and from Harvard Law School. He held a coveted federal appellate clerkship. He is a partner with one of D.C.'s toughest law firms to get hired at. He has both prosecuted and defended criminal cases, although his defense work seems limited to the well-heeled corporate clientele that usually are able to afford a large law firm, unless he has engaged in any blue collar pro bono criminal defense, which is not addressed in his law firm biography. Would I have accepted the same opportunities if offered to me? Yes, except for the prosecutorial part, and with the hope that I still would have had the will to become my own boss despite the many advantages of working at a full-service large law firm, including having first-rate support staff and excellent attorneys available for teamwork. Therefore, I am not chiding Mr. Machen for his resume, but do wonder if he is the best available candidate, as I address further below.

Like many other large law firm partners who take political appointments in the federal government, Mr. Machen likely will return to his current law firm after leaving the U.S. Attorney position, ready to bring even more client dollars to his law firm through the clout and experience of being D.C.'s chief U.S. Attorney.

Mr. Machen has been out of law school for sixteen years, with two of those years clerking for a federal appellate judge. Like so many of history's United States Attorneys, his resume is long on government and large law firm ivory tower experience, and short on representing the average person, although I know many prosecutors claim that they represent crime victims. Of President Obama's thousands of choices for D.C.'s U.S. Attorney in a city heavily saturated by lawyers -- including many excellent lawyers who have successfully defended many blue collar criminal clients over the years -- was Mr. Machen really his best option? Apparently following former president Bill Clinton's approach, President Obama chose among a handful (three) of candidates submitted by D.C.'s Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who acted on the advice of a seventeen-member commission.

Delegate Norton last month submitted a proposed bill to create a D.C. District Attorney's Office, to take over many of the local court prosecution functions of the U.S. Attorney's office. Will Mr. Machen and President Obama support such a move? Jon Katz

Thich Nhat Hanh's "You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment"

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Recently, I started reading Thich Nhat Hanh's You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment. It apparently was first published in French in 2001, and not published in an English translation until this year.

Some of You are Here's key teachings include:

- "Compassion is not possible without pain and and suffering." Many of my criminal defense clients certainly experience much of both.

- "Compassion and love are you, but anger is, too." "All three are organic in nature." "You can transform them."

-The garbage of depression and anger can become flowers, just as flowers can become garbage, and flowers again.

Thich Nhat Hanh-following nuns and monks in Vietnam need your petition signatures now.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:00:00 -0500

Please sign this petition for human rights of Thich Nhat Hanh-following clergy in Vietnam. Full details are here.

No matter one's religious views or persuasion, robust religious freedom is critical worldwide. As to Thich Nhat Hanh specifically, his words and deed have been particularly empowering and helpful for me. Please sign the petition today.

Thanks to those who support this critical effort.

ADDENDUM: In the face of all this oppression, the nuns and monks have kept their compassion. As Sister Chang Khong wrote:

"As the situation has gone from bad to worse, our 379 very young monks and nuns have undergone a kind of baptism by fire, and have achieved a great success in training to understand, accept, and have genuine compassion for those who abuse them. Over the past several months they have been verbally assaulted over loudspeakers 24 hours a day and threatened with being bludgeoned to death. Policemen came demanding the monastics' identification every night from 7 pm to 11.30 pm, and cut off their electricity and water for three months."

Loving life.

nospam@example.com (Jon Katz) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Seizing the moment last week on Saturday: My boy and I making a mini-snow-turtle/buddha.