Morris Dean
[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]
For some, New Jersey is paved, industrial, and polluted, but for the red knot, New Jersey is life or death. Each year the red knot makes an awe-inspiring migration of 9,000 miles from the Arctic to the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego in South America and back again. Without New Jersey’s bayshores, the red knot would not survive. "Saving the Beach to Save the Red Knot." [Grant LaRouche, National Wildlife Federation]
The catalyst to these musings was something I saw in Los Angeles, probably the last place I expected to see it because I think of the city as hot-wired to the new and inclined to the brittle. It was a bronze statue from the third century B.C. of a seated boxer, a life-size rendering of a bearded man who, to judge from the bruise on his cheek and his broken nose, has just emerged from a fight, or perhaps a series of fights. His body is strong, suggestive of the heroic, but his expression is excruciatingly human, full of stoicism and questioning.
Here I am, the boxer seems to say, and such is life: an unpredictable struggle for survival in which there is no escape from hard work and wisdom must be earned the hard way. You see, he murmurs across 2,300 years, I have done what I had to do and this is the state I find myself in: tired, battered but unflinching and alive.
The statue, found in Rome in 1885, is on display at the J. Paul Getty Museum, part of an astonishing exhibition called “Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World.” Astonishing for its beauty but perhaps above all for the range of expression evident in the statuary. Gods of imposing power are depicted, yet it is the emotion of human subjects in all its variety — from serenity to suffering, from elation to exhaustion — that is most unforgettable because all those emotions are recognizable as, well, contemporary.
The boxer made me think of one of my favorite paintings, Velázquez’s portrait of Pope Innocent X in Rome’s Doria Pamphilj Gallery, not in any particular detail but in the evocation of someone who has lived life to the full: the ruddy and weathered face of the pontiff, the shrewd eyes, the expression that says he sees through the pomp of his position and is aware that life, even at the summit of power, may be viewed as a cruel joke. “Troppo vero!” — “Too true!” — the pope is said to have exclaimed on seeing it.
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| Amazon is building new offices in Seattle |
The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers to get them to achieve its ever-expanding ambitions....
At Amazon, workers are encouraged to tear apart one another’s ideas in meetings, toil long and late (emails arrive past midnight, followed by text messages asking why they were not answered), and held to standards that the company boasts are “unreasonably high.” The internal phone directory instructs colleagues on how to send secret feedback to one another’s bosses. Employees say it is frequently used to sabotage others. (The tool offers sample texts, including this: “I felt concerned about his inflexibility and openly complaining about minor tasks.”)....
Even as the company tests delivery by drone and ways to restock toilet paper at the push of a bathroom button, it is conducting a little-known experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers, redrawing the boundaries of what is acceptable. The company, founded and still run by Jeff Bezos, rejects many of the popular management bromides that other corporations at least pay lip service to and has instead designed what many workers call an intricate machine propelling them to achieve Mr. Bezos’ ever-expanding ambitions.
“This is a company that strives to do really big, innovative, groundbreaking things, and those things aren’t easy,” said Susan Harker, Amazon’s top recruiter. “When you’re shooting for the moon, the nature of the work is really challenging. For some people it doesn’t work.”
Bo Olson was one of them. He lasted less than two years in a book marketing role and said that his enduring image was watching people weep in the office, a sight other workers described as well. “You walk out of a conference room and you’ll see a grown man covering his face,” he said. “Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk.”
Thanks in part to its ability to extract the most from employees, Amazon is stronger than ever. Its swelling campus is transforming a swath of this city, a 10-million-square-foot bet that tens of thousands of new workers will be able to sell everything to everyone everywhere. Last month, it eclipsed Walmart as the most valuable retailer in the country, with a market valuation of $250 billion, and Forbes deemed Mr. Bezos the fifth-wealthiest person on earth.
Bezos encourages staffers to read the Times piece but states, "The article doesn't describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day." He later writes that "anyone working in a company that really is like the one described in the NYT would be crazy to stay."
The board voted to review bite mark cases to determine whether faulty evidence resulted in wrongful convictions after a presentation from Chris Fabricant, director of strategic litigation at the New York-based Innocence Project.
Last year, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences conducted a study of forensic odontologists and concluded that the analysis could not even accurately determine which marks were bite marks. In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences published a report that concluded there was insufficient scientific basis to conclusively match bite marks. Additionally, the Jo Handelsman, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, has said that bite mark evidence should be eradicated from courtrooms.
Bite mark evidence, Fabricant said, has contributed to 24 wrongful convictions nationally, including two in Texas.
“Overwhelmingly, it was the chief evidence in those cases,” he said. “Sometimes, it turned out they weren’t bite marks at all.”
In the two Texas wrongful convictions, Calvin Washington and Joe Sidney Williams were convicted of the 1986 murder of Jaunita White in Waco. In that case, prosecutors alleged that Williams’ bite marks were found on the victim’s body. Other circumstantial evidence presented at trial placed Washington with Williams together at the time of the crime.
Both were convicted in 1987 and sentenced to life in prison. Williams was released from prison in 1993 based on improper testimony at his trial. In 2001, DNA testing linked another man to the murder, and Washington was also freed.
The Innocence Project is urging the commission to institute a moratorium on the use of forensic odontology in criminal cases.
Dr. Nizam Peerwani, a commission member and the chief medical examiner in Tarrant County, said his agency abandoned the practice more than two decades ago. He recalled one instance in which a dentist identified a bite mark that turned out to be an injury from a crow bar.
“We have no respect, absolutely no regard for bite marks,” Peerwani said.
...[U]nder Georgia precedent, a defendant is not entitled to a new trial based on new evidence if the court finds that he could have discovered the evidence at the time of the original trial, had he or his lawyer been diligent enough. Such requirements, which are common, are designed to prevent convictions from being endlessly re-examined.
The Georgia Supreme Court ultimately ruled that nothing prevented [the convicted man]’s original attorney from requesting DNA testing of the gloves before the trial. (I filed an amicus brief in this case.) [The] motion for a retrial was therefore denied — even though the trial court recognized that this evidence “would probably produce a different verdict.”
Of course, the DNA match does not establish [the man]’s innocence beyond all doubt. But he continues to serve a life sentence for a crime that the court acknowledges he probably didn’t commit.
What is most troubling about the Georgia Supreme Court’s decision is that the issue of innocence becomes irrelevant if there has been a failure of due diligence. In effect, the ruling elevates finality over justice to the point that an innocent person can be imprisoned, even executed, because of errors made by his lawyer. Absent a constitutional safety net, an innocent person convicted after a procedurally adequate trial is out of luck.
Rare handmade color separations of Marilyn Monroe images have gone on display in San Francisco, showing the actress in the nude as well as the painstaking effort that went into creating posters before the computer age.Nanosecond photo:
On Friday and Saturday, Bay Area residents will be able to gaze at large prints the organizers say represent one of the most important cultural moments in Hollywood’s history.
At a time when sex was taboo in Los Angeles and actors signed morality agreements, Monroe was yet to be the monumental success that would make her a symbol of both Hollywood and sex. She was fearful of the backlash nude images could have on her career, so she signed the model release form “Mona Monroe” to hide her identity....
“Studios urged her not to admit that she was the model in the image and they were worried that it would end her career before it began.”
Instead, when Monroe told UPI reporter Aline Mosby in March 1952 that she was indeed the nude calendar girl, Mosby wrote a sympathetic story titled “Marilyn Monroe admits she’s the nude blonde of calendar.”
The reaction was almost uniformly positive, transforming Monroe into an overnight Hollywood star and “it changed forever the country’s perception of sex and nudity and what actors and actresses could do”....
Land sinking faster than ever in parts of San Joaquin Valley. "Another toll of the drought: Land is sinking fast in San Joaquin Valley, study shows." [Bettina Boxall, LA Times] Excerpt:
To keep their fields green, they have drilled new and deeper wells and ramped up withdrawals, worsening the valley's historic problem of land subsidence and depleting their water savings account for future droughts.
The sinking is so subtle that it is imperceptible on the ground, save for the effect on infrastructure. Aqueducts and irrigation canals buckle. Roads crack, causing millions of dollars worth of damage.
The NASA figures, based on radar data from satellites and aircraft, underscore the unsustainable levels of groundwater use in the San Joaquin Valley. Even in wet times, farmers in parts of the valley pump more from the region's deep aquifer than is replenished.
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| Chand Baori – India |
While companies like Delta, Virgin Airways, United Airlines and KLM are moving in the right direction, one airline has taken a detour. Despite instituting a ban in late April, South African Airways recently resumed the transport of hunting trophies because of pressure from commercial trophy hunting interests
With Cecil's death, the world has come to realize the truly horrific nature of trophy hunting. Africa's wild animals are part of our global heritage and must be protected from needless slaughter for the sake of a head-hunting exercise. By giving trophy hunters – and poachers – a way to transport pieces of these majestic creatures, South African Airways is providing a getaway vehicle for the theft of Africa’s wildlife.
In a victory for animal rights, organizers of the Gadhimai event say they will stop killing hundreds of thousands of water buffalo, goats, pigs, and chickens....Limerick of the week:
Leaders of the Gadhimai Temple in Nepal have announced they will not permit the slaughter of any animals at the Gadhimai festival, the world’s bloodiest animal-sacrifice event, which has been held every five years for the past 265 years.
“The time has come to transform an old tradition [and] replace killing and violence with peaceful worship and celebration,” Ram Chandra Shah, chairman of the Gadhimai Temple Trust, said in a statement.
A declaration signed by temple trustees stated, “Any devotee who brings an animal for sacrifice at Gadhimai temple…will be sent back and no bloodshed will be allowed.”
“We are extremely happy with the decision, which we hadn’t expected,” said Nuggehalli Jayasimha, managing director of Humane Society International/India, which, with Animal Welfare Network Nepal, held lengthy negotiations with temple trustees to end the killing.
“But a huge part of me is nervous,” Jayasimha added. “To actually think that just by this announcement everything will end would be completely naive. This is a very important development but just the first of many things we must do to make Gadhimai bloodless.”
Jayasimha said some pilgrims would likely bring animals to the next festival, in 2019, to be sacrificed near the temple.
This week he underwent the surgeon's knife
to stay a bit the day he'd lose his life,
last day he'd take a pill,
last day that he'd be ill,
and too the day, if not before, lose wife.
| Copyright © 2015 by Morris Dean |
Thanks to the thoughtful fishermen and women who reel in Friday's catches! The red knot's question of life or death. California Dreaming. Inside Amazon's "bruising workplace" (where it's "crazy to stay"). Bite-mark evidence in further jeopardy, innocence hard to prove in Georgia. The cost of education in Norway. Marilyn Monroe's bare admission. Nanosecond soccer photo. "The land is sinking, the land is sinking!" Chand Baori India. Harder to transport hunting trophies, harder to sacrifice animals for religious purposes. Moving back the day....
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