A major case of the 2Litis

Things I'm doing instead of the first-day reading assignments for tomorrow:

1. Burning mini pizzas (whoops, I guess 450 for ten minutes isn't the same as 325 for twenty minutes)
2. Making a playlist of my favorite Enya collections
3. Attempting to play said Enya collections on the piano
4. Realizing my nails are too long to play piano. Must give myself manicure instead
5. Gazing lovingly at my new kate spade wallet
6. Shopping for houseplants online
7. Realizing I kill plants by looking at them...
8. ...which reminds me that I do the same thing to fish, but I'd still like a pet, so researching houseplants becomes researching betas
9. Contemplate sending this information to LS, who killed a beta and a frog within ten hours of buying them
10. You know, it's been a long time since I looked at my passport. I'd better check to make sure all the stamps are still there.
11. Go on facebook and re-friend all the people I didn't mean to de-friend when I went on my "I-hate-facebook-and-I-don't-know-half-these-people-anyway" de-friending rampage
12. Go on facebook and stalk my mom, my sister, my sister's boyfriend, my sister's boyfriend's dad's girlfriend, realize I'm creepy and decide to write a blog instead
13. Hmm. I like the Cranberries. Remember when the Cranberries were popular? I'm going to go download all the albums I used to have and lost.
14. This rug in the living room desperately needs to be vacuumed. Since ours doesn't work, I will need to pick up each bit of dirt, hair, etc. by hand. It's a rough job, but somebody's gotta do it, and somebody's gotta do it NOW!

Sigh. This may be a long year.

On a side note, I met this man today. If you see him in Columbia Heights with his signs and two dogs, say hello, give him some money and listen to his story!

Dream journal

I swear I'm not that anxious about going back to school, but in the past few weeks I've had at least four dreams that make me hyperventilate in my sleep. The common thread? It's the first day of school and I haven't read for class, nor do I know what class I'm in or how to find it. Things that have prevented me from reading and finding class:
1) Being attacked by wolves
2) Driving off a bridge
3) Being stuck in a blizzard and running through thigh-deep snow
4) A nefarious roommate that won't tell me where our locker and books are
5) Crashing a Segway in Washington Circle on my way to class
6) Being trapped in a parallel universe and being unable to find the portal (this was just last night). After finally finding portal, realizing that I'm wearing a skirt and apparently haven't shaved my legs in months, so I can't go to class until I find my razor, which is somewhere in my giant suitcase. I decide to wear pajama pants instead. They're pale blue with little fishies on them. I want to cry.

My subconscious must be a lot more anxious about school than I am.

In other news, I was running today and saw a tourist wearing a Hawaiian shirt, sporting a fake tan and an EPIC waist-length mullet. I was pretty jealous.

Gettin' all serious 'n stuff

(Editorial submitted to the Duluth News-Tribune)

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.” – Johann Wolfgang van Goethe


As a summer law clerk with the Duluth Public Defender’s Office, I have been asked countless times how I can, in good conscience, defend a guilty person. This question is troubling for two reasons.

First, our justice system in the United States is based on the core principle than an accused person is innocent until proven guilty. This is something that many people forget when reading about troubling cases and violent crimes. However, until an offense is proven through trial or confession, an accused person should not only be considered innocent under the law, but also treated as innocent by the media and public.

In addition, every person deserves a fair trial and equal protection of law under the U.S. Constitution. This is the basis of the freedom we have in the United States. The role of a public defender, then, is to ensure that each individual’s Constitutional rights are honored, regardless of his or her income and alleged crime.

The second reason that the question is troubling is the unspoken assumption that people who commit crimes are beyond redemption. Despite the social stigma that comes with the “criminal” label, a person who commits a crime is still a human being. He or she not only deserves a fair trial, but also deserves to be treated with the same compassion and dignity that a person with no criminal record would expect to receive.

Treating a person with a “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” mentality strips him (or her) of worth and humanity. Without those values, a person convicted of a crime has little personal hope that his situation will change. The way that judges, attorneys and the public treat him creates in him a self-fulfilling prophecy that he is destined for failure. His experience in prison, surrounded by other hardened “criminals” who have also lost hope for rehabilitation, increases the likelihood that he will commit another crime upon release.

In addition, a person who has been in prison may find it nearly impossible to get a job or safe housing. If he has no food and cannot receive public assistance due to his criminal record, theft becomes a highly tempting means of survival. In this way, poverty and a criminal record create an endless cycle of crime.

This is not a suggestion that we close prisons and take away consequences for crimes. On the contrary, there are a number of people who benefit greatly from the structured environment of prison and should be kept separate from the public. I do suggest, however, that we treat prisoners and offenders with compassion and employ clemency whenever possible. St. Louis County, for example, has groundbreaking “special courts” for people convicted of alcohol and drug offenses. These courts meld justice and mercy by using alternative sentencing programs to help people who are not an immediate danger to the public but still require accountability for their crimes.

It is possible for a person to give up his rights as a free citizen when he chooses to act in a way that brings legal consequences. It is not possible, however, for him to give up his humanity and his right to be treated with dignity and compassion.