The Last Good Reason to Go to Buckhead

Cela est une abondance

France has pledged a mere 200 more troops to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon they were expected to lead. Asked if that might not be enough French Defense Minister Dônàld Rûmsfëld hectored, bullied and ridiculed all who dared to question the number. "That's a plenty."

Post No Smallish Bills

They no longer allow flyers on the front counter at Aurora. They still allow the slick, full-sized posters on the wall, but the smaller ¼ page notices that scattered the edge by the doorway are gone. Uncentered, hand-inked missives scrawled on the back of discarded lyric sheets with spiral fringe, this was propaganda at its most entry-level. Now how will I know when Awkward Age, Hair Down There and The Statutories are playing the Drunken Unicorn? Or how to Drive Out the Bush Regime?

While only bands and promoters with the time and talent to hire a decent graphic designer could master the eye-catching posters on the wall, any dolt could slap a handbill together in Word, copy it for 3 more pages, print all 4 reduced to one page and tear the sheet in 4ths. Then you just squeeze the short stack between the ones for Belly Dance Lessons and the weekly Yard Sale on Elmira. Then you sit back and enjoy the delusion that someone might notice it and come.

For the DIY artist with small-time ambitions, that corner space was OurSpace.

My 7th Career Jury Summons

This time it was a medical malpractice lawsuit likely to last 2 weeks. A baby’s birth, complications and resulting liver transplant. With full color slides of the bloated, achingly vulnerable innocent. In a jury pool of 60, with the plaintiffs wanting an all-female jury—and preferably all pregnant—and the defense hoping for all marines I managed to get dismissed after 2 days of voir dire. No determining negligence and putting a dollar value on a baby’s damaged insides for me.

Ten years ago I was less fortunate. Forced to serve 2 days a week for 2 months on the Dekalb County Grand Jury. Hearing about every felony case in the county the DA had ready for indictment. 4 murders, a couple dozen aggravated assaults, various thefts by receiving, thefts by taking, fraud, terroristic threats and the dinky little shoplifting cases that rose to felony status as a third offense. Since we weren’t determining guilt we could here an officer's testimony rather than here from victims. Sober, removed citizens hearing detached, professional civil servants reading blotter entries. One of our first cases was the sexual assault of a hearing-impaired victim. Was it the dryness of the police officer's reading that made it more tragic? The plain, un-Gothic description of “strange grunts” heard by a neighbor? Eerie, stillborn wheezes: the sounds of a deaf woman screaming.

There’s injustice in the world. Do I do my part to right it? Or do I skip out early by not looking wide-eyed at the baby?

"Geniuses" to Meet in Florida in Middle of August

The status-obsessed who test well are different. They like to sweat together.