We Are Not The Land Of The Free Until We Stop The Nanny State Bull Hockey

I don't have the time for a long post today. I love America. I believe in its promise. I get frustrated however when I see that we refuse to trust our people with their own money and their own bodies. There are natural consequences from every act, but legal consequences must not be based on someone Else's subjective test of right and wrong.

My test for right and wrong in a law is simple: Does this law seek to prohibit an act that hurts no one but the doer of the act? If so then it should not be illegal. It is said that "the freedom to move one's arm ends at the tip of the nose on the next guys face." If it doesn't hit him, then his discomfort at the fact that I move my arm is not illegal.

Ok I don't have the time to go into all of it, but look at this story about a federal prosecution of a Doctor who asked two girls to come across state lines to "service" him. Not minors, not Sex Slaves or Human Traffic, 2 adult willing women who wanted to have sex w/ this guy and to get money for their effort.


Then look at this YouTube Video of Rep Barney Frank one of the US Congress' most liberal members and Rep Peter King, one of its most conservative members. They are on the same side of the fight to restore the rights of Americans to spend their money and time the way they want. Only a question about Liberty could get these two on the same side of an issue.

Now do something about this. Let your Senators and Congressmen know that these types of Nanny-State laws are unacceptable. Tell them to stay out of our bedrooms and our pockets. Do it for Freedom, Liberty and the American way. Do it today.
Happy 4th of July.

Tony(c) Award for Best Relationship and Sex Blog: Sex, Lies and Dating in the City

I had such a huge boost in readers after announcing that The Agitator was my favorite News Blog. If you are still reading me after visiting from Radley's blog welcome. Stay around and let me know what you think.

Today I am announcing my Favorite Relationship and Sex blog.
Now this is a very difficult category to choose because each blogger is really telling their own story. There is the heartbreaking story that is Rebecca Deos outing as a sex worker and how she and her family are being attacked in her small home town.

Then there is the very compelling story of the Debauched Domestic Diva telling the story of her going from seemingly happy housewife to an affair with another blogger that almost tore her marriage apart. Diva's journey to understand her marriage, her needs and her world are riveting. It read like a novel. Read it from its first post.

There are actually dozens of these personal glimpses that are well written and cover the gamut from sex worker to people learning about their own sexuality or relationships.

Some of the writers I read are friends from work. I know them from the clubs I represent or from e-mails they have sent to me seeking legal advice about their work. Others I haven't met but have befriended on Twitter or through their blogs or from my support for Sex Workers rights. In fact the blog supporting the NYC SexBloggers 2008 Calendar is one of my favorites. These additional ties make this a very tough decision.

In the end though, I chose to honor with a Tony(c)Award Sex Lies and Dating in the City.

If there is anything a man wants to know, it is what is in the mind of a woman. How do they see us? What are they feeling?? Why do they freak out when we check our e-mail on the dating site we met them on???

Well while the answers are not spoon fed to us, SINgleGIRL (the anonymous blogger who writes the blog) speaks her feelings and her truths about dating and life as a cosmopolitan single girl. It should be required reading for all young men. Old men (like me) can learn a thing or two about women too.

SLD is a well written blog that exposes the writers disappointments excitement and realizations about the dating scene. As her name says, she is not too shy about sharing the SIN in SINGLE either. Now she has added the HNT (Half Naked Thursday) posts we see that in addition to being smart and witty, she is also quite pretty. (Don't worry, while provocative, they are SFW.)

SINgleGIRL is beginning a new relationship. Mr. Potential seems to be making some good moves although the bozo better stop checking out his dating site e-mails. Now is probably as good a time as any to check out this blog.

SINgleGIRL. you are the Winner of the Tony(c) Award for Relationship and Sex blog for your blog Sex Lies and Dating in the City.

Just Some Interesting Links

A court found a 91 year old man who hallucinates due to dementia legally able to stand trial on a murder. He killed a nursing home attendant who happened to come into his room. He thought the guy was an intruder. God Bless the Criminal Defense Lawyer in that one.

Hattip: ABA Journal News Now.

Haven't blogged about the sale of the Obama Senate seat. Why? Cause everyone else has. I did wonder why I hadn't seen a high profile NY Washington or Chicago White Collar lawyer on the matter. This post From the Online Wall Street Journal tells us. The Governor of Illinois can't pay his legal bills.

Finally I found this interesting piece on adult entertainment and law. It deals with how feminists can impove the Porn biz. What I find interesting in it is that here is another pro-sex Feminist. Like Camille Paglia, Tatiana Von Tauber is saying that feminists that rage against women in porn are not any more interested in women making decisions about their body than Phyllis Schlafly. They just want to control them in their own way. If Feminism is to mean anything, it means that women have the same rights to use their bodies any way they want the same way as men can. Take a look and tell me what you think.

Hattip: The Legal Satyricon.

Porn Stars In the Classroom, Hookers Right Next Door, Here I Am Stuck In The Middle With You

This story and this blog post caught my attention. In their own way, each is about the same thing. Unlike the way sex workers are portrayed in the movies or on TV (especially during a "sweeps" month), most of the people in the trade are not really different than the person in the next apartment.

In the news story, a woman who earlier in her life was known to the world as Crystal Gunns, a porn star, was unwittingly hired by a local school to be an aide. She works part-time. She earns less than Six Thousand Dollars a year and works on the play ground and as a lunch aide.

Now though she is not shy about her past, she has also put it behind her. She is 32 now not 22. She may be a mom. I don't think I would have named her for others to deride her, as she has committed no crime but only sought to earn a living. I know had she been in another business the press would not have named her.

Parents want her fired. The Superintendent of her school district wants to fire her too (

Superintendent Charles Ottinger, who is of the same mindset as (Principal)Giordano, says they have been advised against firing the teachers aide, “Not that we don’t want to.”)

It is just that you see, Ms.Gunns would be able to sue the living daylights out of the school district. After all, what has she done wrong? Adult films (as opposed to Pornography) is legal. It is also a way that some men and women make money. Sly Stalone was in an adult film, as was Jackie Chan. There is no crime and thus there is no reason to fire her unless she is inappropriate with the kids. Interestingly, the kids would have not had any idea this is happening at their school but for someone publicizing it.

Now on The Debauched Domestic Diva's blog, Dee blogs about having lived a double life. She was a sexy women cheating on her husband and exploring her sexuality while leaving the chains of a dead marriage, and was his Mrs. Cleaver at home and work. (I'll leave out the Usher lyric). She talks about how she feels now that she can be more of herself. She had recently "come out" to some of her friends and now she feels she has a better relationship with her friends and is more close to them now she can be honest with them about her sexual affairs.

Now this immediately got me thinking about a blog post by Rebbeca Dios that dealt with how she would now handle being part of a community that would not accept her decisions nor recognize her needs. It comes as no shock to me that being outed has disturbed her income and negitively affect her family. She was threatened, and shunned in her small town. She fears for her husband and children. Rebecca is an enormously brave woman who faces illness in her home and her choices of how to deal with those choices straight on.

Then I remembered this post that really began me blogging occasionally of the people I represent that work in the sex trade.

It has been three years since I wrote those words and the fact of the matter is that I was right then and now. What makes me laugh is that these women are the same people who shop with us, and bowl with us, and eat at the table in the restaurant right next to us.

I am representing women now who work in the sex trade who also hold down full time jobs as teachers, nurses and secretaries in big Multi-national companies. These are not women who have left the adult business, but who are still "transitioning." I have represented women who serve on Congressional staffs.

I know one who is actually quiet religious and intends to join an "order" when she returns home (Latin America) but right now she sells herself (she is a stripper who offers "extras" because she is caring for a sick mother and father both of whom require serious surgeries at home.) She is well aware that she is sinning. So is her priest. She is honest with him. She fears being shunned at home, but more, she fears being arrested here and returned to home before she makes enough to pay the doctors and hospital and thus gets her folks thrown into the street. She is a beautiful young woman who is bright and earnest. She just cannot earn the money she earns here at home, and she cannot get a job here without being thrown out. So she "goes" to school and gets decent grades and strips at night and works for tips. She goes to Church on Saturdays and admits her sins, and on Sunday to pray for forgiveness. She is back at her "job" on Tuesday night.

I even represent a police women who has a very active though very exclusive escort life which she takes out of town.

There is a very competent lawyer I know who used to act in "B" movies with a lot of sexual tension and nudity. At first the men she worked around snickered. Maybe some still do, but that is likely before she beats their sorry butts in court.

Not one of the women I have represented or know, if others knew of their other job, would be able to work in their day jobs. (the exeption being the lawyer who interestingly works as a criminal defense attorney) On the other hand, not one of them is not outstanding in their work. I know, I have spoken or met co-workers, bosses and seen grades and met teachers. Sometimes these women come to me through those referral sources.

From all that I can see being somewhat of an outsider, sex work is neither easy nor is it "fun". It is work. Now I did not say it is drudgery. For most of these women it has its good times and bad. The one thing I have not seen is how it negatively affects their ability to be good teachers, nurses, or employees. I do not see why once they give it up, it should stygmatize them and make them unable to serve children food or watch them play.

For whatever reason a person enters the work of sex, their should also be a way to exit the world and join the ranks of those with less "interesting" jobs. When are we as a society going to look at people for who they are and not what they do. Yes I know that part of what we are is what we do, but just because someone doesn't view the world the way we do doesn't disqualify them to live next door.

It is funny but I know of people who have in my opinion done far worse things than agree to have sex with others. I know people who cheat their clients, who lie to the court, who are sworn to secrecy but can't keep a secret for all the tea in Boston. I know people whose ideas of right and wrong include telling their minions that stealing and obfucation are just part of the job. Yet many of these mostly men are lauded by colleagues and hired at quiet a good price. I know men who will beat or rob or rape a sex worker knowing that she cannot go to Police for fear of "outing" herself.

That is the normal way I these clients find me. They are not usually arrested. They are victims of assaults. They come to me because they fear reprisals from authorities. I often tell them they shouldn't but I will admit there have been times when they should and I am glad I or a staff member was there to stop some SOB from refusing to listen to their story or from firing them for their job. Fear of lawsuits and crusading lawyers is a good way to keep certain types(like School Superintendent Ottinger and Principal Giordano above)in check. (I remember Professor Monroe Freedman on the first day of classes telling us that from the minute we entered the room that we were going to be feared by all the other professions in the world, that as lawyers we were the ones they most worried about. He taught me to use the strength of our profession to do good. I try every day.)

What is funny, is that I have had potential clients who have not hired me, because I will not abandon these sex worker clients and won't keep the fact that I take such cases a secret. They feel it makes me something less of a lawyer. If anything, it makes me far better a lawyer, but I am not upset. They can keep their fees and their lawyers who look down on these clients and maybe me too. Everynight I can look at myself and feel like I have really helped someone who if not for my effort would have had no one to fight for them, no one to protect them.

Frankly however, it shouldn't have to come down to the largesse of a few hearty souls like the men and women of NACDL or FALA. People even sex workers, have a right to be protected and to expect that the law will not punish them for seeking to be protected. They should have a right to re-enter "straight" society when the time comes and to be judged on who they are and what they know and not on how they earned a living.

There is a March in Washington on December 17, 2008. The National March for Sex Worker Rights . It is a day when those of us who believe that no one should live a life of fear of attack nor fear of reprisal for being a sex worker will lift our collective voices and call on our leaders to bring an end to this kind of hate.

If you are available, you might want to check this out. You never know, the person you fight for, may be someone you know, and love, but is afraid to tell you about her choices.

Around The Blogosphere The Week of November 11, 2008 Part III of III* : Of Women, Music and All That Jazz.

*I know I previously said four. I reserve the right to consolidate because I am tired.

Here is my last installment from the Week of November 11, 2008.

1.Two Sex-Workers Talk About the Sex Trade.(Links are NSFW).

I spend a lot of time representing men and women who are involved in the Business of Sex. Some of their pursuits are legal, some not legal, some straddle the boarder. Occasionally I write about the experience. I also however keep up with what some of the people in the provider and "hobbyist" side of the field are saying.

This week the New York City Sex Bloggers rolled out their 2009 "pinup"calendar to benefit the Sex Workers Awareness (an education and outreach program)which I am told is a non-profit organization I have seen the way people treat Sex workers. I have seen the way that police discount them and how they have been marginalized though many are smart and hard working mothers, caretakers, students, and just regular folk. I would not treat a dog the way our criminal justice system treats these people. Hence I am giving their calendar a shout out here. I would have been at the rollout party last night but for a pressing and late breaking personal issue.

Meanwhile I thought I would highlight two posts from Sex Workers blogs.

A. This one at "The Real Princess Diaries" is about the way most sex-workers view their clientele. It doesn't apply to all and it doesn't apply to the entire strata anymore than any opinion piece can sum up the position of all workers in any field. It is indicative of how most of the clients I have see the scene.

B. Renegade Evolution is a blog, and from what I can gather a person too. She is a sex blogger and worker. She is opinionated, blunt and usually succinct. In this post she talks about a fact in the sex field that makes it hard to help sex workers (providers) and stops them from uniting. It is the Sex Worker Caste System and I see it everyday.

Stop a topless dancer and tell her she is a sex worker, she will tell you she is involved in a legal business and she is a good girl but that escorts are whores. She will tell you all she does is expose her body and people give her money for the privilege of seeing the Hand of God in her beauty.

The High end Escort will tell you that the stripper is the real whore, selling her body and teasing her clients for a buck here or there. She on the other hand does not expose herself before countless others. She only "dates" nice wealthy men who she would likely sleep with anyway if they met under other circumstances. In addition unlike the Porn star or stripper, her work is done in private and is "confidential".

The Porn Star thinks they are both insane. She will tell you she sleeps with men she knows and many whom she loves, she makes a lot of money far more than the others and she is engaged in a safe and legal field where the women call a lot of the shots.

Renegade Evolution thinks they should put away the Bull and unite to help each other. I have to say I agree with her. It is about time workers in the field get out of each others way, acknowledge the business they are all in and try to improve conditions for all. The fight is like criminal lawyers not acknowledging the work of litigators or transactional lawyers. It is all law just different...

2..The Music Scene

A. Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) have been celebrating Louis Armstrong and Thelonious Monk. Two of my all time favs. Here is a link to the post about the Armstrong speech and this one on e nights of Thelonious Monk tribute concerts.

B. Probation in Plea Deal for Blogger Who Leaked Guns N’ Roses Songs. Blogger streamed 9 G'n R songs on his blog, busted for the Copyright Infringement. Getting Probation, hasn't told where he got the songs from... still may however. I wonder if he had streamed only snippets of each song if that would have been protected speech??? IP Genius' any ideas?

C. "Tuba Man" Murdered by Teens, Seattle Mourns

Every city has a person or two who are as big if not bigger than that city itself. He is half village idiot, half sage, but he is beloved and the city adopts him. In NY it is the "Naked Cowboy", In San Francisco it's Frank Chu, In Washington DC it is President Bush, but in Seattle Washington it was Edward Scott McMichael aka "Tuba Man". He was a "busker" a man who made his living making his music on the streets. He was a guy who seemed to pop up everywhere, asking "DO YOU WANT TO BE A PART OF IT?? Who didn't want to be a part of it. He could take your worst day and make you smile with the "Um pa pa" of the Tuba.

"Tuba Man" was murdered allegedly by a group of teens who didn't recognize him. He didn't have his Tuba with him that day.
Story from the NY Times

Money Quote: “Ed would ask in his unmistakable baritone, ‘John, do you want to be a part of it tonight?’ ” Mr. Tangeman recalled. “This statement was part of the genius of Ed, as if contributing to Ed’s efforts, one was not only being a part of Ed’s life but being a part of something much larger, something almost unobtainable.”

That's it for now. I may or may not post another part later. If I do, consider this III of IV. Otherwise, who knows.

BREAKING NEWS: Deborah Jeanne Palfrey, The "D.C. Madame" Commits Suicide

Deborah Jeanne Palfrey "The D.C. Madame" kept her macabre promise. She killed herself rather than spend another day in jail. Her elderly mom found her hanging from a steel beam in the shed... That is two deaths now associated with an Escort Service/prostitution ring... I don't know, somehow I don't feel any safer knowing that the Feds are spending my tax money prosecuting people like Deborah Jeanne... amazing how important this prosecution was to the government.

Well we don't have to worry about the evils of the Pamela Martin Agency anymore... I wonder how were doing with that Osama bin Laden guy.

What a freaking waste!

Story here

Welcome to a Day in My Life

Radley Balko blogs at a Cato Institute inspired (?) blog called The Agitator. He has a very funny piece today on Strip Club legal etiquette. As a First Amendment/Civil Rights/Constitutional/Criminal Defense Lawyer in New York and on Long Island, I have to answer questions like these 100 times a week*

I also love my job Radley, but it can sometimes get tedious...

Enjoy the read.

The "Mouse" in the House is a "Rat": Disney Flogs Cyrus and Lebowitz While Selling Sleaze Abroad

Disney jumped all over poor Miley Cyrus and celebrity photog Annie Leibowitz for taking pictures of Cyrus while her upper body was under a silk sheet and her back was exposed. Religious Righters who must make up a majority of Disney stockholders and allegedly the parents of Hannah Montana fans, completely forgetting their youth, freaked out over pictures that wouldn't steam up the windows of a hot house. All the while these Disney guys were selling underwear by laying a 12-13 year old model wearing nothing but a bra and panties on a BILLBOARD in China... Freaking hypocrites. As usual Disney was Shocked Shocked that a local distributor would do such a thing... but of course the Disney rep couldn't help but account for differences in cultures because China has a 14 year old age of consent as opposed to 16 here in the states... Check this out and read more in Slate. I think I smell a Rat...

Hannah Montana NUDE??? What Is The Big Deal with the Miley Cyrus Vanity Fair Photos??

The Today program is trying to tell parents how to "Deal" with the Photos of Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair. GIVE ME A BREAK.

First off, give me a break. The photos do not rise to PG-13. If no one said anything about it most under the age of 15 would never have known she was in there.

Secondly, you gotta be kidding me. With the advent of Cellphones with cameras and webcams these photo's by one of America's top fashion photographers are both beautiful and benign. Seeing all the fuss about them, I was startled to find out that Miley, draped in a white sheet and showing her naked back would have any effect on a teen or pre-teen in Nassau or Suffolk County, much less New York City.

Then I was worried about my becoming too jaded. That was until my saint-like wife said that she too was amazed at the fuss and didn't see anything wrong with the pictures.

Now I am wondering if this wasn't a wonderful ploy by Cyrus or even Disney to bring some controversy to the show and to her career and prepare her for the next step in her becoming a star post her Hannah Montana gig.

After all with Spears, Aguillara, Lohan, and Hugedens among others, does anyone still believe the Disney ingenue is really all that chase?? In another 3 years, look for the new boyfriend to have cellphone pictures that will make people's hair stand on end. Maybe if we paid less attention to this stuff it would have no effect at all.

Am I that out of touch?

Look Out!!! : A Rant!!

Whenever an idea to "reform" criminal law comes down, there is an abject hue and cry from the defense bar, not because we don't want to improve the system, but because we see every "reform" as another way for the crazy people on the other side of the reform to screw with the wheels of justice. Not to mention what they want to do to our clients.

The newest salvo comes from Ohio, the land that gave us US v. Larry Flynt.

Take Megan's law. A registry where police can better keep track of people who are accused of sex crimes after release from prison. Defense counsel says no. It will be used to give the information to others. They will come and stalk people who have paid their price to society. It will include too many crimes that have nothing to do with sex but have to do with genitalia like prostitution or public lewdness or urinating in public. It will lump people who commit crimes against youngsters with people who have a fight with their girlfriend or who have sex with a minor when they are only a year or two older than the minor.

We are told we worry to much about the defendant's and put innocent victims at risk, then within a few years all our chickens come home to roost.

Now from Ohio, we have the newest in Fall colors, SEX OFFENDER GREEN. That's right, if you've been convicted of any level 3 Megan Law Crime, or you are related to anyone who has been convicted of such crime, or you borrow that car, everyone in the neighborhood, infact everyone on the highway will know it.

Well what's the matter with that? Well for starters less than 1% of all level three sex offenses take place between strangers. In fact most of the time it takes place within families. So now you put family members at risk. At risk for what you ask? How about crazy people who are peeved that the car owner didn't get life or death for their sentence and decide to take it into their own hands. How about the kid who goes into the movie in his dad's car. Can't wait to see the look on his date's father's face!! Or the guy who finally finds a job, works and then comes out to find his car demolished by vigilantes. You know, after a while, enough is really enough. Especially when it is clear that IT DOESN'T HELP!!

It is a vicious cycle. Politicians can't help but pander. It is in their makeup. They can't help but take advantage of a constituency that has a little voice, to make a bigger constituency happy. They are too weak of mind, or morals, to say "we will not abuse one group for another." And so we get:

Genarlow Wilson, locked up for 10 years for having oral sex with a girl 2 years younger than he.

Dopey politicians who want to declare prostitution which is a crime between consenting adults a sex crime.

Even dumber yet there is a politician who wants to make urinating in public and other public lewdness a sex crime.

Then we have even more lilied liver idiots who are gathering the homeless sex abuser
and herding them into trailers and moving them from place to place so nobody has too many of them in the neighborhood. Here's an idea, if you don't like the neighborhood, take a second job, make more money and MOVE. Don't tell a person who has made enough money to live somewhere that he can't live where he wants.

I would love to find a person who has been banished by some stupid anti sex offender zoning statute to sue the rear off some idiot county for a violation of his fair housing right.

We have kids going to jail for showing Playboy magazine to a younger kid. I'm not talking showing a centerfold to a 5 year old by a 19 year old, I am talking about a 16 year old showing a centerfold to a 14 year old. Hell the same kid is watching "R" rated movies on cable and on the internet. He is seeing as much as he wants to see. But if we have the chance to make it a sex crime... well then who cares.

How is it, that when 17 year old Genarlow Wilson has consensual oral sex with a 15 year old he is some crazed sex offender and treated like an adult, but when 24 year old Monica Lewinsky has oral sex with Bill Clinton she is some kind of Ing'enue.

Maybe it is my mood, but what we as a general public do not know about sex offenders could fill a book. So we listen to the potbangers and let them work us up into a mass hysteria until the people who do know about these things get tired of shouting over the masses. We mess it up really bad and then we wonder how we were lead astray. We ask no questions. We accept the garbage we are fed and then wonder why we are screwed up.

Oprah Winfrey says sex offenders can't be reformed! Great, who the hell gave Oprah a PhD. in anything besides eating? She was abused, so she is an expert? I had appendicitis and had an appendectomy, does that make me a surgeon?
We ignore what we don't want to hear. Instead of asking our own questions we just accept the pap that we are fed and then wait for more.

The Internet has more information on it than any library I have ever seen. We can get our answers right hear with the help of Google or Yahoo. But we won't. We will use it to listen to music, write a report, and watch a video, and then think we are all technological. Until we add the ability to reason critically, and to use the Internet for something other than porn and politics, all we have is a more expensive TV.

A Weekend Filled With Bloggable Fun: What I Found Interesting

I. Criminalizing Domain Name Sales to Terrorists
CyberCrime Law has this post about a well-meaning but ultimately meaningless proposal in the NY State Legislature. The bill seeks to ban the selling of domain names to terrorist organizations. Seems to me that this is something that the NY State Legislature has no control over. In addition as the post points out all the legislation will do is make it more expensive for honest people to get domain names, the terrorists are not going to provide the information to give the law any teeth. Nice try Albany.

II.State Liquor Authority Strips SCORES Of Liquor License.

SCORES is a strip club. It is very large as these things go and has many employees. A couple of the women working there were arrested a couple of weeks ago for prostitution. I have represented women and clubs in these "stings" by vice. For the most part I think the cops entrap and lie about their "success" rate. To begin, the amounts they allegedly offer these woman is far less than they could get in an escort service, and if they offered that amount, then there should be serious concerns that the cops are in fact entrapping these women. That assumes that the girls involved do not know the cops are cops (highly unlikely they can pick out a cop, a lawyer, an out of town businessman or a
high roller as soon as they walk in the door)and that they are saying yes (also highly unlikely as a SCORES girl can make an easy thousand plus a night, and will blow the gig if found "doing extras." Then after the girls are arrested, even if the woman do not plead or are found guilty, the State Liquor Authority pulls the liquor license. The whole deal smells bad.
The whole sting, revoke liquor license is a waste of taxpayer’s money. It would be better to see the NY State Department of Taxation and Finance in the club making sure that everyone is paying the correct tax bill.

III.New York's New Comptroller Moves to Train Fire Commissioners

Tom DiNapoli has just been tapped to be the state's new Comptroller. His selection was criticized by our new Governor Elliot Spitzer as being politically motivated (Unlike Spitzer's recent elevation of popular Republican State Senator Mike Balboni to head up the state's Homeland Security Department...)
In his first move on the job, DiNapoli has outlined his plans to better train Fire Commissioners on how to watch over the public fisc. This is no small endeavor. To begin Fire Districts have very large budgets. There is little oversight of these organizations and the media ignores them until there is a scandal then everyone is jumping on these volunteers. DiNapoli is offering a structured training program to educate these people on how to oversee a budget, spending and accounting. It could be a great program which reduces waste if it is done right... IF.

IV.Delta Zeta Sorority Discriminates Against The Socially Awkward.
I hope you can link this story without subscribing. It is about a national sorority coming onto the campus of DePauw University and throwing out all the non pretty non skinny geeky girls in the house (not to mention the racial minorities and the disabled) so that they could get more popular girls into the sorority.
OK we have all heard of this stereotype through the movies (Animal House for instance)and have thought it a throw back to the 50's or a gross overstatement. Clearly it isn't. What makes this worse however, is that the women doing the throwing out are adults. Not members of the house, Alumnae and leaders.
Now some of you are saying, "what did you expect from an elitist organization like a sorority" however I have to say that this is not what I have witnessed on the campus' I have visited from any national fraternity or sorority.
I think this sorority ought to be blacklisted. I know I would not let a child of mine join it anywhere it has a chapter.

V.Two Long Island Attorney's Arrested For Mortgage Fraud.
This post at the Mortgage Fraud Blog reports on two NY lawyers, one from Long Island one from Brooklyn who allegedly helped swindle a woman out of her home.
I do not know if the government has the proof necessary to convict these people of what they accuse them of, however it seems to me that a lot of this could have been avoided if Credit scores were free and easy to get. I do not want to get into the whole scam here, suffice it to say, that if you are in danger of losing your home, you can do things to protect it by seeing a bankruptcy attorney. Straw buyers are not the way to go. If you are going to work with a so called investor, be sure that you have a retainer with your attorney, you have a rental agreement with the right to repurchase and of first refusal or better for a specified amount, and that the entire agreement is spelled out and made a part of the filed documents.

VI.Lawyer Set Up in Sting Refuses the Bait, Bar Outraged at Police and Court for Authorizing the Caper.
The Legal Reader Blog is reporting that a leading Brattleboro VT. criminal defense attorney was stung by local police who tried to get her to help obstruct governmental administration and tamper with evidence. A cop pretending to be a witness in a domestic violence case tried to get attorney Eileen Hongisto to tell him to deny service of process and to not come to trial if subpoenaed. A judge signed off on the caper. Lawyers including the prosecutor are shocked. What was the judge thinking? What did the cops go to her with? I think Hongisto ought to sue for libel and see just what they were up to.
As for the rest of us, it is time to remember it is open season on lawyers. Practice smart.

That's it for now