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Royal Whee!

I have long held the opinion that some form of constitutional monarchy may in fact be the best government. So many of the problems of the last few decades can be traced to the political nature of the presidency. To some extent we elect all our leaders to be re-elected, but when the executive is always looking to the next election, there can be disasterous results. The near-constant politicking encourages a cycle of of leadership from alternating extremes, rather than a consistent, moderate executive with an eye to the long term. Of course there are problems with monarchy, but we live in a modern world. Surely we can find a workable system that incorporates the best elements of representative democracy and hereditary rule.

I understand that these arguments may not convince. I have another: This is Kate Middleton, Prince William's new romantic interest. With a little luck, this woman will be Queen of England someday. I don't doubt the world will be a better place for it.

Kids on the court.

Sure, I have plans to continue boring all of you by talking more about the Araujo trial, but there's other stuff going on. Like basketball! I realize that I should leave the sports talk to those among my colleagues who actually understand it, but sometimes I can't help myself.

We've been watching a little bit of the basketball around here. I have a small interest in the outcome--I have an excellent shot at coming in dead last in my basketball pool, after all--but sometimes I just like watching the game. I logged a lot of hours watching basketball in high school, since that's what happens when you've got basketball coaches in the family. I'm not so excited by the NBA stuff, it's too flashy, but I like high school and college play.

There's a bit of a cognitive disconnect, though, teaching on a college campus and watching college basketball. (I haven't yet taught a Cal basketball player, though. I've had varsity rowers in my classes, a couple of football players, and two Eastern European swimmers who I think might have been on Olympic teams at some point; I've had to fax final exams to golfers playing away tournaments, and god only knows how many members of the Straw Hat Band I've accepted late assignments from. But that's neither here nor there.)

When you watch college sports on television, the players all look like, well, like athletes on television. They're good at what they do, after all, and they look much like the professionals. Matt and I went to a basketball game back in February, Cal playing Stanford at the Haas Pavilion, and the thing that I found most striking (well, after the way the Cal team just collapsed in the second half) was how much they looked like kids. On television, they look like professionals, but watching them live, I could see how these were just kids, just like the kids I teach. They were all gangly legs and waving arms and occasional bursts of frustration.

I was reminded of this the other day, when we caught the end of the LSU/Georgia game in the NCAA Women's tournament. If I'm remembering this right, Georgia was up by one in the last few seconds of the game when one of the LSU players got a three-pointer. Then one of the Georgia players, heading back down the court to try to tie the game back up, ended up in this awful skidding tripping over her own feet kind of thing, and someone from the LSU team just lunged at the ball where it had fallen and ended up sitting on the floor with the ball clutched to her stomach as time ran out. Five seconds earlier, they'd been two competent athletes; suddenly, in that moment, they were just kids trying not to lose a game.

Mr. Hall of Bristol, CT

Maggie Haskins didn't win ESPN's Dream Job. Mike Hall, her rumored romantic interest, did. (Maggie, that offer still stands -- girl's got crazy pen!) I'm kind of surprised by this. Of the final four, I ranked Mike third at best. Zachariah Selwyn had the best on-camera presence and overall style, and Aaron Levine knew his stuff and brought a certain understated professionalism to the desk. Mike was doofy and congenial, Dream Job's Clay Aiken, but he never impressed me, especially with his dismal performance in the various sports trivia competitions. Hell, even Maggie, while probably not quite ready for prime time, had certain ... intangibles that may have made her a more attractive candidate for employment. But Mike, after answering five laughable trivia questions then crapping out when they asked him something tough, is getting the $95 K paycheck, and I hope he earns it.

There was supposed to be a lot more to this. See, ESPN led me to believe that Hall would be co-hosting the eleven p.m. Eastern SportsCenter tonight. Not quite. It seems he gets a segment later on, but it's Stuart Scott and John Anderson for the lion's share. They're fine men, but I'm not particularly interested in wading through all the NBA highlights they have planned. So, no review of Mike Hall's first trip to the set. Maybe later, if TiVo's a pal. Sorry.

Gay Marriage, Round III

Here we go again.

For this third round of protests, the demonstrators come conveniently color-coded. Supporters of gay marriage rights are wearing little red stickers that read, "I Support the SJC". Opponents are wearing yellow "One Man, One Woman" stickers that, serendipitously, use same font and have the same general dimensions.

I didn't get down to the State House until pretty late in the day, so I can't say how things were at the start of this third round of demonstrations. But by the late afternoon, red stickers outnumbered yellow by about three to one.

I couldn't help but get the feeling that the fire has gone out of the anti-marriage side. I saw the "Gays Are Possessed By Demons" guy, and there was a huge orange "Jesus is the LORD" banner that loomed over about half of the area cordoned off for the protests. But as far as I could tell, there were none of the histrionics we saw last time. There were no screaming arguments. No dragging around of crosses. No burlap-clad protesters grovelling in the mud in front of little crucifixes.

I dunno. By the time I got there, the anti-gay side had lost two important procedural votes, making civil unions, at the very least, essentially a fait accompli. Maybe they're just disappointed by their losses.

Or maybe they're just tired. Their side has had to bus protesters in from the boonies. Some of them came from out-of-state. It must be exhausting, all that traveling. Between that and all the high-energy hating they've been doing, they must be plumb tuckered.

The preliminary questioning.

Like I said before, they had us fill out a questionnaire. Nineteen pages. Where do you live? (city and approximate neighborhood, not specific address.) Where else in the Bay Area have you lived? Have you ever been the victim of a violent crime? Have you ever called the police for any reason? Have you ever had reason to fear that you were in physical danger? Do you know any law enforcement officers? Would you be more likely to trust the testimony of a police officer than a layperson? Do you know any lawyers?

I actually laughed a little at that last one--sometimes I think that every third person I went to college with went on to law school, and a lot of them have graduated by now. Do I know any lawyers? Yes, rather a lot, but none (to my knowledge) who do trial work, and only one who practices in this state. The questionnaire actually didn't ask if we'd seen Boys Don't Cry, although it did ask if we'd seen any movies depicting acts of violence against transgendered people. It asked if we knew any gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered people. It asked if we had recently attended any gay weddings. It asked us to summarize, in about a sentence, what we knew about what "transgendered" means.

The questionnaire also asked about psychologists. Do you know anyone who has used the services of a psychologist, psychiatrist, family therapist, or marriage counsellor? Do you believe that psychologists can contribute anything of relevance to courtroom proceedings? The first question is akin to the lawyer question, in that it almost makes more sense to ask if I know anyone who hasn't, but the second was very hard to answer. They asked it several times, with several different shades of meaning, and I can't remember the differences, but it was hard to answer. What I settled on was basically that psychology is very good at describing correlations and very weak at understanding causations--a psychologist can probably tell you what people are likely to do, but if she tries to tell you why, that's mostly guesswork and speculation.

The questionnaire also asked if we had heard anything about this case in the news, and if so, what had we heard? Did we have opinions about the case? Did we have opinions about either the victim or the defendants? Had we discussed the case with anyone when it was first in the news, and if so, what had we talked about? My answers were basically as follows: I remembered reading about the case when it first happened, and I remember being horrified, and sad for Gwen. I had talked about it with people, and the conversations had mostly been the same, which is to say, this still happens, it's still not safe to be transgendered, it's still not safe to be a queer teenager.

But I didn't have any opinions about the defendants. I didn't remember anything about them from the news, I didn't remember anything about the stories other than the descriptions of the victim. As far as pre-formed opinions, I thought that what happened to Gwen Araujo was a horrible evil thing, but I didn't have any thoughts one way or another about whether those guys at the defense table were the guys who did it.