Or, If You Can’t Dazzle Them With Brilliance…
Or, Cadmium Yellow
For your listening enjoyment. Alternate option.
I fell asleep on my couch instead of my bed, and I think the discomfort was part of why my dreams were so intense. Despite my discomfort, I didn’t do the sensible thing and move to my bed (or at least lay lengthwise on the couch instead of on the recliner), but instead remained tossing and turning and contorting myself into shapes only visible in four or more (spatial) dimensions until the last ninety minutes. Regardless, I had a doctor’s appointment this morning, and as it was in-person (and an hour’s drive) I missed Professional Responsibility and the Student Org Fair. It was a lovely drive regardless, and the weather’s been quite pleasant recently.
My shrink was pleased with the progress I’ve been making on my new med, although it was determined that splitting my 100 mg dose into 50 mg in the morning and 50 mg before bed would probably help mitigate the side effects I described, particularly the issues with stumbling over my words during the day and insomnia at night.
I ended up taking my sweet time getting back to Philly, seeing as how I had a few hours between the end of my appointment and the start of Evidence (we had a make-up class because of the holiday yesterday). I stopped at Wawa for gas and got a tropical punch sports drink and a pack of gum, also tropical fruit flavored. I haven’t eaten much today. I had some leftover pasta for breakfast, and a single-serving bag of Doritos a friend gave me the other day (which I had in my backpack of holding) as a snack.
Maybe I’ll go to the pizza place down the street from my apartment and get a slice; that would be nice.
Today in Evidence, the eleven of us who bothered showing up continued our discussion of Rule 403 and talked about People v. Collins, 438 P.2d 33 (Cal. 1968). This case filled me with joy, given that I wanted to be an actuary and many of my mental hobbies are exercises in probability (i.e., tabletop gaming).
Collins is what happens when a prosecutor tries to use smoke and mirrors to bluff his way to a conviction. The place is LA, the time is a late morning in mid-June 1964. An old woman is walking home from the grocery store when a short woman with a dark blonde ponytail pushes her to the ground and snatches her purse. She runs to a yellow getaway car being driven by a black gentleman with a beard, and they speed away, witnessed by a gentleman watering his front lawn. From this description, the cops track down and arrest the defendants. However, the only evidence tying them specifically to the crime is circumstantial.
So then the prosecutor wheeled out an egghead to abuse the Product Rule and come up with a 1-in-12 million chance of a couple with characteristics like the defendants existing, and since a couple with those characteristics committed the robbery, the defendants almost certainly robbed the old woman. The defense objected, but the trial judge was drawn in by this chicanery. In the prosecution’s closing statements, the prosecutor derided the concept of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and argued that it was better to lock up the guilty than let them go free, even if it meant the innocent would be swept up.
If you can’t tell, the prosecutor here was wrong, actually. Shocking, I know. Unheard of. It’s just after 6 PM as I write this, and I’m gonna grab some dinner.
I am at Savas. I got a slice of pizza (which, considering the venue, is the size of either two large slices anywhere else or a small personal pizza) and a bottle of orange soda, and I plugged in my laptop to type the rest of it out.
As you can probably notice, the prosecution’s case had several issues, the least of which was that the figures the egghead was given came from the ironclad methodology of vibes. If it’s good enough for the median voter, it’s good enough for the jury. Once those nonsensical likelihoods were assigned to the alleged perpetrators’ characteristics, each characteristic was assumed to be statistically independent. Then, once that 1/12M chance of a pair meeting that description was obtained, it was asserted that the defendants not only fit those characteristics (a muddy assertion) but that the alleged improbability of a couple meeting those characteristics existing was proof enough to incarcerate them. But that conclusion does not follow. Ultimately, it was determined that “trial by math” was a miscarriage of justice and the husband’s conviction was overturned.
(The wife tried escaping from prison and was rearrested)
As I write this, it is seven minutes after 7. Very auspicious. I’ve been thinking about the advice I give others. I can’t recall if I’ve mentioned this, but there’s a certain purity in anger. Sometimes feeling angry is correct. I’ve told people time and time again that there’s no shame in anger, that it can be a wellspring of strength. I do not take my own advice.
I want to; don’t get me wrong. There have been plenty of times recently that I’ve rationally wanted to get angry, and I knew that was the feeling I ought to be experiencing. And yet I can’t bring myself to be angry. I think it’s my new meds. Certain emotions have been blunted; they no longer cut my soul as they once did. Or maybe my heart’s been hardened. I forget if I used the term “chemical serenity” here; it would be a good name for a band or a future entry. I’m reminded of a quote from a book that I made my whole personality as a teenager: “In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are.” (Huxley, 1932) At the same time, like Huxley’s soma to the Savage, there’s a difference between being mellow and actually being happy. I still feel that as intensely as before, which is definitely nice (I’d rather feel good than wallow in despair and self-loathing), but the difference between it and the serenity I feel most of the time is like noon and the sunset. And yet I can only muster intellectual recognition that this should bother me more than it does.
I still wouldn’t trade it for a return to the pit, though.
The music in Savas tonight is half car commercial background music and half a sequence of hip-hop and R&B artists, 90% of whom have been cancelled in some way. Accordingly, I made my way to the Mango Mango across from Anova. As I write this, I’m currently waiting for some mango crepe cake. While I was walking, I remembered how I almost got run over by an ambulance of all things. It didn’t have its sirens on or anything; it was just speeding like most people do (despite that road being in a school zone) because when there are no cops around, anything is legal. (That is not legal advice, and I am not a lawyer). If I got run over, at least it would have been convenient.
The music in here is less of a car commercial and more of a middle school dance, which is still preferable. Sometimes you just wanna chud out to Mr. Worldwide, and that’s okay. Today’s been a very yellow day, partly by design and partly by chance. I’m having a honeycomb latte, and then I think I should head back to Anova for the night.
Sierpinski Tetrahedron 