Justice Delayed by Snow

So first off, the winner of the 3Cs contest is Vishal Khanna for the resurrect dead lover cliché. Maybe it’s just the sort of books I read and everything, but I see it a lot. In one case, it was actually just implied and totally irrelevant to the plot. Plus the mention of other patients reminds me of Parasite Eve. And now I have to add re-animator to my Netflix queue. Anyway, congratulations. You can send me your first twenty pages any time you’re ready. My email is off to the side there somewhere and is on my profile page. For everyone else, worry not. I do this every month, so there will be more opportunities.

Boy, we’re off to a good start here, huh? Monday morning. Stories about playing god to bring back the dead. And have you guys been following the earthquake and subsequent tsunami, after shocks and nuclear scares in Japan? Where’s Go Jira when you need him? Here’s a cliché for you: Godzilla’s just walking down the street when out of the bushes pops a leaking nuclear reactor. So Godzilla takes off his helmet and uses it to cover the plant, saving us all at the cost of his own life. But he’ll probably just fall back into the ocean and come back in a subsequent adventure anyway. In all seriousness though, it’s a sucky situation. Really sucky. And a little bit freaky for me. I used to work in Japan. Admittedly pretty far from where this happened, but still. And towns I visited when I studied in China have been wrecked in quakes too. Suffice to say, I’m surprised how poorly Earthquakes are doing in that poll. Maybe all my readers are in California or something. Gotta say though, Earthquakes scare the shit outta me. And with the possibility of nuclear meltdown resulting from aftershocks, I don’t know how anyone could not be terrified.

Well, I know a story that’ll cheer us all up. My brother is a corporate lawyer but his favorite stuff is the pro-bono criminal work. He’s got this one client who’s been in jail for over thirty years for selling pot. Without going into a lot of detail, despite him being a model inmate, and despite the fact that long ago maximum sentences were imposed in drug charges that meant that were he convicted today he’d have been out anywhere from 7-15 years ago, the parole board has consistently turned him down based on letters (contrary to the actual evidence) written by the police union. My brother’s big accomplishment was to point out to a court that the parole board shouldn’t be relying on those letters to inform their decision. He won that case, so the parole board was ordered to re-hear the case. That was months ago. They were “delayed” by snow in the city. For the last three months, apparently. The guy’s next hearing is coming up next month anyway. Apparently the parole board has been absolutely intent on NOT DOING A GODDAMN THING while they draw VERY LARGE SALARIES paid by MY TAXES while keeping HARMLESS OLD MEN in prison (also paid by my taxes). It’s a dark world we live in if JUSTICE can be put on hold because of a little bit of frozen water.

Oh wait. I guess that wasn’t uplifting at all. Well. Um. Hmmm. Okay. I think I got it. Here’s something happy: I recently found out that every band ever has recorded their own version of Dick Dale’s Miserlou. Thank you Pandora for your tireless assistance in my research.