Justice for all who can afford it September 25, 2007

I’ve got about two atoms of trust left in the political process, but I was trying to maintain some kind of hope in the legal system. Yesterday didn’t do that trust any good.

I’m training to be a guardian ad litem, and I was in court completing my required four hours of court observation before my swearing in. The first matter proceeded smoothly enough. But in the second case, the attorney for the mother screwed up. Badly. He stood up in court and made some kind of argument that left everyone in the courtroom scratching their heads. It had no apparent bearing on the case.

 Turns out that everyone was so confused because the argument truly didn’t have any bearing on the case. He was talking about someone else. The court-appointed lawyer didn’t know anything worth knowing about the woman that he was supposed to be representing.

 Later on in the day, another court-appointed lawyer showed up 45 minutes late to an adjudication. She hadn’t contacted her client in over 60 days, and she didn’t recognize him when she walked into the courtroom. To her credit, she did seem to know something about him and his case once she got going, but she got off to a rough start.

 In theory, our legal system sounds like it should work pretty well. Put both sides of the story in one place with equal representation, and the truth is most likely to emerge. But in reality, the system founders badly when qualified representation is frequently only available to those who can afford to hire it. I have no doubt that somewhere there are court-appointed lawyers that care and work hard to represent their clients as well as they possibly can. But too many people get a lawyer who is only working for the court because (s)he can’t get a job anywhere else.

Justice isn’t for sale here as overtly as it is in other countries. But it’s for sale nonetheless.

Salad anyone? September 3, 2007

It’s time to start planting fall and winter veggies!

Well, actually, the time to do that was about three weeks ago. Sigh. But three weeks ago, I was hanging out in the Yucatan, and winter veggies were the farthest thing from my mind. So now I’ve just gotta work with what time I have left.

I’ve gotten all stoked up about this thing called Square Foot Gardening. If it works even half as well as it’s supposed to, I ought to be practically drowning in produce. I hope it does work. It’ll be an awful lot nicer to grow plants in maintenance-free compost than trying to fix the clay that passes for dirt around here. I was shuddering at the prospect of having to rent a rototiller for all 60 square feet of yard that I’ve got and then still have to buy all the compost and peat moss and who know what else to make this clay habitable for veggies and flowers. Here’s hoping….

You can see my garden layout here. I’m terribly excited about it.

In other happy news, the pepper plants and the tomatoes have come back from virtual death and are chugging along towards another crop before frost. They almost didn’t survive my absence. Not only was I not here to talk nicely to them, but the neighbor kid that I was going to pay to water them just never showed up. And there was record heat and no rain the whole two weeks that we were gone. Darn kid. Thankfully, my next-door neighbor watered them just enough to keep them alive, and they’ve fully recovered. It’s nice to see them sitting contentedly out there on the patio, all bushy and happy.

My in-the-ground plants are doing well too. I hacked a small corner garden out of what seemed to be solid rock, filled it with real garden soil, and planted a hibiscus plant and a few annuals that I rescued off the “dead and dying” rack at Lowe’s. The hibiscus plant is growing like crazy, and the annuals are almost ready to flower again. My dad seeded the lawn for me too, and after only one week, there are several healthy looking clumps of grass poking up. (Thanks, Dad!!! ) The grass should be in full display in another two weeks or so. At least the yard doesn’t look like an abandoned lot any more.

I never thought I would enjoy gardening. When my family was here a week ago, my mom reminded me of the many times that I vowed I would never EVER voluntarily put anything in the ground. But I really like it now. Maybe because it’s more manageable. All the veggies are in pots right now, so there’s no weeding, and the lawn just needs a good watering as often as the water restrictions allow. I find it all very pleasant. The raised beds for the winter and for next year will be a major step up from my pots, but I don’t think it’ll be enough to make me hate it again. And it is awfully nice to have fresh veggies right from my own garden. They’re more convenient than a trip to the store, and they taste so much better!