Keith B. Darrell's Blog, page 51

Jury Duty

I'm back from jury duty. What a surreal experience! I woke up at 3:30a.m. to catch the 5:51 train, which arrived an hour late. It dropped me off at 7:25 and I walked from the train station to the courthouse, arriving on time at 8a.m. The irony is there is a courthouse next to the train station near my home, but because I live across the county line, I was summoned for jury duty in my county's main courthouse, far, far to the north.

Every since I saw the classic movie "12 Angry Men", I've...

Wanted: Dead or Alive!

The Internet is an amazing place. Today, my name showed upon one of those "Dead or Alive" Web sites. You know the sort –  the type of site you go to when you hear oneof the Monkees died but you don't know which one, or after you've watched anold movie on late-night cable and you think "I wonder if she's stillalive."
My first thought was, "Wow, someone actually cares ifI'm alive!" which preceded, "Wow, someone noticed I was alive in thefirst place." So, I clicked on the site out of curiosity...

Is Your Facebook Party Photo on a Billboard?

Severalyears ago, in my book Issues In Internet Law,  I wrote about Alison Chang, a 15-year-old Asian-American girl whohad her photo snapped by Justin Wong, a church youth counselor, as Alisonhelped out at a church-sponsored car wash in Dallas, Texas. Wong posted thephoto to his Flickr account. Brenton Cleeland, who lives across the world inAustralia, was walking down a street in Adelaide when he saw Wong's photo ofAlison blown up on a billboard at a bus stop  (click for image) witha small...

Faster Than A Speeding Bullet -- NOT!

"Looks like you were wrong about that Trayvon Martin kid," Mr. 60s said to me at Starbucks today. "Heard on TV he attacked Zimmerman and broke his nose. Snuck up behind him and punched him in the face. Zimmerman had to shoot the kid in self-defense."

What Mr. 60s had heard was a police leak of George Zimmerman's statement. I suppose it's easier to accept the killer's version of events when the only other witness lies dead at his hands. Dead men tell no tales, as the saying goes. I'd be...

Incident in a Small Town

Wendy Dorival is the Sanford, Florida police department's volunteer coordinator. Last August, she spoke at the Retreat at Twin Lakes, the gated community where George Zimmerman shot and killed  Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman had asked her to speak about setting up a Neighborhood Watch group.

In her PowerPoint presentation, Dorival told the audience, the Neighborhood Watch's role is just that - to watch and report to police. The volunteers' role, she said, is "being the eyes and ears" for the...

Will Geraldo Shoot Me If I Wear My Hoodie?

Gerald Michael Rivera, a Jewish kid from Brooklyn, the sonof a cab driver and waitress Lillian Friedman, who changed his name to Geraldoand "went ethnic" to create a TV persona that included the infamous Al Caponevault exposé (a live hour of television devoted to discovering Capone's muchhyped secret vault contained nothing more than an empty beer bottle), admitted his comments on Trayvon Martin were "politically incorrect". No, Gerry Rivers,there were just plain old stupid.

The once...

Blind Justice

I don't like the idea of a special category of "hatecrimes". To me, a crime is a crime; murder is murder. The victim is still dead.Is the shooter of Trayvon Martin guilty of a hate crime? That's irrelevant. An innocent boy walking down the street was stalked and shot to death. All thatshould matter is whether it can be proved the shooting was premeditated, orcommitted with intent to kill the victim.

There is strong evidence of premeditation when a self-styledvigilante prowls the streets armed...

Guilty of Walking While Black

Trayvon Martin had accompanied his father to visit hisfather's fiancé who lived in a gated community in Sanford, Florida. The NBAAll-Star basketball game was about to start and he walked to a nearbyconvenience store, where he purchased an iced tea and a package of Skittlescandy. The 17-year-old headed back. He whipped out his cell phone to chat withhis girlfriend, as he had several times that day, as teenagers in love often do.He placed his phone in his pocket and spoke through a headpiece...

Ripping Off the Fig Leaf

Several sources, including the Electronic FreedomFoundation, are crowing about PayPal backing away from its announced censorshippolicy. The EFF has gone so far as to proclaim: "PayPal has announced a newspeech-friendly policy for online book sales, reversing plans to shut offpayment processing to publishers of certain forms of erotic literature." Not so fast.

True, PayPal Communications Director Anuj Nayar's latest public statement hasaddressed several of the concerns I pointed out in this...

The Past As Prologue

I've devoted a fair amount of blog real estate this week tothe PayPal censorship issue, even though it does not directly target my work. Ihave never written about incest or bestiality, two of the three topics bannedby PayPal, and have seldom included the subject of rape in my oeuvre. But anyattempt to limit free expression concerns me, because once it is established,the boundaries can change. Today, the forbidden topics may be bestiality,incest, and rape. Tomorrow, they may add contraception ...